She halted in her pacing, facing Mug and looking past him and the mirror into the ranks and rows of magics stored and twinkling in the shadows. Was each glittering trinket perhaps the life’s work of a mage?

Mage. I wonder, she thought. Has the title lost all meaning? Since Tim’s time, how many names had risen above the rest, to be remembered forever as mighty wielders of magic?

None, thought Meralda. None, and neither shall my name be remembered, unless it is as a footnote on first year midterms. She could almost see the question written, almost see the frowns it raised. Who was the first woman to wear the robe? And some would know and scribble “Meralda Ovis” and some would shrug and guess and that would be the end of it, the end of her, the end of Mage Meralda.

She thought back to college, remembered how many of those somber young faces were bound for the guilds, and happy to be so. “Forget that court nonsense,” she’d heard one of them snicker at her back during commencement. “Let her have mage. I’ll take a Master’s robe from a guild, any day, and be glad of it, too.”

Meralda looked away from the ranks of cabinets.

“Now just you wait a moment, Miss Ovis,” said Mug. “I see those big moon-eyes getting all misty because you didn’t conjure up the Tears and throw them at the copperheads,” he said. “It’s just like college all over again. You set impossible goals, and then act surprised when you can’t achieve them.”

Meralda sighed. “Mug,” she said.

“Don’t ‘Mug’ me,” replied Mug. “I’m right, and you know it. I’ll tell you something, mistress,” he said. “I studied history right along with you. I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve read all the old books. I believe your hero Tim the Horsehead made things up as he went along, took a lot of wild chances, and had a lot of wild strokes of wholly undeserved, utterly blind, plain dumb luck. I think you are already his equal, if not his superior, in spell shaping and use of Sight, and I know you’re a lot better at mathematics, because Tim’s staff did all his math and his writings are full of errors after the staff was broken at Romare.” Mug paused, rolled a long leaf into a finger-like tube, and shook it gently at Meralda. “So stop berating yourself for not being Tim, Mage Ovis. We don’t need Tim anymore. We need Meralda.”

The faint sound of applause rose up behind Mug, and he made a mocking bow toward the sound.

Meralda realized her fists were clenched at her sides. She took a breath, relaxed her hands and her jaw, and forced a smile. “Thank you,” she said.

Mug blinked at her. “You’re welcome,” he said. His voice softened. “I meant all that, by the way.”

“I know you did,” said Meralda. She walked to her chair, pulled it back, and sat. “So,” she said, licking her lips and pausing a bit when she realized her voice was shaking. “When our history is written, what will it claim we did next?”

Mug considered this. “Well,” he said, slowly. “When confronted by knotty dilemmas, most wizards turn to relics and whatnots,” he said. He turned his eyes upon Goboy’s scrying mirror, through which the last rays of the sun still streamed. “Shall I?”

Meralda sighed in exasperation. “You know full well it’s a waste of time,” she said, patting the mirror frame when the glass flashed at her words. “Not that our friend here isn’t a wondrous and useful work,” she added, hastily, “but the glass can only display images of actions taking place in the present.” And since all of those tend to be images of bedrooms or bathhouses, she thought, the mirror tells us more about Mage Goboy’s favored entertainments than it ever has about anything else.

“Well, then, let’s ask it about the present,” said Mug.

Meralda frowned. The mirror could reflect some things, well enough. Ask it for the sky, or the clouds, or Tirlin from high in the air, and one could expect several hours of reflection before the image broke apart. But ask for anything smaller than the sky, a room, for instance, or a person, and the mirror would flash an instant’s reflection on the glass, and then begin its random perambulation through the more private parts of Tirlin. Meralda’s early investigations of Goboy’s mirror had resulted mainly in a good deal of embarrassment and ultimately the blanket.

“Mirror, mirror,” said Mug, before Meralda could stop him.

The sky and the faint sun vanished, replaced by reflections of Mug and Meralda and a single glowing spark lamp on the ceiling.

Meralda looked at her reflection, and looked away when it winked back at her.

“Show me the Tears,” said Mug, in the king’s own voice. “Show me the Tears, wherever they are.”

The mirror flashed bright white, casting brief shadows on Meralda’s desk. Startled, Meralda looked up at the glass, but it was dark.

Dark, but not black. Indeed, a dim light flickered at the right edge of the glass, halfway up the frame.

“I’ll be trimmed and pruned,” said Mug.

The image grew lighter and clearer. The flickering light became the guttering stub of a candle, burnt down nearly to nothing. Its four fellows were gone, mere lumps that neither smoked nor glowed.

The candle stand sat on a plain wood table. A chair was pushed beneath it. And on the wall adjacent to the table, faint but visible in the failing candlelight, Tim the Horsehead grinned out of a painting.

Meralda rose, eyes wide, biting back an exclamation.

“That’s the safe room, isn’t it?” whispered Mug.

Meralda nodded, brought a finger to her lips. Mug nodded with a tossing of leaves and fell silent.

Meralda sought out Opp’s Rotary Timekeeper and watched the rings whirl round. Ten, twenty, thirty full seconds, and still the image in the mirror held.

The safe room. Meralda let out her breath, afraid to move or speak or even look away.

“Show me the Tears, wherever they are,” Mug had said.

And now we see the safe room?

Meralda rose, banged her right knee on the desk leg, shoved her chair sharply backward, and bit back a shout.

“Mistress?” said Mug, who turned half his eyes upon her, but left the other aimed motionless at the glass.

“The Tears,” said Meralda. “You asked…oh, blast, the nature of your question was such that the object in question would have its whereabouts revealed,” she said, wary of using words the mirror might interpret as a new command. “Think about it, Mug. Imagine you’re a villain. You want to cause trouble. You put a spell on the safe, or the jewel box, and you make it look as if the Tears have been stolen.”

Mug tapped the glass with a leaf. “But you hide the Tears, instead,” he said. “Somehow. Hide them in the safe room.”

“And then you just wait,” said Meralda. She stepped closer to the glass. “You just wait, because sooner or later, the Alons will be gone,” she said. “And sooner or later, Yvin will remove the guards from the safe room. Oh, he might also bar it and lock it, but given time, you can get in. And if not? Well, the damage is done.”

Meralda stared into the glass. I’m right, she thought, smiling at the guttering candle, shifting her gaze to the ghostly equine smile of the Horsehead in the portrait. I’m right.

Mug blinked with fifteen eyes. “It sounds plausible,” he said. He blinked again. “I can’t find anything wrong with it.” He paused. “Except, of course, for the mirror’s sudden spate of competence.”

Meralda felt her smile shrink, just a bit.

“Odd,” she said. “Though not undocumented. Remember the missing princes, back in 1810?”

“I thought you said that Mage Lommis made that story up, to implicate the Vonats,” said Mug.

“I may have been wrong about that,” said Meralda. She reached out and touched the dark oak frame. “I may have been wrong about a lot of things.”

Mug shrugged. “Glasses showing rooms, mages admitting errors. This is a night for rare occurrences,” he said. He thrust an eye toward Meralda. “That aside, what now?”