“Thank you.”

“And you will indeed pay me my full consultation rate this afternoon.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t want you thinking you can get a discount just because you’re my brother, or because you’re the famous Gresh the Supplier.”

“Of course not.”

“Good.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’ll be back this afternoon. If I have a chance, I might talk to a few people about this Karanissa.”

“Thank you,” Gresh replied. He and Twilfa watched silently as Tira straightened her shawl and marched out the back door. Except for Dina, his sisters almost always used the back door, at his request. He didn’t want anyone wondering why all these non-wizards were coming to his shop.

And they did come fairly often. His sisters were his most important trade secret. Oh, he had plenty of other sources and contacts, a network of agents scattered across the western half of the World, but his family was at the heart of his unique ability to acquire the things his customers sought. He had based his entire business on sisterly affection and sibling rivalry-what one sister could not find, another could, and would, because to refuse would be to disappoint their only brother and miss a chance to crow.

Gresh was only eight when he first realized he could play off Dina, who was then a freshly accredited journeyman wizard, against Difa, then an apprentice warlock, to his own benefit. He had known all along that Difa had originally intended to be a wizard and had only become a warlock because the possibility was new and exciting and as a warlock she would not be once again following in her older sister’s footsteps. Still, it was not until Dina made journeyman that Gresh had discovered he could exploit this rivalry, challenging each sister to show that she could do more with her magic than the other. Warlockry was still relatively new and unfamiliar at the time, which had helped-questions of which sort of magic was better at what had not yet all been settled.

Tira was already in her third year of apprenticeship then, and she, too, had joined the competition quickly enough. Chira and Pyata and Shesta joined in their turn. No two of Keshan the Merchant’s daughters chose the same school of magic-that would have been copying-but all were determined to demonstrate that their magic was best.

Then Gresh had reached apprenticeship age himself and faced the prospect of learning his own magic. Dina had not yet been ready for master’s rank, but she could have found him a place with a wizard somewhere.

Or Difa could have found a master warlock. Tira could probably have found a witch. The others were still apprentices themselves, but…

But it didn’t matter, because Gresh had decided he didn’t want to be a magician. It would have meant choosing one sort of magic-and one of his sisters-over all the others. Whichever school of magic he chose, the sister in that school would have deemed it a victory and the others a defeat; factional lines within the family that had always been fluid would become fixed.

He might have chosen a variety of magic that none of them had studied, which would have avoided choosing sides by rejecting all of them, but even at twelve he had been able to foresee a lifetime of being told, “You chose your magic instead of mine, so I can see you won’t want my help!” Although finding a magic none of his older sisters had chosen would have worked as far as not choosing sides at first, it ignored the question of what might happen when his younger sisters began choosing their apprenticeships.

No, there were too many potential complications with any school of magic. Appealing as learning magic might have seemed, he did not want to alienate any of his sisters, or choose one over the others. He liked being able to call on all of them.

So he had apprenticed to their father, which had made both their parents happy, and he had learned the merchant’s trade, learned bookkeeping and bargaining, buying and bartering-and he had made use of all his twelve sisters in his business, older and younger, from Dina the wizard to Ekava the seamstress, and had eventually taken on Twilfa, the youngest, as his assistant. Because of the family’s competitiveness no two had pursued exactly the same occupation, even after their contacts could no longer find new varieties of magic, and he now had available for consultation representatives of eight different schools of magic, as well as a seamstress, a sailor, and a guardswoman.

That didn’t include the husbands or children his sisters had acquired over the years-nine of the twelve were married, and three of them had offspring old enough to have begun their apprenticeships. His nephews, nieces, and brothers-in-law were not as usefully diverse as his sisters, but they did add to the mix.

“So do you want to talk to Chira?” Twilfa asked, when Tira was out of sight. Chira was the family sorcerer, and Karanissa had not mentioned trying sorcery.

Gresh considered that, then nodded. “I think that’s a good place to start, and she definitely owes me one.” He had located several sorcerous items for Chira over the past few years and had been generous in pricing them. Karanissa’s omission of sorcery from her list was probably just an oversight, and Gresh did not see how any sorcery he was familiar with might help, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“I’ll fetch her,” Twilfa said, rising.

“And if you see any spriggans on the way, try to catch one,” Gresh said.

Twilfa paused. “You want to have one here for Chira to try her talismans on?”

“I want to ask one a few questions,” Gresh answered. “For all I know, we may not need any magic to find this mirror.”

Twilfa blinked. “You think it might just tell you where the mirror is?”

Gresh turned up a palm. “Why not?” he asked. “Spriggans are stupid little creatures, and they seem to want to be cooperative-why wouldn’t it tell me?”

“If it’s that easy, wouldn’t this Karanissa have already tried that? Or her husband?”

“They’re magicians, at least in theory. She’s a witch; he’s a wizard-they’re accustomed to doing things magically. It may have never occurred to them just to ask.”

Twilfa started to say something, then stopped and thought for a moment. “You could be right,” she admitted.

Gresh smiled at her. “You’re learning,” he said. “Magicians are just as fallibly human as anyone else.”

Twilfa stuck her tongue out at him and turned away.

Gresh watched her go, then leaned back and began planning.

The mirror was probably still somewhere in the Small Kingdoms-why would the spriggans have taken it anywhere else? He could accept Karanissa’s offer of transport by flying carpet, but how big a carpet was it? How much could it carry? It might be better to travel on the ground.

Although his customers were nominally buying the mirror, what they really wanted was its destruction; should he bring tools for breaking it? An ordinary mirror could be smashed readily enough, but enchanted items had a tendency to be uncooperative in unexpected ways.

Of course, depending on just what he did to locate it, he didn’t necessarily want Tobas and Karanissa to know how he found it; if customers found out how simple some of his methods actually were it could hurt his business.

He needed to talk to a spriggan, no question about it, to find out as much about the mirror as he could. He glanced down the passage toward the shop; naturally, no spriggans were in sight. When he was busy and had no use for the little pests they were everywhere, getting underfoot and making a mess, but now that he wanted one, there were none to be found.

Well, Twilfa might have better luck in apprehending one. Or he could stroll down Wizard Street later and listen for outbursts of profanity or the sound of falling crockery.