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gave me a quick hug. “Yes, we’ll take good care of you here, Conn. Miss Dimity has arranged the ducal magister’s rooms, so they are all ready for you. I haven’t had time to see them, but she says they are quite splendid.” She and Nevery turned and set off down the hallway, followed by the secretary. “I’ll assign servants to look after you, too, Conn.”
    I scowled, trailing behind them. I still hadn’t agreed to be the ducal magister. And I didn’t need looking after .
    â€œExcuse me, Your Grace, Magister,” Miss Dimity interrupted then.
    She was very good at interrupting, I’d noticed.
    Rowan paused at the bottom of a wide, carpeted staircase. “What is it?”
    â€œI do apologize most sincerely, but you have a meeting now with the stonemasons league.”
    â€œIsn’t that tomorrow?” Rowan asked impatiently.
    â€œNo indeed,” Miss Dimity said, and her eyes bulged. “See here, on the agenda.” She waved a sheet of paper.
    â€œYes, of course.” Rowan turned to me. “Conn, I have to attend this meeting, but Miss Dimity will show you your rooms, all right?”
    No, it wasn’t all right. I glared at her.
    â€œYou must hurry, Your Grace,” Miss Dimity put in. “It simply wouldn’t do to keep them waiting.”
    Rowan closed her eyes for just a moment. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered. Opening her eyes, she said, “Will you just go , Conn?”
    Yes, all right. I gave her the slightest nod. She whirled and snatched the pages that Miss Dimity shoved into her hands and then hurried away down the hall.
    â€œYou seem to be well settled, my lad,” Nevery said to me. He rested a hand on my shoulder. “As it happens, I have a meeting to attend as well, so I must be going.”
    It didn’t matter what I said, because clear as clear he wasn’t going to listen to me, any more than Rowan had. So I stayed quiet.
    Nevery shot me one last behave yourself look and left.
    â€œWell then!” Miss Dimity said, and scraped her lips into something that was supposed to be a smile, but wasn’t really. “Come along.”
    She led me up a wide stairway, then down a long, carpeted hall to a set of double doors with bronze handles and what looked like a puzzle lock. Tricky to pick a lock like that.
    Miss Dimity threw the doors open. “The ducal magister’s chambers,” she announced.
    The main room was very fancy, a study with a few knobbly-looking wooden chairs and wobbly small tables with lace doilies on them, a patterned rug on the floor, and lots of shelves covered with more lace doilies and fancy dishes and silver statues instead of books.
    â€œYou see?” Miss Dimity pointed at the walls, where gilt-framed oil paintings of old men and women hung. “The former residents of these rooms, ducal magisters all.”
    I could tell exactly what she was thinking. A gray-bearded old man or a wrinkly old woman was her idea of a proper ducal magister, not scruffy me.
    She was right about that, too.
    I stepped farther into the chilly room, looking around. Pip hopped off my shoulder and flapped to one of the high-backed, uncomfortable chairs set next to the hearth. The little dragon landed on the back of the chair, and its claws scratched a gouge in the wood. I glanced over my shoulder to see if Miss Dimity had noticed. She stood near the doorway, watching me with her bulgy eyes. Captain Kerrn had joined her; she said something to the secretary, but kept her eye on me.
    Miss Dimity gave me another one of her false smiles. “Do you approve of your rooms, Ducal Magister?”
    Not really, no. They were too grand. “I’m not staying here,” I said.
    Ignoring that, Miss Dimity walked over to another door and threw it open. “This is your dressing room.”
    I didn’t have enough clothes to need a dressing room.
    â€œDo you see?” She