My mouth hung open for an undignified length of time… but meanwhile facts were sorting themselves out in my brain.

Gretchen had grown up with sorcerers: her father employed quite a few to cast obedience spells on demons. Most children of wealthy families also received training in sorcerous fundamentals, partly to prepare them for managing spellcaster underlings, and partly to see if they themselves had any aptitude for enchantments. It wasn't necessarily good news to find you had a knack for magic-considering the nature of most arcane rituals, sorcery wasn't a respectable profession-but just as the well-to-do are allowed to draw and paint as long as they don't become artists, they're allowed to cast spells as long as they don't get too mystical. All of which argued it was possible that Gretchen had received substantial arcane tutoring from mages on her father's staff.

Then I remembered how Gretchen had suddenly been so interested when she heard I'd encountered a Sorcery-Lord. She'd immediately announced she'd accompany us to Niagara, where Dreamsinger was going to be. And now Gretchen was putting on crimson, the first time I'd seen her wear the color. Why? So Dreamsinger would recognize her as another dear sister on the Burdensome Path?

"Gretchen," I said, "seriously, seriously, Gretchen: this is a bad idea."

"What do you mean? A sorceress can wear crimson whenever she wants."

"Yes, but-"

"You don't think I'm real, is that it? I'm just some deluded brat? Oh that Gretchen, she might know a few tricks, but she's nothing special. Is that what you think?"

"What I think is that Dreamsinger is an unpredictable lunatic. Anyone who wants to meet her is suicidal."

"Well, maybe I am suicidal." Gretchen stormed forward the three steps it took to cross the room. The partly woven braid was yanked out of Annah's hands and flopped forward along the side of Gretchen's head. Gretchen ignored it; she gave me a fierce push, her hands hitting my shoulders, her eyes glaring into mine. "Have you looked at me lately, Phil?"

I was looking at her now. The braid hanging down by her ear had begun to unravel. "You aren't suicidal, Gretchen. It's not in your nature."

"Maybe not. But desperation is." She dropped her gaze; she glanced quickly back at Myoko and Annah as if trying to decide whether to talk in front of them. Then she took a deep breath and returned to me. "I'm good, Phil. I'm good at sorcery. I think." She gave a twittering laugh. "But I don't know for real, do I, darling? I've just… I've done nothing with it. Instead, I lived off my father's money. Slept with a lot of pretty men. Kept my sorcery to myself because I didn't want someone saying, Gretchen, the spells you're so proud of are really quite trivial…"

Her hands were still on my shoulders. She let her head slump against my chest. "Whenever I wanted to convince myself I was good, I'd whip up another shine-stone. The spell's actually quite complicated… at least I think it is. Then again, what the hell do I know?"

I thought about all the shine-stones in her room the previous night. Dozens of them. Made to reassure herself she was somebody.

"And Dreamsinger?" I asked. "What do you want with her?"

Gretchen sighed. She kissed the front of my shirt, then straightened up and gave her head a little shake. The last of her braid unwound. "I can't put it into words, Phil. It's just… she's a Sorcery-Lord. If there's anyone who could look at me and say, You've got potential…"

She gave another twittering laugh-a choked sad sound. "Here's where you tell me it's ridiculous to talk about my potential when I've never made an effort to use it. If I had an ounce of real potential, I'd get off my dumdum and do something. Go to school… buy an apprenticeship… or just start incanting on my own. Something. Instead, I'm squandering my existence. On parties and fine food and umty-tiddly, as Zunctweed says. Doing nothing, day by day."

She suddenly turned to Myoko and Annah. "Do you know what it's like to have dropped out of life? To have had a hundred chances to be special, but you avoided them all? Or just botched them up because you were a horrible coward, afraid of letting yourself change. You clutch your comfortable excuses, saying, Someday I'll be brave, it won't take a lot, just give me one more chance and this time I'll grab it. But chances come and go. It would be easy to do something, but you don't. You just don't. Do you know what that's like?"

Myoko and Annah nodded. Their faces were both so sad.

Gretchen nodded too. "So here we are. Here I am. A woman of… a woman who's no longer young… who got her feelings hurt by some stupid young earl and found herself looking in the mirror under bright, bright light…" She turned back and gave me a small rueful smile. "I suddenly thought, maybe it's time. This time it's time. To see if I'm somebody or just a middle-aged slut who lies to herself about being gifted. Next thing I know, my one true friend comes along…" She held out her hand to me; I took it, feeling awkward and guilty but fond. "…and he tells me there's a way to meet a Sorcery-Lord."

She gave my hand a squeeze before letting it go. "So it's really my chance. To talk to this Dreamsinger and find out once and for all. To find my place. That's all I want: to find my place. You three have done that already. Right? You must be happy being teachers. I know Phil is. A font of inspiration, guiding young minds and spurring them on to heights of intellectual achievement. That's what you say, darling, and it's wonderful. You've found your place. All of you."

If she'd looked my way at that instant, I couldn't have met her eye. Myoko and Annah couldn't either. But Gretchen didn't seem to notice. She moved back and plucked the crimson gown from Myoko's hands. "I can dress myself," Gretchen said. There might have been tears in her eyes. "We'll be coming into port soon. Why don't you all go watch the landing?"

Annah looked at me, then asked Gretchen, "Are you sure you don't want anyone to stay?"

"No, no, all of you, go ahead." Gretchen tried to smile. "I can't have you learning the deep dark secrets of how I put on my makeup."

Annah gave Gretchen's shoulder a pat before stepping down from the bed and moving toward the door. Myoko reached out to do the same, stopped herself for a split-second (probably a spasm of shyness, touching a near-naked woman), then continued on to press her fingers lightly against Gretchen's cheek. "We'll see you when you're ready," Myoko said.

Annah, Myoko, and I left quietly, almost on tiptoe. We closed the door behind us and said nothing as we climbed up on deck.

Dainty Dinghy didn't try to put in at the docks: we dropped anchor well out from shore. When Pelinor asked why, Zunctweed said he didn't know the depth of the harbor-he had no detailed charts of Crystal Bay and wouldn't trust them if he did. Our frigate drew a lot more water than fishing boats; if we wanted to avoid running aground, we had to stay out a goodly distance.

At least, so Zunctweed claimed. Quite possibly, the rotten Patata was just being spiteful: forcing us to row in by jolly-boat rather than giving us an easier option. But none of us had enough sailing experience to know if Zunctweed was lying. Impervia and Oberon both tried their best piercing stares, but Zunctweed wouldn't back down. Eventually, they had to yield to our captain's nautical "expertise."

As the NikNiks lowered the jolly-boat over the side, I examined Crystal Bay: both the harbor and the town. This close, I could see the fishing boats were aswarm with activity. Crew members toyed with ropes or dangled over the sides to examine the hulls; others banged away with hammers or swabbed hot pitch around holes that needed to be sealed; still more mended rips in fishing nets or dabbed bright red paint on the nipples of lurid figureheads. It was a furor of spring renovation, getting boats shipshape after winter's long languishing.