Guerrand went to his favorite table, a cool, circular piece of green-veined marble supported at equidistant points by three white marble statues of lions. Tucking his long legs beneath the table, Guerrand bumped his knee against the maned head of one of the leonine figures.

"Watch out," he admonished Esme with a mischievous smile as she sat down opposite him. "The lions bite." He rubbed his knee for effect.

"It's good to see you smiling," the lovely young woman said kindly. "I believe that's one of the first smiles I've seen in the months since you arrived."

"I guess I'm out of practice," Guerrand said distantly, staring at the stream of water spewing from the mouth of a pale cherub fountain in the fishpond. "There wasn't much laughter in the castle where I grew up, at least not in the last ten years or so."

"A castle? That doesn't sound like such a bad place to grow up."

Her tone made him aware of how he'd sounded, and he was ashamed. "I never meant to imply… What I mean is, it was a comfortable enough place, just not very happy. No one in it was very happy." Especially now, after I backed out of Cormac's plans.

"You, neither?"

"Me, especially."

"And you're happier here?"

Guerrand's gaze penetrated Esme's golden eyes. "I can honestly say that I've never been happier in my life. I'm thrilled with my tiny cell of a room. I love hunkering over thick, dusty tomes in the library, and I delight in arguing with the bizarre ascetics who run it." He paused, reflecting. "But I'm happiest when I'm bent over the same ceramic tiles I've counted for days and I begin to understand why I'm doing it."

She smiled her agreement. "It's a marvelous feeling, succeeding at something everyone always told you you'd never be able to do."

Guerrand sat back, startled. "Did Justarius tell you that?"

Esme looked equally puzzled. "Why would I need Justarius to tell me my own life?"

"I don't understand-"

Esme frowned and began nibbling a nail. "What's to understand? Like most men, my father's ambitions for me began with marriage and ended with babies. Becoming a mage was a worthy enough goal, but only for his sons."

"So did they?"

"Become mages? No…" Esme looked as if she were about to explain, then thought better of it and shook her head. "No, they didn't."

Guerrand took a bite of cheese. "At least your father didn't believe that mages should be wiped from the face of the land."

Esme gave an unladylike snort. "My life might have been easier if he had." Looking at him, she asked, "I presume from your tone that your father didn't approve of mages?"

"No, it's my elder brother who thinks mages are the lowest form of life." He sank his teeth into a fuzzy apricot and swallowed a bite before continuing. "As for my father, I suspect from his library that he had more than a passing interest in magic. But it doesn't really matter now. He's been dead for ten years."

Esme's fine eyebrows raised. "About the time people stopped smiling in your castle."

Guerrand smirked with dark humor. "Kirah and I spent a fair amount of time laughing behind the backs of Cormac and his nasty wife. Does that count as smiling?"

"Kirah?" A strange look came across Esme's face. "It depends on who she is. If she's a pet, then no. However, if she's a sweetheart, or a wife perhaps?"

Guerrand threw back his dark head and laughed out loud. "A wife?" He snickered. "It's hard to imagine Kirah ever being a wife, which is a pronouncement she'd be happy to hear. Pet would come a lot closer to describing her…"

Esme's gaze was stony.

"She's my kid sister," Guerrand chortled at last, ducking from the square of cheese she threw at him for teasing her. "You'd like her, I'm certain. In an odd sort of way, you remind me of her. You're both blond. She's willful, independent, impulsive, and despises it when someone underestimates her because she's a girl. She's a scrappy little thing who looks more ragamuffin than ladylike-or even human-most of the time."

"Are you implying I don't look like a lady?"

Esme was baiting him, and he knew it. The look he gave her was so deadly serious she couldn't look away. He said the first thing that came to mind. "I think you're the most beautiful lady I've ever seen in my life." Abruptly he wished he could bite off his tongue.

When at last Esme was able to tear her gaze away, her cheeks were flushed. She tried to think of something witty, something kind to say in return, but her thoughts refused to settle. "I think I would like your sister Kirah quite a lot, Rand," she managed at last.

Just then, Justarius's disconcerting manservant approached them from the kitchens. Even after several months, Guerrand could scarcely suppress a shudder at the sight of the hideous owlbear. The name was appropriate enough for the nearly eight-foot-tall creature that looked like a cross between a giant owl and a bear. Denbigh had a thick coat of ocher-colored feathers and fur. The eyes above his sharp, ivory beak were red-rimmed and heavy-lidded. Around his neck hung a string of shrunken skulls separated by threaded fangs.

Denbigh reached a sharp claw toward Esme. She calmly took the tankard the manservant offered her. "Thank you, Denbigh. How did you know I needed a drink?"

"Denbigh not," snarled the owlbear in a voice that sounded like a nail on ice. "Orders."

"Well, thank you just the same," Esme said, unfazed. She leaned back in her chair and sipped her drink.

Seeing the claw reach for his own tankard on the table, Guerrand quickly put his hand over the top. "Don't worry, Denbigh. I have enough."

"Denbigh not worry," he snapped. The owlbear shuffled away, looking horribly out of place in the perfectly manicured garden. Guerrand shuddered again, watching him depart for the kitchens.

"You still don't feel comfortable around Denbigh, do you?"

"No, I must confess I don't. The servants I'm accustomed to don't have fur or snap at you."

Esme shrugged. "Considering that owlbears aren't known for their courteous natures, Denbigh does pretty well, I think."

"What kind of name is that for an owlbear, anyway?"

"It's the name given to every manservant who's ever worked here. I suspect Denbigh's owlbear name would be pretty unpronounceable to us anyway."

Guerrand frowned. "Why doesn't Justarius hire something, well, a little more human-looking?"

"Three reasons, I think. Believe it or not, Denbigh runs the villa quite efficiently If he were more pleasant to look at, all of the other mages would try to buy him away I think you can guess the third reason, after doing the tile exercise. Justarius doesn't judge something's worth by the outer package; he visualizes the inner owlbear."

"Frankly, I can't see that the inside of an owlbear looks any better than the outside," said Guerrand with a playful grin, "but I know what you mean."

"Speaking of judging the inside of a person," said Esme, artlessly twirling her tankard between her hands, "how well do you know Lyim Rhistadt?"

"Lyim?" Guerrand repeated stupidly, startled by the abrupt change in subject. "Not well. Well enough. Why?"

"I was just wondering," she said. "You two seem to spend a fair amount of your free time together, yet you seem so different."

"I'll grant you we're opposites," he said, leaning back to ponder. "At first our friendship was based on convenience; we were two apprentices headed for Palanthas. But I've come to admire Lyim. He has a great deal of natural talent. And he seems to draw excitement to him, like a moth to a flame."

Esme nodded her agreement. "I'll admit he's intriguing. Lyim has an air of reckless danger about him."

Did he detect more than a casual interest in her voice? Guerrand felt his chest tighten. What difference does it make if Esme is interested in Lyim, he scolded himself. I've got but one thing to do here in Palanthas, and that's learn magic. I can't allow myself to be distracted.