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the ceiling, and next to the display chest decorated with carvings of rams—the symbol of Quin’s family—and filled with knives. He was speaking to the visitor, a man in his twenties, who was warming his hands by a cheerful fire in the hearth.
    The visitor wore clothes that appeared expensive, though Quin knew she was not a good judge of clothing styles. In her fifteen years of life, she’d spent almost no time off the estate.
    “There can also be a clear-cut finish with no trail to follow,” Briac continued, one hand running through the dark hair that Quin had inherited from him. Her father’s head was still untouched by gray. He was not yet forty years old, as trim and strong as he’d been as a young man, though to Quin he’d always been an ageless, all-powerful presence, like the sky or the land. “It depends on what you need,” he wastelling the visitor. “We create a circumstance to serve your purpose. Do you know what you need?”
    Briac was doing his best to appear friendly and polite to this visitor. Quin found the effect unsettling. She was used to her father’s face and words being hard. He often frightened her. She accepted his demeanor as a necessity of her training: he was preparing her for a life that would be harsh, but it was harsh in service of something good. To be a Seeker was to be one of the chosen few who could step
between
and change things.
    The visitor began to respond to Briac’s question, speaking so softly that Quin could not make out the words. The man was very intent, but he seemed almost shy of speaking aloud. She pressed her ear more firmly to the pantry door.
    Briac held up a hand. “Wait, if you would,” he said. “I’d prefer if we continued this discussion outside.”
    The young man nodded, and the two of them rose to leave. When the visitor’s back was turned, Briac took three steps across the room and gave the pantry door a hard shove, driving it into the side of Quin’s head. She was sent sprawling to the floor.
    She got slowly to her feet and staggered out of the pantry and into the kitchen, rubbing her head. In the other room, the cottage’s front door opened and shut, and through a window, she saw Briac and the visitor walking together into the meadow. Apparently, Briac wanted privacy.
    “Quin. What were you doing in there?”
    Fiona Kincaid, Quin’s mother, was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of something in front of her. Quin caught a whiff of alcohol and knew her mother was drinking the strong cider of which she’d become so fond in recent years. On the stove, a stew was cooking for dinner, and there was bread in the oven, filling the cottage with delicious smells. These kitchen aromas were the background of herchildhood, along with the scent of the tall grass that covered the commons and the rich earth beneath the trees of the forest. Only the faint trace of alcohol in the air took away from the sudden surge of happiness Quin felt. John would be successful. She and Shinobu would be successful. It was meant to be, and her life with John would be as she had always imagined.
    “Were you eavesdropping?” her mother asked.
    “I thought maybe it had something to do with tonight,” Quin explained, dropping into a seat across from Fiona and drawing her knees up against her chest. Her mother’s dark red hair was back in a tidy braid, and her face was blank.
    Even without a smile, her mother had a beautiful face. Everyone said so. She was looking out the window now, at Briac and the visitor as they walked away. Then she turned back to her mug of cider, her expression growing serious.
    “What did you hear?” her mother asked.
    “Nothing,” Quin answered. Then an unpleasant thought came. “You’re not trying to marry me off, are you?”
    This caught Fiona by surprise, and the hint of a smile formed on her lips. “Marry you off? Why, did you find the young man good-looking?”
    “I—I don’t know. I’m not really used to …” Her sentence died