Mug sniffed. “Certainly,” he said. “Nothing to all those old stories. Nothing at all.”

Meralda snatched up her cloak and stamped out of the kitchen. Mug listened to her wash her face, brush her teeth, and change her clothes. Then the living room door closed softly, and Mug was all alone.

Meralda settled into her cab. The driver snapped the reins, and the carriage pulled onto Fairlane Street with the steady clop-clop of Phendelit carriage horse hooves.

Carriages and coaches hurried past, most bound for the shady lanes and quiet neighborhoods that lay to the west, beyond the college and the park. The sidewalks were crowded as well, as bakers and hat makers and shopkeepers closed their doors and shuttered their windows and turned eager faces toward home.

Meralda’s driver, a short, bald, retired army sergeant named Angis Kert, bit back a curse as a slow moving lumber wagon pulled out of the alley by Fleet’s Boots. Meralda grinned. She’d heard Angis let loose before, and was always reminded of her grandfather, who cursed at his swine with exactly the same words and tone.

“S’cuse me, milady,” said Angis from his perch above. “Bloody lumber wain like to drove us into Old Pafget’s pastry shop.”

Meralda laughed. “No apology is necessary, Sergeant,” she said. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

Angis laughed. “I must not be as loud as I once was, then,” he said. “How late you reckon you’ll be, Sorceress? Late enough for old Angis to nip into Raggot’s and have a pint and a game of checkers?”

Meralda sighed. “Have three pints and ten games,” she said. “In fact, don’t wait. I’ll catch a public cab. It’ll be midnight, or worse.”

Angis spoke to his ponies and the carriage surged suddenly ahead, passing the lumber wain.

“I’ll wait for you,” said Angis, after a moment. “You’ll not find a public cab without a fight, these days, what with half of Erya camped out in the Green Wing.”

Meralda frowned. “Eryans? Here already?”

Angis guffawed. “You got to stick your head out of that lab-ra-tory every now and then, milady,” he said. “Eryans got here yesterday, king and queen and soldiers and all.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You always are,” said Angis. “Work all day an’ work all night. It ain’t my place to say, Sorceress, but if you don’t slow down a mite you’re gonna be stooped and grey-headed before me.” Angis snapped his reins. “But I reckon I’ve said enough.”

Meralda looked at her reflection in the carriage window glass. “You’re right, Angis,” she said, leaning closer to the window. “You’re right.”

Was he?

My hair is a fright, thought Meralda. But that can be fixed. She looked into her eyes, surprised by the dark circles beneath them and the weariness within them.

Angis stopped at an intersection and bellowed at the white-gloved traffic master until he waved them through. Meralda watched as a pair of shabby gas-lighter boys darted past, magefire lighters held high and leaving persistent glowing wakes drifting down the sidewalk as they rushed to light their appointed street-lamps. Meralda shook her head. She’d proposed a simple method to automate the lighting and extinguishing of the street-lamps in her first month as Mage, but the Guilds has raised such a fuss the king had refused to even consider it.

The gas-lighters vanished around a corner, leaving Meralda’s reflection alone in the glass. Meralda turned away. No wonder the papers stopped chasing me, she thought. I don’t look eighteen anymore.

She certainly didn’t feel eighteen. Whisked off to college at thirteen, after enchanting Mug into sarcastic life. Graduating in a mere four years, when most mages take eight, if they manage it at all. A year spent as Fromarch’s apprentice, before his abrupt retirement and unwavering insistence that Meralda be named royal Thaumaturge despite her youth and gender. All that, thought Meralda, to wind up spending three-quarters of my time doing petty stage magics intended to impress a gaggle of bored foreign nobles?

Meralda’s stomach grumbled.

“Sergeant,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind. The laboratory can wait until after supper. Make for the Kettle and Hearth, please, off Wizard’s Way.”

Angis whistled. “That I’ll do, milady,” he said. “A bit of Missus Pot’s meatloaf would go down tasty, all right.”

Angis snapped his reins, and Meralda’s carriage sped westward, toward the fat towers and squat spires of the college and the darkening shadows that lay about them.

“Whoa.”

Angis brought the carriage to a smooth halt at the curb, well within the pool of steady yellow light cast by the hissing gas lamp.

“Well, at least I’ve seen you fed,” said Angis. The lights from the palace lit his face a ruddy red. “Sure you don’t want to just go on back home? It’s a bit late to be working, especially on a full belly.”

Meralda yawned, fumbled with the door latch, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Thank you, Angis,” she said. “But I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Angis turned and frowned at Meralda beneath his enormous cabman’s hat. “Aye,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll be down to Raggot’s, till midnight. Send a lad down to fetch me if you get done before that.”

Meralda nodded. “Oh, all right. Who do you fuss over on your days off?”

Angis grinned. “Not a soul, milady,” he said. “Not a soul.” Then he doffed his hat and rolled off into the night.

The sky was filled with moving lights, as late-arriving airships sailed overhead, seeking out the docks. The palace was aglow, and the streets were crowded, even well after dark. Most of the people strolling past Meralda were Tirlish sight-seers, out for a walk and perhaps a glance of the newly arrived Eryans.

Meralda smiled, bemused. At any given moment, she thought, there are probably ten thousand Eryans in Tirlin. Half the minstrels, half the fishermen, half the barge masters. All Eryan, all the time. What makes these Eryan so special that half of the North Quarter is out strolling around the palace, just hoping to get a glimpse of one?

“Look! Look there!” said a wide-eyed Tirlish lady, who stopped suddenly beside Meralda. “It’s the king! The king of Erya!”

The lady pointed, covering the wide O of her mouth with her gloved hand. Meralda stifled a laugh. The uniformed man the awestruck woman pointed out was Rogar Hebbis, coach driver to the queen of Tirlin.

Rogar nodded to Meralda, made a sweeping bow to the lady at her side, and marched into the west wing palace entrance. “He bowed to us,” said the lady, to Meralda. “The king made a bow! To me!” With a squeak, the lady fluttered away down the street, purse thumping at her side like a schoolboy’s lunch pail.

Meralda followed Rogar up the five wide steps that led up to the entry hall. The guards nodded. One scribbled Meralda’s name and the time in a ledger.

“Evening, Sorceress,” said the other. “Captain Ballen is waiting inside for you.”

Meralda stepped through the open palace doors. Parts of her frown returned. Why would the captain be waiting for me here?

Meralda padded down the long hall to the stairs at the end. The hall was deserted, but filled with the muffled sounds of pots clattering and glasses clinking and waiters shouting at cooks and cooks shouting at everyone else.

A man pushing a cart of precariously stacked Phendelit dinner plates came dashing through a door just ahead of Meralda. “S’cuse me, milady,” he said, leaping ahead of his cart and shoving the opposite door open with his right foot. “Coming through.”

Meralda brushed quickly past. Another door opened, and out stepped the captain, a fried chicken leg in one hand and a tall glass of Eryan iced tea in the other.

Meralda smiled and halted. The captain bent his long, gaunt frame in a mocking bow, brandishing his chicken leg like a baton.