However, enough of such pleasant speculation. I must go and have a last word with Erthik.

Rumour flies as fast as thought in this college. I was passed in the corridor midmorning by four of the Magistri: Erthik was muttering something about Berys, and then I heard Vilkas's name.

I was approaching Vil's chamber when I heard someone leaving, and the voice made me shiver. I ducked around the nearest corner, heard footsteps going, thank Shia, in the opposite direction and fade to silence. I went up to his door and was dragged inside almost before I had finished knocking.

"The bloody bastard!" said Vilkas, with a heat I had never seen in him. 'To threaten us so for experimenting! Every time I see him he reeks worse of the Rakshasa." Vil looked directly at Aral, which was unusual enough to catch my attention. He seldom looked directly at anyone. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No, I managed to turn most of it," she said, rubbing her arm and not seeing his glance. Just as well for her, for the care and concern he allowed himself to show might have undone her. "But I swear he meant to wound me badly. If I hadn't been on my guard, I'd have been thrown across the room at least. Lady curse him to death and darkness—"

"Stop right there, you," I said quietly. "No curses."

"Will, you weren't there. Damn it! .If I'd had a knife I'd have gone for him."

I put a hand on her shoulder, briefly. I didn't dare leave it there very long. "I know, lass. But that would make it worse, not better. Knives are not the way for that one."

"Will, he's insane!" she cried, whirling away from me. "He tried to injure me, then stood there lecturing us about how misuse of the Power is forbidden, and then he called up a pair of demons! With no altar, no incantation that I could see, he called two demons into the room and pretended to be helpless. He made us get rid of them. As it was I could barely breathe for the stink of demons all around him. And we're called up before the Assembly in only two hours, and the Lady only knows what they're going to do."

"Hells' teeth, Vil. Was it really that bad?" I said to Vilkas as I steered Aral into a chair before the fire. She subsided into muttering to herself. I tried not to listen to the words.

"In fact it went a little better than I had hoped, though there are two very different aspects of this to consider," he replied coolly. He had regained his composure and was watching Aral with a cheerfully bemused expression. "To be honest, we have long suspected that what we were doing was not widely acceptable. Magistra Erthik doesn't seem all that worried, but men she knows both of us." He paused for a moment. "Interesting that Berys felt threatened enough to want to defend himself, even if it was quite amazingly feeble. Claiming research to explain the Raksha-stink, indeed! And he took the trouble to insult me, which I find unsettling."

I looked at him. "Insulted you? How? And why should that bother you?"

"By disparaging my Power. He called it a 'nimbus'." Vilkas stood behind Aral's chair and leaned over slightly, and I noticed he was surrounded even as we spoke with a subtle blue cloud. I guessed he was checking Aral to be certain she was uninjured. It took only a moment. "I don't give a damn what he says, Will, it only concerns me because I have been careful never to show him enough of my ability to draw attention to myself." He half grinned at me. "I believe he has noticed now."

"Noticed you? That's good. Who did all the work?" complained Aral, turning round in her chair to look up at him. "Nimbus, indeed! That's what they call the lowest level of Power, Will. Healers who haven't started their training or who don't have a gift beyond the first level have a 'nimbus' when they summon the Power." She snorted. "I expect Vil has one when he's fast asleep. His corona is every bit as bright as Berys's and a damn sight cleaner."

Vil nodded to me and walked over to the fire, warming his hands, leaning against the mantelpiece. Aral, on the other hand, leapt to her feet, her frustration not letting her sit still. "Have you any chelan, Vil? I'm dry as the great southern desert and I can't sit still when I want to kill someone."

"The leaves are in the cupboard and I suspect we need more water. Make enough for us all, would you?" said Vilkas. She got on with it, knowing her way around Vilkas's chambers as around her own. Vil went to stir the fire while I wandered over to the window and stared out at the bright morning, trying to take it all in. That Berys was on easy terms with demons I could well believe, but to summon one in broad daylight where both Vil and Aral could see him do it—it did not bode well at all. I had in my gut a cold certainty that great things were now moving and we had best deal with them by assuming the worst. I glanced over to where the two of them were making chelan, she growling at him, he speaking quietly to her.

Typical.

"What's caught your mind, Will?" asked Aral a moment later, still with a brow like thunder but a little calmer than she had been. "I asked you three times if you wanted honey in yours. You've got some now, want it or not."

"A cold day like this needs the sweetness, I thank you."

Vil had taken up his post, leaning that slim frame of his against the side of the fireplace while Aral and I sat before it. We had gathered thus many a time, ever since I had first come across them arguing in the gardens soon after Aral arrived. I had stood watching them full five minutes before either noticed me, and by then they had been standing on my seedlings for quite some while. They brought me others a few days later, by way of apology, and a friendship developed. I was just that bit older than either of them, perhaps a matter of eight years older than Vilkas, who was the younger by a year, and I had become a kind of mentor to them both. It pleased me greatly. They were good souls and I enjoyed their bickering. It was very much like my sister Lyra and me at their age—though what I felt about Aral was most certainly not the love of a brother.

I was about to ask them what they were going to do next when there was a knock at the door. Instinctively I hid myself as Vil opened it. Don't ask me why.

It was Magistra Erthik and Magister Caillin. "Hullo, you young idiot," said Erthik cheerfully. "Berys has decided you need guarding, which just goes to show how well he knows you. Caillin and I will be here until you two are due at Assembly. I thought you should know."

"Magistra, surely you do not believe—"

"Vilkas," she said, "the only thing I truly believe is that Berys is as twisted as a corkscrew. I'm not a fool, you know, I can smell the Raksha-stink as well as you can." I couldn't see, but her voice sounded as if she were smiling. "I've been waiting years for this particular Assembly, my lad. We may even manage to get Berys tossed out on his crooked ear. Just you tell the truth, all of it, and you'll be fine. Now go away, I'm not meant to be talking to you."

Vil shut the door, and he and Aral made enough noise to cover my retreat to the window, where we were far enough from the door to speak in whispers.

"So, Vil," said Aral quietly. "What next? Sounds like the Assembly is going to be nice and lively! I just wish I knew what they are planning to do to us."

"I have absolutely no idea," replied Vilkas, his voice barely loud enough to hear. "I can't believe it will be only a lecture, we've already had one of those." He grinned, looking for an instant like an overgrown imp. "Do they throw folk out of here, or are we more like to face a slit throat and a gutter for a graveyard?"

"Mages are not allowed to kill, idiot," said Aral. "Remember? Though I don't suppose they'd hesitate to toss us out."

"Mages aren't allowed to deal with me Rakshasa either, hut Berys does so all the time," said Vilkas with some heat.