"Papa? What did I do wrong?" Jasana asked in a small voice, fidgeting nervously.

Tarrin looked at her, saw the look of fear on her face. She obviously didn't ever want her mother to come home.

"You didn't do anything wrong, kitten, but what you did do has really messed up everything I had planned," he told her. "What you were trying to do, it would have killed you. And now that you've done it once, you'll be able to do it again. That means that I can't leave you alone now, because whether you do it on purpose or by accident, you will do it again. And when that happens, I have to be there to stop you."

"I'm sorry, papa."

"There's no reason to be sorry, Jasana," he sighed, turning to pace back towards the door. When he did that, he missed Jasana's victorious little smile, a smile that evaporated the instant he reached the door and turned around. "It was going to happen eventually anyway. What you have, you're bursting at the seams with it. You've already used it without knowing what you were doing, but now you know what to do, and that makes you very, very unsafe."

"What is it? You keep calling it it, papa. What is this thing I can do?"

"Sorcery," he said bluntly, looking at her. "A kind of Sorcery only a couple other people in the whole world can do by themselves. I really would have much rather taught you the simple ways to use Sorcery first and led you into what you did, but unfortunately you started at the top."

"Magic? I can do magic?"

"Yes, kitten, you can do magic. And it means that now, your life is going to change."

"How, papa?"

"I hate to tell you this, cub, but your childhood is over now," he said grimly, turning around again. "Using magic is a very, very serious thing, and it takes discipline and self control. Before I teach you a single magic trick, you're going to learn when it's good to use Sorcery, and when it is not good. You'll learn how to use your magic without hurting anyone, unless you intend on hurting someone with the magic you're about to use. And you're going to learn how to not let it go to your head. I know how little girls are. There will be no using it for no reason, no using it unless you can't do what you're trying to do any other way, and no using it to show off. Using it just to show off got your aunt Jenna in a great deal of trouble, so you're going to meet her and find out what happens when you use magic for no good reason."

"Aunt Jenna can do magic too?"

"Yes, she can," Tarrin told her.

"I'll learn those things, papa," she said dutifully. "I promise. I'll learn anything you want me to learn."

"You'd do that anyway," he said archy, sensing deception about her. For a Were-cat, Jasana could be surprisingly untruthful. Dealing with that from a Were-cat was downright shocking, for truth was a moral cornerstone of the entire species. Tarrin suspected that Jasana had alot of human in her, since her father was more human in mentality than Were.

The door opened, and Tarrin's heart skipped a beat. Jesmind's scent washed over him as he turned around, and he saw her stepping inside the door with a quartet of hares in one paw and a dead deer slung over her other shoulder. There were no clawmarks on it, telling him that Jesmind had run it down and broken its neck, or hit it with a rock. For beings of their strength, a thrown rock carried the same lethal force as an arrow, or even one of the Wikuni's musket balls. Jesmind took one look at Tarrin, then Jasana, and she took on a dark, serious look. "Alright, what happened?"

A thousand different strategies flew through his mind, but he found himself unable to use them. "Jasana had an, accident," Tarrin told her bluntly.

Jesmind's eyes darkened. "What kind?"

"The only kind that matters," Tarrin told her calmly.

Jesmind swore, using language not really suited for a young child. Then again, Jesmind's method of teaching her daughter weren't exactly normal to a human. "What are we going to do about it?" she asked.

"There's nothing that can be done about it, Jesmind," Tarrin told her, taking a cleansing breath. "I can't leave her now."

"So you're staying?" she asked with sudden brightness in her voice.

"No, she's going with me," Tarrin said, then he braced himself.

"What? Absolutely out of the question!" Jesmind shouted vociferously, throwing her kills to the floor. "There is no way you're taking my cub, Tarrin! None! If you want to do it, you'd better be ready to kill me to get her out of this house!"

"Jesmind-"

"I can't believe you'd even suggest such a thing! I don't care who you are or what you are, you're not taking my child!"

"Jesmind-"

"Shut up! Get out of my house, Tarrin! I don't even want to look at you right now, because I may try to kill you!"

In two big steps, Tarrin was on top of her. He grabbed her by the paws so quickly she didn't register what he was doing, then pulled them down and forced her to look at him. "Do you think I want to do this?" he demanded hotly. "Jasana's life is the issue here, woman, not any need of mine to take your daughter away from you! I have to get to Suld, and it's something that my life depends upon! I can't leave Jasana in such danger, but I can't risk my own life, and the sake of this entire kingdom, just because of you!" He jerked her paws down, displaying his superior strength, and looked her right in the eye. "Jesmind, Jasana is coming with me, and so are you," he declared in a strong voice. "I'm not taking Jasana from you, I'm taking you both with me."

"No," Jesmind hissed. "I'm not going anywhere! This is my home, damn you, and I'm not leaving it!"

What started as a logical argument as to why Jesmind should come along degenerated into a heated shouting match between the two mates, as each one tried to drown out the other with their voices. Tarrin couldn't believe Jesmind's pig-headed, stubborn refusal to see the big picture, to not even be understanding enough to listen to his side of their dispute. Both of them were very stubborn, and the dogged refusal each showed to bend even a finger for the other was apparent in the intense manner in which they faced off against one another. Jasana sat in her chair and watched her two parents fight with a worried expression on her face. But her worry became firm resolve when Jesmind raised a balled fist in Tarrin's direction, threatening to elevate their dispute to actual fisticuffs, despite the fact that her once-young mate now overmatched her.

Jasana got up and quickly and quietly inserted herself between her two fighting parents, then put a paw on each of them and inoexorably started pushing them apart. Both of them looked down at Jasana in a kind of outraged incredulity, shocked that anyone would bother or interrupt them in what was an entirely personal disagreement. Were-cats just didn't interfere in those kinds of things.

"Stop it!" Jasana called in a strong voice. "Mama, it's not papa's fault!" she cried out. "I did it."

"What?"

"I did it. I heard papa say that he couldn't leave me if I did what I did, so I did it on purpose to make him stay," she admitted with a guilty expression. "But I didn't think he'd leave anyway and make you two fight over me! Honest I didn't!"

Tarrin was absolutely stunned. The depths of his little girl's conniving knew no bounds. That she would actually use her power with the sole intention of making him stay overwhelmed him with both her cunning and her absolute disregard for anyone other than herself. That she was a very young girl certainly softened that dark view of her, but it didn't change the outright shock that she would go to such extremes to force him to stay.

She looked up at him with teary eyes. "I don't want you to go, papa!" she pleaded. "Stay here, so we can be a family! Please?"

What stared back at her was not the loving expression of her father, but the dark, sinister face of a glowing-eyed Were-cat, a sure visible sign that anger had taken control. Even Jasana knew better than to say or do anything more. Tarrin's burning green eyes showed her how angry he was. She retreated from him step by step, then turned and fled towards Jenna's old room.