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embarrassing secret—“I just bought a new stallion, and I’m not sure I trust him on the trails after dark.” His face lost its eagerness for a moment. “After what happened to my parents, sir, I feel a need to be overly cautious.”
    Had that been a dig? Don’t bait him, she thought urgently. Don’t bait him.
    The magician smiled understandingly. “I’ll summon your servants for you.”
    Myr shook his head. “I left them outside with orders to meet me an hour before dark.”
    “The gods follow you, then.” The Archmage paused. “I hope you know that your father was so proud of your courage and strength—you do credit to your lineage. I wish that my own son had been more like you.”
    To Aralorn’s sensitive ears, the magician’s voice held just the right amount of pain. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before she’d been assigned here that his emotions were always perfectly calculated.
    “Lord Cain could not be termed a coward or weak, sir.” Myr’s voice held a matching amount of sympathy, as false as the ae’Magi’s. He should have just thanked him and left, gotten out of his sight and hoped the ae’Magi forgot all about Reth and its young king.
    “No,” the ae’Magi agreed, “I think that it would have been better for all of us if he were a coward. He would have done less harm.”
    The ae’Magi kept his dark magics secret, but his son had performed them in the broad light of day.
    Aralorn had never met Cain: He’d disappeared before she’d become involved in her present occupation. She’d heard the rumors, though—they got worse with each telling. But Myr would have known him; the ae’Magi and his son had been frequent visitors to his grandfather’s court.
    The stories put the ae’Magi in the role of a grieving father, forced to strip his son of magic and exile him. Aralorn suspected that the boy had died rather than been exiled. It would have been inconvenient if someone had questioned where the ae’Magi’s son had learned so much about forbidden magic. As he’d told her himself, the ae’Magi preferred to avoid controversy.
    “Be that as it may”—with apparent effort the ae’Magi dismissed the thought of his son—“your servants will probably be awaiting you even now.”
    “Yes, I should go. You may be sure I shall remember your gracious offer of assistance if ever I need help.” With that, Myr bowed once more and left.
    Watching Myr’s broad back as he strode through the room, the ae’Magi smiled—the slight imperfection of one crooked eyetooth lending charm to the more perfect curve of his lips. “What a clever, clever child you have grown to be, Myr.” His voice purred with approval. “More like your grandfather every day.”
    It was late before the crowd began to thin and later still before everyone had gone. Aralorn couldn’t control her apprehension as each person left, knowing that the meager protection their presence offered would soon be gone. After seeing the last couple out, the ae’Magi walked slowly over to the cage.
    “So,” he said, swaying gently back on his heels, “the Rethian doesn’t see my lovely Northland bird.”
    “My lord?” she said neutrally. Having had most of the night to reflect upon the incident, she’d been pretty sure that the ae’Magi had figured that much out. She’d also had time to come to the conclusion that if he thought Myr was immune to magic, the ae’Magi’s primary power, Myr would die.
    The Archmage smiled and flicked a silver bar of her cage with his forefinger chidingly. “When he looked at you, he looked where your eyes are, not where the eyes of the falcon would have been.”
    Plague it, Aralorn thought. The ae’Magi put one hand through the bars and caressed her neck. She leaned against him and rubbed her cheek on his hand, forcing herself to obey the vague compulsion of the charismatic spell that had kept his guests happy instead of throwing herself backward and huddling in the far corner of the