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skills.
    The two walked quietly through the scattered flakes until they were less than a block from the south side of the Market Square .
    “This way.” Leyladin inclined her head to the left.
    Another block found them turning north again.
    “Here we are.” She gestured.
    Leyladin’s house was not on the front row of homes on the Avenue below the Market Square , but in the slightly smaller dwellings one block behind those of Muneat and the more affluent factors. Instead of a dozen real glass windows across the front of the dwelling, there were merely four large arched windows on each side of the ornately carved red oak double doors, but each of the windows held several dozen small diamond-shaped glass panes set in lead. Each window sparkled from the lamps within the house.
    The front of the house extended a good fifty cubits from side to side, and deeper than that, Cerryl suspected as Leyladin led him up the granite walk, a walk flanked just by winter-browned grass.
    “The gardens are in the back,” Leyladin answered his unspoken question. “Father said they were for us, not to display to passersby.” The blonde mage opened the front door. “Soaris! Father! We’re here.”
    She stepped into a bare foyer barely four cubits wide and twice that in length, with smooth stone walls on either side. Cerryl followed and closed the door. On the left wall was mounted a polished wooden beam, with pegs for jackets and cloaks. Against the right wall was a backless golden oak bench. Beside it was a boot scraper. A boot brush leaned against the wall stones.
    Cerryl offered the brush to Leyladin, then took it after she finished and brushed his own boots. Then he took off his white jacket and hung it on one of the pegs.
    A huge, heavy man wearing a blue overtunic appeared at the back of the narrow foyer. “Lady Leyladin, your father awaits you and your companion in the study.”
    “We will be right there, Soaris.”
    “Very good, lady.” Soaris bowed again and departed.
    Cerryl turned to her. “Lady Leyladin?”
    The blonde mage blushed. “Some hold Father… in high regard, since Mother died when I was young and my sisters are gone, I help father by acting as lady of the household, since he has no consort.”
    Cerryl shook his head slowly. “I knew that you were well off…”
    “Oh?” Leyladin arched her eyebrows. “From your peeking through the glass? I’ll wager you didn’t tell Sterol about that.”
    “I did,” Cerryl confessed. “Except I didn’t tell him who I looked at. You felt me. You told me that, remember? You were so strong that I stopped looking. I never dared try again.”
    “You were saying…” she said gently.
    “Oh…” He shrugged. “I saw the silks and hangings. I thought you were the daughter of a wealthy merchant-but not so high as a lady.” He grinned. “A lady and a mage and a healer. Far above this lowly junior mage.”
    “Stop it.” The healer grimaced. “You’re already more powerful than I am or will ever be. Let’s see Father.”
    Cerryl followed her through the foyer arch into the main entry hall. The floors were blue-green marble squares, polished so smooth that the four bronze wall lamps and their sconces shed light from both the wall and the floor. The air smelled of trilia and roses-together with another scent, a lighter one. The walls, even the inside walls, were smoothed granite block to waist-level and white plaster above.
    Green silks hung from the archway through which Leyladin led Cerryl into a long sitting room, one with two settees upholstered in green velvet and two matching and upholstered wooden armchairs. All were arranged around a long and low table of polished and inlaid woods. The table inlays had been designed to portray the image of a ship under full sail.
    Cerryl paused as he studied the table and then the pair of matched cabinets against the wall, cabinets that almost framed the single picture in a silvered frame on the middle of the inside wall. The