"But we are discouraged from siring children, who would certainly inherit powers as I inherited yours."

"You were born with for more than I could give you. One of the chosen few with almost unlimited power. Your equal hasn't been seen in a thousand years."

Unimpressed by the tribute, Merlin said, "And could such a wizard as I have been born to powerless people?"

"I don't know. Probably not."

Merlin shook his head. "Then don't you see how rare and valuable someone like Serena is-male or female? She was born to powerless parents. An 'accidental' addition to our race. The only way we're to generate, it seems. Why is that, Dad? Why must we survive as a species only by chance?"

Again the older man stirred in his chair. "I can only tell you what you already know. Enough wizards are born by chance to ensure our survival as a race without the risks we run in producing our own offspring. According to the most ancient of our writings, our ancestors believed that sons bred dangerous ambition."

"What about daughters?"

"There's no mention of daughters in the writings, except to note that wizards must never sire them."

… must never sire them…

Given their genetic material, which was identical in all meaningful respects to that of powerless men, wizards were as likely as any other group of randomly selected men to sire female offspring as well as males, Merlin knew. Daughters must have been born somewhere along the way, and the offspring of a wizard was always born with some degree of power.

Staring at his father, Merlin had a sudden chilly intuition that any female child sired by a wizard, no matter how healthy, had not survived long. For the first time in his life, he felt a pang of aversion for what he was.

Slowly he said, "So sons are feared because they breed ambition, and daughters are never to be born at all-or at least never to long survive their birth. I'm somewhat surprised I was allowed to survive."

His father stiffened. "What are you accusing me of, Richard? There was never any question of abortion or infanticide, if that's what you're thinking. We may be discouraged from having sex with any woman who isn't unquestionably barren, and we're certainly discouraged from marrying, but when it does happen that a son results from such a union, we're civilized about it."

"Civilized," Merlin said. "How nice."

"Your sarcasm is uncalled for. The point is that I wasn't searching for a wife when I met your mother. You know that. But there's an exception to every rule. She was… a remarkable woman."

"A woman who knew what you were."

"Yes, but she was powerless. I would never have given in to my feelings if she had been anything else. The very idea is unthinkable. Richard, sit down."

After a moment Merlin sat down across from his father in a matching chair, and sighed. "Maybe Serena's an exception. Have you considered that possibility? She has so much power, Dad, so much potential."

"Can you read her thoughts?"

Merlin shook his head. He wasn't about to confess that Serena had an absolutely unprecedented ability to slip into his consciousness; that had shocked him to his bones, and he had no doubt it would horrify his father.

"Is that why you accepted her when she came to you? Because you couldn't read her thoughts?"

"That, and the power I could feel in her. It honestly didn't occur to me that I was doing anything seriously wrong. I barely remembered the law."

"Until she got older?"

Merlin sat forward, his elbows on his knees, and stared at his father. "Yes. Until she got older. What does it mean? As a child Serena was no threat; as a woman she is. Yes, she makes me feel uneasy, wary sometimes-but why? She would never harm anyone. Least of all me."

After a moment the judge shook his head. "I don't know why. Why the law exists, what prompted it, or why we feel it so deeply. Our writings are ancient, but I've never found any reference to the creation of the law. All I know is that there must be no female wizards. And that we must never trust any woman."

"You trusted Mother," Merlin said.

The judge looked at his son, and there was an old, old pain in his eyes. "No. I didn't."

Merlin was only dimly aware that he had risen to his feet. "She lived with you for twenty years," he said slowly. "Bore you a son. And she kept your secret. How could you not trust her?"

"She asked me the same thing. Over and over again she asked me. I never could give her an answer." The judge hesitated, then went on softly. "She asked me that night, and when I had no answer for her, she rushed out of here in tears. An hour later her car crashed into a wall."

"Are you telling me-"

"I'm telling you that… accident… shouldn't have happened. That's all I'm saying. That's all I can ever know."

Merlin turned away from his father to stare into the bright heat of the fire. Suicide? Dear God, had his mother killed herself? Clearly his father believed it, or at least believed it was possible. Was that the price she had paid for loving a wizard?

"Richard, you can't blame me for being what I am. Any more than I can blame myself."

"Why couldn't you trust her?" he demanded harshly, not looking at his father because he didn't know if he could.

"It's not in me to trust a woman, just like it isn't in you."

"I don't believe that."

"You'd better. For your own sanity if nothing else, you'd better. You feel it's true even if you don't think it is, and that kind of conflict will tear you apart. Go back to Seattle, Richard, and take her powers away as gently as you can. And then send her out of your life before both of you are destroyed by this."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. You have to. Because you don't have a choice."

Serena was not, by nature, a patient woman. So it was very difficult for her to hang on to what little tolerance she had when Merlin returned on Friday afternoon and shut himself in his study. Since she was at work when he got home, she didn't even see him.

"He said he's not to be disturbed. For any reason," Rachel informed Serena when she came home.

"He has to eat," Serena objected.

"That's your problem, at least until Monday," Rachel said, a gleam of amusement in her eyes as she put on her coat and picked up her umbrella. "Dinner's in the oven, but I've a feeling you'll be eating alone tonight."

To Serena's frustration, the housekeeper was correct. Merlin's study was barred to her-just as it had been once before. The door was unlocked, she knew that, but he wasn't going to allow anybody to cross the threshold until he was ready.

That weekend turned out to be the longest one of Serena's life. Reluctant to leave the house until she found out what had happened at the meeting of the Council-a group about which she was intensely curious simply because Merlin had told her very little about them-she occupied herself as best she could with her studies.

On Saturday afternoon she canceled a planned shopping trip with Jane. By Saturday night she found herself sitting on the stairs gazing at that dosed door with what she didn't realize was so much intensity that she actually started in surprise when she felt the barrier vanish.

Hesitantly she crossed the foyer and knocked softly on the door.

"Serena." The acknowledgment was unmuffled by the thick oak of the door.

She opened the door and went into the study. Lighting kept the room from being too dark, but the study was still overpowering, filled with the ancient writings of a mighty race. The tall shelves, normally bursting with age-darkened heavy volumes written in odd scripts and ancient scrolls dust-dry and fragile, now showed gaps among the old books. Volumes were stacked, open and closed, on the floor, piled on the desk, and overflowed two chairs.