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angel claiming to be Michael.”
    â€œClaiming?” Hethor wondered at her choice of words.

    Librarian Childress smiled. “You should have been a student. But that does not matter. You have been given a mission. Or at least an opportunity. What you do with it … well, that is up to you.”
    â€œSo you believe me?”
    â€œI believed you before,” she said. “Enough to confront your master’s son on your behalf. With this feather, others might believe you. Some few folk can see the patterns that underlie all of Creation. Someone like William of Ghent, who would know just by examining this feather that it is of angelic origin. Not all magic lives south of the Equatorial Wall.”
    Hethor stared at the tabletop, willing the world to be sensible, simpler. No wish of his would change the deeds of God or His angels, however. “I came to you for knowledge,” he said slowly. “Seeking to understand from books what has really happened.” He looked up to meet the librarian’s gleaming dark eyes. “I shall do as you have advised, take this feather and go to Boston, to the viceroy’s court and seek William of Ghent. But first I must ask my master for permission to make the journey.” Hethor could only imagine what Master Bodean would have to say.
    â€œAnd if your master forbids you?”
    Hethor shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. “I am an apprentice sworn and bound. If he forbids me, well … He owns not my corporeal person, but my time, labor, and the value of my training. To leave him unbidden, even to come here, is a form of theft. I could get the lash.”
    â€œThe Key Perilous may be legendary,” warned Librarian Childress, “but if it is real, its secrets lie close to the heart of the world.”
    â€œAnd so I will risk the lash.”
    She just stared at him for a moment. “We each are responsible for our own souls, my friend.”
    â€œBefore God,” said Hethor. He made the sign of the horofix, an old reflex he rarely recalled anymore.
    â€œExactly. And before our own consciences. Which judge is the harsher is something only you can know.
But … I will pray for you. As will librarians across the Northern Earth.”
    Hethor rose from his chair, took his feather from her hand, then bowed to Librarian Childress. “Thank you, ma’am. You have helped me understand some of what lies upon my thoughts.”
    She stood in turn. “Listen. There are those who may help you. People who care about such things. I will pass word along. If you think you might be among them, ask after the albino toucan.” She touched one of his elbows, then pulled Hethor into a hug, her gray hair beneath his chin. It was the first time anyone had really touched him since he was eleven, just for the sake of contact rather than to drag or beat him. Tears clouded his eyes for the second time that day. They stung his cheeks and made his face hot all over again.
    Gathering his pride, Hethor strode out past the library porter into the New Haven afternoon. Turning left onto Elm Street to head back to Master Bodean’s workshop, he thought he saw Faubus Bodean, Pryce’s tall middle brother. But Faubus wasn’t in the Divinity School. He studied architecture.
    The silver feather felt hot in Hethor’s hand and the afternoon streets were crowded, but the spring sky remained clear with a lovely breeze. He headed home, briefly managing to forget about angels and keys and albino toucans and divine will.
    HETHOR PASSED a pair of bobbies walking the other way on King George III Street. The sight of the policemen made him nervous, reminding him of how he had violated the terms of his apprenticeship. Walking toward Bodean’s Finer Clocks, he noticed a horse tied in front of the store, as well as a taximeter cabriolet—one of the new electrick horseless carriages that had recently begun driving about New Haven.
    Customers?

    Or