Only after she’d done it did she realize she’d scooted closer to Fernao. Was that wise? It’s what I would have done before… what happened, happened, she told herself. Whether that answered her question was a question in and of itself.

“Thank you, Mistress Pekka,” Piilis said. “I ran into one of the crystallomancers on my way over here, so I’ve got some news.”

“Well, tell us,” Pekka said. “If it weren’t for the crystallomancers, we wouldn’t know any of what was going on till it was already gone. It’s not as if they send us news sheets every day.”

“The miserable Gongs tried something new when we landed on that Bothnian island called Becsehely.” Piilis pronounced the foreign name with care. “They were going to trot out the murderous magic the Algarvians use, but we overran them so fast, they didn’t have the chance to kill many of their own soldiers, so the magic wasn’t so big or so strong as it might have been, and Becsehely’s ours.”

“Ha!” Fernao said, and then, “Ha!” again. Piilis looked confused. He looked even more confused when Fernao wagged a finger at Alkio and declared, “I told you so.”

“Well, so you did.” Alkio clicked his tongue between his teeth. “The Gyongyosians are using this sorcery, too? That is not good at all.”

“And killing their own soldiers to power it?” Pekka added. “That may be even worse than what the Algarvians and Unkerlanters do.”

“Not to hear the Gongs talk about it,” Piilis said. “By the reports we’re getting from the captives we’ve taken, they won’t slaughter anyone who didn’t volunteer ahead of time-and a lot of men did. They think it’s an honor to let themselves get killed for their kingdom. It makes the stars shine on them, or some such nonsense.”

With profound unoriginality, Pekka said, “Gyongyosians are very strange people.”

“They think the same of us,” Fernao said, using classical Kaunian again. “All the other strong kingdoms share-more or less, and sometimes at several removes-the culture that springs from the Kaunian Empire. But the Gyongyosians have their own. When we bumped up against them a hundred and fifty years ago, they borrowed-”

“Stole,” Alkio put in.

Fernao nodded, accepting the correction. “They stole some of our fancy magecraft, nailed it onto everything else they already had, and they went right on to make nuisances of themselves.”

“More than nuisances,” Alkio said, and all the other Kuusamans at the table spoke up to agree with him. He went on, “We’ve been squabbling with them over the islands in the Bothnian Ocean ever since. They want everything they can get their hands on, and a little more, besides.”

“And what do they say about Kuusamans?” Fernao asked innocently.

“Who cares what Gongs say?” Alkio answered, proving he’d missed the point.

Pekka hadn’t, but she had other things to worry about. “The next time we try to take an island the Gyongyosians hold, we may not be so lucky as we were at this Besce-whatever place,” she said. “ Prince Juhainen was right-all the more reason for us to get our own spells to the point where practical mages can use them.”

All the more reason for us to get our own spells to the point when Leino can use them. Pekka wondered if her husband, wherever he was, was looking at other women, or even doing more than looking at them. Before she’d made love with Fernao, the idea would have horrified and infuriated her. It still horrified her, but in a way she almost hoped he was. Then, at least, they would both feel guilty when they finally got back together.

“Raahe and Alkio and I were talking about that before you got here,” Fernao said.

He didn’t sound as if he had any second thoughts about bedding her. Why should he? Pekka thought. It’s not as if he betrayed his wife… At least, I don’t think it is. She suddenly realized just how much she didn’t know about the Lagoan mage’s past and background. What kind of fool was I, to go to bed with him? One corner of her mouth quirked upward. The answer to that was only too plain: a hot fool, a lickerish fool.

Again, she made herself think about what she had to do, not about what she’d already done. “What in particular were you talking about?” she asked.

“Ways to simplify the spell while keeping the energy level high,” Fernao replied. “Raahe has some good ideas, I think.”

Piilis said, “I’ve been doing some calculations of my own along those lines.” He took folded papers from his belt pouch and spread them out on the table-this just as Linna came out of the kitchen with his breakfast.

The serving girl gave him a severe look. “If you don’t eat, sorcerous sir, you won’t be strong enough to follow whatever it is you’ve written down there.”

“Sorry.” Piilis cleared some room in front of him. Linna set down his smoked salmon and eggs and went off. He promptly leaned over the plate of food so he could explain his line of thought. The other theoretical sorcerers leaned forward, too. The only heed Piilis gave the salmon and eggs was to keep from putting his elbow in the plate.

As Pekka and Fernao leaned toward his papers, their knees and thighs brushed under the table. Pekka was acutely aware of it. If Fernao was, he gave no sign. He didn’t press himself against her to remind her of what they’d done. She nodded to herself. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know.

“Let me have a look at those,” Raahe said, and turned Piilis’ calculations so that she could read them-which meant they were upside down for Pekka. But when Pekka sighed and started to ease back in her seat, she brushed up against Fernao again. That kept her leaning forward. Then Raahe turned the leaves of paper back around once more, remarking, “That’s not the approach I was taking, but you could be on to the same thing.”

“No.” Fernao sounded regretful, but very sure. He sounded so sure, in fact, that all four Kuusaman mages around the table bristled at him. But then he reached out and tapped a line about halfway down the second leaf of paper. “This whole expansion sequence is forbidden in this context. Mistress Raahe ’s approach will work. This…” He shrugged. “Following it will be like following a will-o’-the-wisp: you will never end up anywhere worth going, but only in the middle of a swamp.”

Pekka took a longer look at the calculations. “You… may be right,” she said.

“So you’ll believe Fernao even when he leads you into a swamp, eh?” The voice from behind her made her start and whirl. There stood Ilmarinen, looking down on her with a sardonic grin. He shook his head. “How very strange. You wouldn’t have said that even a little while ago.”

Before you went to bed with him, was what he meant. Pekka glared. “See for yourself,” she snapped.

“I was trying to.” Ilmarinen didn’t bother with his spectacles, but read at long range. After perhaps half a minute, he let out a soft grunt. “Sorry, Piilis. I don’t think the Lagoan’s the least bit cute, but he’s right. You can’t expand it that way.”

For the life of her, Pekka didn’t know whether to thank him or to brain him with a teapot. By the look on Fernao’s face, he was even closer to swinging the teapot than she was.

“My, my,” Colonel Sabrino murmured as his wing came spiraling down to land at the new dragon farm in southern Unkerlant to which they’d been ordered. “Isn’t that fascinating?” He’d let the wind blow his words away, but now he activated his crystal and repeated himself for Captain Orosio: “Isn’t that simply fascinating?”

“That’s one word, Colonel,” the squadron commander answered. “Maybe not the one I would’ve used, but one word. Who would’ve thought we’d end up flying alongside Yaninans again?”

They’d been together a long time. Sabrino nodded. “We haven’t for a while now,” he said. “Not since we were down in the land of the Ice People.”

“I almost forgot the Yaninans were still in the war.” Orosio’s lip curled scornfully, as any Algarvian’s might have done while he contemplated his kingdom’s allies. His chuckle held scant mirth. “And don’t you just bet all the cursed Yaninans wish they could forget they were still in the war, too?”