Archive of Our Own

The words Rose scrawled on the letter to her daughter were these:

There is no power on earth that I would not oppose to protect you, daughter. So if you are reading these words, it is because our enemies have found us, and the only way I could protect you was to play decoy, like a killdeer leading a predator away from his mate and their nest.

I dare not bid you stay hidden and wait for my return. You must risk the venture out of your hiding place. Seek your cousin, whose house in town I have shown you. You have seen the protections laid upon that house. You may never see me again, but know that I love you with all my heart and have done everything I have done with one goal alone: to keep you safe.

But Maud never read the words her mother had written.

---

"Cousin Clary?" Maud echoed in confusion. This was the first she'd been told she had a cousin. And so close by!

"I didn't want her to know about you. What she doesn't know, she can't tell. But she works for Wizard Tammas now, and his house will be warded. They won't find you there, and even if they somehow knew you were there, they couldn't get in. And the wizards, their magic is pure structure."

Where Maud's own magic was chaos. She nodded, not sure she understood. Wasn't a wizard as likely to be a danger to her as any other of the mages of Trovaire? "Why is Wizard Tammas safe, Mama?"

"The Ivory Tower," her mother muttered, looking through her spellbook. "They hold all types of magic equal. Not like the White Mages."

When she was in a good mood, Maud's mother explained things well. But like this, hands trembling as she turned pages, eyes darting frantically from one to the next, her thoughts were too scattered to help Maud make sense of any of this.

Her mother's fear made Maud afraid, too. The knot of power inside her began to writhe, to swell, to reach tendrils down her arms, up her spine. She closed her eyes and focused on breathing, as her mother had taught her all her life. A breath in, a breath out, and the chaos subsided back into complex loops that felt as if they were softly snoring deep in Maud's abdomen. She patted herself there.

Maud opened her eyes, looked at herself in the mirror. An ordinary girl, short for ten years old, though there was still a month to grow before her birthday. Shoulder-length straight hair, skin a shade lighter than her mother's golden brown, eyes ordinary too, white around brown around black. There were a dozen girls just like her in any city square or on any country road. She had seen them in picture books, and occasionally from a window, when she had ventured into the outer rooms of the house. The unsafe rooms.

A high-pitched sound shrilled and startled her. The mirror she was looking into cracked down the center, half shattering her reflection into a puzzle of eye, cheek, ear. All the windows in the house broke, glass clattering on the tile floors.

"Did I do that?" The tendrils of chaos were all over Maud's hands, and in the half of the mirror that remained mostly in one piece, she could see it was in her eyes, too.

"Go, now, Maud, they're here!" her mother shouted, pushing her into the fireplace. The transport magic was already set up, but she'd never triggered it. Her mother had always done that, used the magic and left her to wait. It would not have been safe for Maud to go out.

Maud's mother was doing her best, her magic strong at shielding, but with no attack spells in her repertoire, all she could do was delay the inevitable. Maud tried to keep her breathing even, pull the chaos magic back in. It was too dangerous to let out, and she had no idea how to defend herself with it. All she'd ever been taught was how to keep it from escaping and causing damage. It was too dangerous to use, too risky to expose, too volatile to train.

She had almost remembered the sequence of the transport trigger. But the beams of light were growing stronger around her mother, nearly overwhelming the opaque shield she'd set, making it translucent. The light show created by the battle was beautiful -- despite being death.

And it was. The light burst, blinding Maud as it turned her mother into a being of light, bursting her into motes, nothingness, and she was gone. The light began to dwindle. Maud could see shadows now, shapes of the enemy who had killed her mother.

The chaos burst out of her as it never had before. The floor shook. The light vanished into cloud and the tendrils of Maud's chaos went all through the enemy. It ripped them to pieces and scattered those pieces on the tile until it ran with blood.

She tasted copper. A splatter across her face as she turned and -- not even looking -- triggered the transportation spell.

And was elsewhere. The smell of blood had followed her. There was green around her, trees, grass, gravel. Green. Outside. It should be terrifying to be out here, no roof, only sky above her; it should be wonderful, a miracle, to finally be there, the outside world she'd always wanted to join. But none of that mattered in this moment.

Maud thought only of where she must go now. Across a cobbled street there were houses. The largest was directly opposite, yellow stone piled up four stories with red roof scallops on top. There were ward runes all around it. That must be Wizard Tammas's house.

Maud wiped her face as clean as she could on leaves. The chaos was in a tightly coiled ball within her. None of it was visible, none of it was moving. It had done something very bad, and now it was afraid, she guessed. And it should be.

Her mother could not be dead. Her mother was dead. Couldn't be dead. Maud's head rang. Cousin Clary. Her mother would come find her here because she'd sent her to Cousin Clary. All that blood must be her own, from the brambles here in the park. All that vision of light was the side effect of the transport magic.

Nothing had happened to her mother.

----

The stray gray and white cat purred on Tammas's knee. His fingertips dug deep into the rough, thick fur, not matted, but weathered and insufficiently groomed.

"This household has enough cats already." Clary gestured to the three cats on the floor. Vana, the white cat, sat tall a short distance from Tammas's foot. Lila, the black cat, stood next to Clary, as if to back her up. Shena, the tabby, paced in the doorway, unwilling to enter the room while an intruder was present. All three watched the newcomer warily.

"Four will be enough, yes." Tammas pretended he thought that was what she'd meant. He didn't expect her to believe that, but he hoped it would sidestep the argument.

"It's your house," Clary said, and from most women that would have been acquiescence, but not from Clary. "I'm the one who cleans up after the creatures. Dusts all the shed fur. Washes the floors after they leave a dead thing as a gift. And this new one's a male." Darkly, she added, "They spray."

Tammas looked at the golden eyes of the cat on his knee. The cat looked back at him, tranquil, relaxed. It had taken two weeks or more for each of the other cats to trust Tammas enough to sit on his lap. "I will ensure he does not. Or I will clean it myself."

"Once will be enough for that," Clary said, apparently mollified. "Very well. But no more. We stop at four."

Tammas waved a hand at her. It could be interpreted as dismissal. Or as surrender. Perhaps it was both.

This was his house. It had been his family's house for generations. It would belong to one of his nephews after his passing. But Clary had been his housekeeper for twelve years, twelve very satisfactory years. If she were dissatisfied enough she could resign, a risk Tammas had no intention of taking.

Tammas carefully settled the gray and white cat on the chair and rose to peruse his books. There was a spell he needed to find and refresh in his memory. It would enhance the cat's ability to learn not to spray inside the house.

By the time he found the spell he was looking for, the cat was curled up asleep on his chair. "Improve the practical intellect of a companion animal," read the title over the complex sequence of instructions. Tammas left the book open on the table while he went to find the right piece of paper.

The perfect raw material for the spell was the same shade of gray as the cat's fur, textured diagonally to the square, with a white border as wide as Tammas's thumb. It took time to reach that conclusion, time spent sorting through shades of blue that might represent intelligence, pink and red for the animal brain, shades of yellow for reasons that he quickly dismissed as too specific. Gray and white was obvious, which was why he'd initially dismissed it as well, but he came back around to it in the end. Each of the cats in the household had a name inspired by her fur color. Clearly, that meant that the color of a cat was of preeminence symbolic as well as visual.

Tammas, paper in hand, passed Shena and Lila playing in the hallway. Once back in his study, Tammas gently lifted Vana from her guard position and petted her, then set her outside the door. He closed it behind him so the new cat could not run off before he'd finished and the other cats could not interrupt his work.

The pattern to fold was detailed in the instructions. Tammas focused the inner light of his magic on the cat, still asleep on the chair. He carefully made the first fold, diagonally against the grain. The texture began to take on the feel of fur under his fingers as he folded. Light spilled from between the intricate turns of the paper as the wizard transformed it from a piece of processed and carefully dyed fiber into a magic talisman.

When the spell was in its final form, faceted like a gemstone, the cat woke, stretched, lifted a paw to take a step -- and froze in place. His ears went back against his head. He glanced at Tammas, then quickly away.

"It's all right, Zell," Tammas said, having thought to give this name to the cat. "Do you like that name? Zell?"

The cat growled. No, apparently he did not like that name. Too bad, it was one the best suited to him. "Can you say 'no' instead of growling?" This spell could grant speech to animals, if it worked perfectly.

The cat hissed.

"It's all right, Z-- cat. We'll find you a different name. One you like. You're safe here."

"Name." The cat's ears went up fractionally. He began grooming the fur on his side. He made a cat sound that wasn't a word, wasn't a meow. It was more of a trill, like but not exactly the way Lila called to Shena when she went looking for her to play.

"Pireet," Tammas said, trying to approximate the sound in a word.

"Name," the cat said again. His voice was low and rough, as if the words came from the same sound family as his purrs rather than his meows.

"Very well, Pireet shall be your name. Now, why don't you follow me to the kitchen and I'll get you some food."

"Bird," Pireet said. He hopped down from the chair, ears perked forward. His tail curled up in hopeful body language, not the straight vertical Vana held hers in anticipation of mealtime, but still a good sign.

"I think we have some chicken," Tammas said indulgently.

He had found the scraps from the meal Clary had prepared yesterday, bits of chicken still on the bones that she'd put in the enchanted cubicle that preserved food from spoiling. She probably intended it for making soup. He took just one bone that had several mouthfuls of meat on it and closed it up again, then peeled a bite off and held it out to the cat. Pireet.

Pireet approached cautiously, sniffed the food, then nipped it up neatly. He dropped the bite of food on the floor in front of himself, nudging it over with his nose so he could smell all sides, then ate it. Careful cleaning of his mouth and whiskers with dampened paws followed.

Tammas watched and waited until the cat had finished to speak. "I will feed you and give you shelter from rain and cold," he said, "and in return you will not harm my other cats, the three you saw earlier, and you will not harm me or any human within my house, and you will not expel your waste or spray your scent inside the house. There is a passageway for cats to enter and leave. Is that how you came in? Or did you enter another way?"

Pireet stood, stretched, then walked a little way. He looked back, then when he saw Tammas was following, he walked to the small passageway Tammas had created in the side wall next to the kitchen fireplace. He put one paw up. "Door," he said.

"Yes, and only for cats." The spell that created the door had been specified to allow cats passage. It did not break the wards of the house because they did not apply to cats. At least, not since Tammas had found Shena, the oldest of his pets, as a shivering kitten in a rainstorm ten years earlier. He had wanted to bring her inside, and to do so, he had to take his household wards down. The risk had been worth it to save her life, but he had to restore the wards as soon as possible, and she had wanted very badly to return outside and hunt -- and Clary had wanted the cat to be able to go outdoors for practical sanitary reasons. The very next day, he had remade the wards with a special exception for cats.

The wards handled visitors with a process that had been long since perfected. The visitor was announced by a ringing sound, its pitch and volume indicating the familiarity (low for frequent guests, high for first time callers) and intent (quiet for friendly visitors, loud for attacking enemies). The ward rang soft and high, but with an unusual vibration to it. No magic was infallible; the vibration meant that the ward's evaluation was -- lacking a better word, tentative. Though that implied more volition than a ward actually had. It wasn't a creature, it didn't have a mind to be unsure with; but its evaluation was incomplete, perhaps.

If there was a steady high and soft peal from the wards, the wizard might not stir himself, might simply wait for his housekeeper to take care of whatever anodyne interruption the sound might herald. But in this unusual case, he wanted to check out the visitor personally.

Clary was faster. As Tammas came into the front hall, he saw Clary open the door. A child, about the age to start her apprenticeship, stood framed by the open doorway. "Cousin Clary? I'm Maud. My mother sent me here," the girl said, and he saw Clary pull her inside.

Any visitor would be encased in a bubble by the ward, one that kept them out of its protections and let those within remain protected. The bubble grew more difficult to endure the longer the person stayed, but the girl might remain for a conversation without noticing. Most visitors and tradespeople never felt more than a subtle urge to be on their way.

"Maud," Clary said. She seemed astonished. "What could Rose have been thinking to send you here?"

"She said I'd be safe," Maud said, so quietly Tammas wasn't sure he heard right.

Clary shook her head, then stilled. She took a deep breath. Turning to Tammas, she squared her shoulders. "She'll have to stay the night."

"Impossible," Tammas said. "The wards won't allow it."

Clary folded her arms. "You can adjust them, can't you?"

"For one night? That's not worth the effort. You can take her to an inn for the night, Clary. I will manage without you." It was only one night, after all. No more difficult than Clary's regular day off.

"Your wards," Maud said. "They are what Mama said would keep me safe."

Tammas could see some complicated emotions playing across Clary's face. His housekeeper was troubled, couldn't decide what to do, like the wards. All of this indecision over such an ordinary-looking child? He harrumphed in thought, voicing his own hesitation over what to do.

Then it seemed as though Clary had come to her own conclusion. "Let her stay more than one night," Clary said. "Please."

He knew he wouldn't say no, but Tammas didn't have to outright admit that. "A child will make more work for you than Pireet, and you didn't want him to stay," he pointed out.

"Pireet?" Both of them asked him in unison.

"That's the new cat's name."

"Maud is not a cat," Clary said, steel in her voice. "She is family."

Tammas felt a flash of anger at Clary's apparent dismissal of the cats. In his youth, he might have proclaimed that his pets were more important to him than some distant cousin of hers. Over long years he had learned to control his temper. The old wizard he was now would never be so rude or so cruel to a stranger, a child, who had done nothing to deserve his anger.

He slipped a ready strip of paper from his cuff. "So," Tammas said once he had regained the calm to speak without anger, "you wish the girl to stay."

Clary nodded. "I do."

"Very well. Maud, I am Wizard Tammas of the Tower, your cousin's employer and the owner of this house. Clary has spoken for you, so I will consider your request. You have asked for the protection of my house. For how long do you ask this?"

Maud's small hands wrung together. "I don't know how long. Until Mama comes for me."

Tammas frowned. "Clary, do you have a way to contact -- this girl's mother is your aunt?"

"My cousin, Rose. Our mothers were sisters."

Tammas felt a momentary relief. Clary's mother was not from a magically talented line, and Clary herself had no magic, but her father -- he was glad the girl was not related to Clary's father. That could have meant real trouble. "To contact Rose and ask how long Maud will be sheltering with us?"

"No. We haven't spoken since --" Clary stopped, looked at Maud, thought a moment before she continued. "Since before Maud was born."

Tammas frowned. "So you've never met Maud before this? Why would Rose send her child to a cousin she'd stopped speaking to? Did she move far away?"

"It's a long story."

Tammas suspected that the story might not be especially long, but Clary didn't want the girl to hear it. He could speculate on many possible reasons for that. "Very well, we will make time for you to tell it eventually. For now, Maud, I will change the side door ward to admit you, as I have done for Clary."

But first, Tammas had to make sure this was not some sort of trap, not a random street child enspelled to make Clary think she was a relative for some troublemaker to slip a spy into his house. The strip of paper he'd pulled from his cuff folded along its length in half, then he began to corner in tiny triangles and spin it into a ring. He looked through the ring at the girl. No enchantments rode her mind, none encircled her body but the ward itself. He looked closer, remembering the bell's uncertain waver. Something dark in her, innate. Probably, he thought, opening the ring again, it was whatever she feared enough to seek his protection. That fear made her feel like a danger and that could have made the ward uncertain of her intent.

A child barely old enough to be apprenticed would hardly be a true threat to an experienced wizard.

---

Maud did her best to hold completely still as the wizard came close. This was safety, she reminded herself, even though safety had always before today meant home. She was being given permission to shelter here. The house was not so unfamiliar as the outdoors had been, and if she'd been looking at a picture of this room in one of her books she would have thought it beautiful. The furniture was ornate and plush, the floors covered in thick rugs with elaborate patterns -- she would be fascinated to look at it all, she thought, if only she were not so numb.

While the wizard cast his spell, Maud kept her hands clasped tightly together. The chaos within her shivered with fear of his power. She made her mind smooth, serene, thought of clouds floating through a blue sky, of waves lapping gently at a sandy shore, of yellow leaves floating softly down from a hornbeam tree in autumn. The dark whorl inside was quiet for now, but Maud knew better than to think it inert. It would wake instantly if disturbed.

She felt the ward unbind around her. It was like stepping off a narrow bridge onto the ground on the other side, solid under her feet. Tension unwound itself from her limbs and she let her hands fall to her sides.

"I see." The wizard was old, his hair thin and faded, his skin delicately creased at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He looked her over, peered into her eyes, one hand turned upward with a silent question.

What had she done? Maud pressed her lips together. She thought she should let Cousin Clary speak for her, here.

And Clary did not disappoint her. "Come, child, I'll show you where your room will be," Clary said.

Maud saw a look pass between her and her employer. "Her room?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

Clary nodded once, decisively. "And tomorrow I'll need to go out, find the things she'll need while she's here."

"But," Maud said, immediately seeing the problem. She'd be left alone here with him. She couldn't go out with Clary, not so soon, it wouldn't be safe. Maud wondered how long it would be before she could leave. The chaos inside her began to stir.

"It will be fine," Clary said. "Come on, now." She took Maud's hand and led her to a narrow door.

Behind the door was a staircase only wide enough for one person at a time. Clary nudged Maud in front of her and kept a gentle hand on Maud's shoulder as they ascended. Maud kept that at the front of her mind, the warmth of that touch, the breezy welcome she felt from the house's wards now.

At the top of the stairs, a hallway stretched left and right. Plain wood panel on all the walls, not carved like below, stained darker. A single small painting hung between the two nearest doors. Clary's hand on her shoulder guided Maud to the right.

Stopping at the second closed door, Clary put her fingers into the groove and slid it open. It recessed into the wall. "You can sleep here, and we'll keep your things here as well," she said. There was a bed with an undecorated light wood frame, its headboard against the wall under the single small window, a folded blanket at its foot. A wardrobe was opposite, with a small table and single chair next to it.

"Thank you," Maud said. It didn't feel anything like home, but it would be comfortable enough. She walked over and collapsed onto the bed, her limbs like jelly.

Clary sat on the bed next to her and spread the blanket over her. "If you're tired, might as well sleep," she said.

"I'm not tired," but she was. Maud found herself yawning. It was hours before her bedtime; she shouldn't be sleepy yet. "When you go out tomorrow, I can't go with you. But..." her voice trailed off.

Clary patted her shoulder. "You'll be safe here. Wizard Tammas is a good man. And a powerful wizard. I know --" she paused, and her voice went lower, "-- something bad must have happened, for your mother to send you to me. Very bad." Her hand moved to Maud's forehead, stroking away the hair from her eyes.

Maud felt her eyes stinging with tears. She hadn't cried when her home was attacked, when she had to knock on these strangers' door to ask for help, when a wizard was casting his magic on her, but here in a safe bed with a kind woman, what was wrong with her? If she didn't control herself better, the chaos was going to hurt Clary, and then what would she do? A sob escaped, a shudder ran through her, and the tight bundle of chaos within her nearly unraveled. Think. Breathe. Clouds in blue sky... soft waves lapping the sand... golden leaves drifting down. Tranquility.

When Maud opened her eyes, Clary was looking at her with kind concern. "It's all right." She was trying to be reassuring, but she wasn't Maud's mother, it wasn't all right, it couldn't be--

--Her mother would come for her. And until then, Maud was safe here, warded. She had to let herself believe that. Clary wanted to help. The wards on the house were strong. Maud tried to distract herself by saying, "Can I ask you something?" Not adding aloud that she hadn't wanted to ask about this in front of the wizard.

"Of course you may," Clary said.

"Mother told me that your father was my grandmother's brother," she said. "But you said it was your mother who was her sister." And she'd said the other grandmother, too. "And she told me my father was your cousin, but you said she was."

Clary's eyebrows lowered over her eyes. "That is so," she said. "It must stay a secret that you and my father are related. It's bad enough for me, with no magic. Or your mother, with her healing, that's acceptable. Do you have her magic? Or none at all?"

Maud shook her head, pushing her face into the pillow as she did so.

"But those White Mages don't believe it, do they?" Clary tutted, patting the back of Maud's head. "They don't come after me, with me working for Wizard Tammas and he says it's very clear to the sight that I haven't the Talent. So they leave me alone now. It'll be the same for you soon, we'll make sure."

After Clary left, Maud curled up on her side. Eyes closed, she focused on her breathing. Slowly she soothed her aura, keeping her chaos contained. In the quiet calm, she heard a soft patter and a trill as a cat leapt onto her bed.

Her eyes opened. The gray and white cat touched his nose to hers. He turned in a circle, then a closer one, and sank into the blanket in a perfect circle, tail curled around whiskers. His purr lulled her into peaceful sleep.

---

Breakfast with the girl and Clary had become a habit over the last week. Maud had taken over the chore of preparing and serving the cats their morning meal, while Clary made eggs and toast, and Tammas made tea and divided whatever fruit or dessert was left over from the evening meal the day before onto three plates.

It was nice. Homey. He hadn't done a family sort of breakfast like this since his apprentices had grown up and left to start their independent careers, the year before he hired Clary. He had thought he was too old to take on new apprentices; he hadn't realized how much he'd missed having a young person about the place.

Not that Maud was much of a conversationalist. But she was good to the cats. And even though she was quiet, he kept feeling as though he should look at her -- notice something -- as though he was missing something important about her. He kept remembering there was something off about the sound of the ward when she'd rung the bell. Tammas tried to summon a memory of that sound.

The ringing of the wards that interrupted breakfast and his thoughts was loud, low, and steady: in every way discordant to the recollection he had been attempting. Though they were warning of powerful ill intent, the wards were not sounding imminent attack. And the low pitch meant a return visitor.

Which meant, most likely, his nephew Eren. Tammas scowled and pushed himself to his feet. "Finish your breakfast," he told Clary and Maud. "I'll see to him."

"Who will he see to?" Maud asked Clary as he pulled a strip of paper from his sleeve. Tammas stepped into the front hall and folded it quickly. He had taken to breakfasting in his dressing robe, and did not like to meet Eren in anything less than full formal. Which he could do near-instantly with a spell, channeling light through the folds as he reached the door.

He opened it to find, not only his nephew as expected, but two of Eren's colleagues. Or perhaps lackeys was the better term. "Young man, you have interrupted my breakfast," Tammas said. "I thought you had learned to send notice and arrive during proper visiting hours, but it seems not."

"Uncle," Eren said, "we have reason to believe that a dangerous person has been hiding here. In my concern for your safety, I omitted the social niceties. Please forgive me." He pushed his way in, the ward wrapping itself around him as he entered.

Tammas had revoked Eren's welcome some time ago. Eren was powerful, but not powerful enough to break the wards of his house, not even with the help of two friends. Though maybe there was a small chance the three of them, given time and if the lackeys were as gifted as Eren himself... Best to be rid of them before it came to finding out, Tammas thought.

"No, I don't think I shall," Tammas said to himself. He looked sharply at the two lackeys, who had not tried to follow their leader in without welcome. "Please wait here, gentlemen." Tammas shut the door in their faces and turned to his nephew.

"We do not have time to indulge your sense of propriety, Uncle." He went on to explain that this supposed monster they were seeking, in his house no less, had wreaked havoc unprovoked on a team of his adepts. Eren thought of the White Mages as so much more skilled at magic than they were. They had the potential for power, but like Eren, they considered taking the time to do things right as a mere social nicety for which they were in too much a hurry.

"I assure you, Eren, my wards would protect me and my house from such a miscreant." Tammas forced himself to smile. "Now, I will return to my breakfast, and you must go seek your demons elsewhere."

Eren frowned. "The fugitive is one of the Wilgrimore family, and your housekeeper's a Wilgrimore. Let me speak to her. The attack had all the signs of chaos magic. I know your housekeeper is ungifted, but she may be --"

Tammas interrupted with a scoff. "Chaos magic. Have you taken up believing fairy tales? Clary's father may have been thought a chaos mage by the uneducated, but we know such things don't exist. Untaught, strong magic may take odd forms, but there's no adept who by their nature can only destroy with magic, not control it."

"Ivory Tower idealism, Uncle." A clatter came from the kitchen, and at the same moment, Shena darted past the two men with a hiss followed by the streak of white that was Vana. Eren pushed past Tammas toward the sound, in the direction the cats had come.

Tammas followed. There was a saucepan on the floor, pieces of a broken pie plate, and spilled pie that Lila was sniffing at; Pireet stood on the table, Maud had a broom and dustpan in hand, and Clary was holding the serving tray with the tea service on it. The red mess on Maud's dress caught his eye. "Are you bleeding, child?"

"It's pie filling. I'm fine, but your pie plate-- I'll clean it up," Maud said. "Pireet thought he saw a rat, and, well. Cousin Clary--"

Eren, who had been ignoring the domestic disturbance, spun on the girl and caught her in a sharp look. He pulled a folded spell from his belt and cast light into it -- or tried to. The house wards flared around him, trapping the magic, and his spell remained nothing but paper. "You! This is the chaos mage, Uncle. Not to fear, I will take care of this." He thrust his hand forward in an attempt to seize Maud's thin wrist. The child let out a little breathy shriek.

"Rat," said Pireet, and launched himself at Eren with a yowl. Maud, within the wards, was entirely safe from Eren, who was outside them; but the cat could not have known.

Good kitty, Tammas thought, proud of his newest pet, pleased that he had been able to convince Clary to tolerate a fourth cat. Pireet had not sprayed inside the house at all.

But, oh no. While they would shield Maud from harm, Tammas had made it so the wards ignored cats -- his nephew could hurt Pireet. Tammas would not let a tomcat outdo him in defense of his household. Even as old as he was, a wizard must be preeminent in his domain.

"Enough." The wizard pitched his voice to all the authority his age and power could command. And it gave him a moment in which everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him. Even Pireet paused in his assault, claws digging into Eren's shoulder.

And that moment was all it took for Tammas to take a sheet of paper from the shelf beside him and crease it in half, then open it again. The simplest spell of all, but it took more power than most could provide. And only worked inside one's own warded bastion.

Peace and order descended on everyone, even the cats.

---

Maud felt the chaos in her ready to burst. She had been about to sweep up the pieces of the plate Pireet had broken, but then the strange man had grabbed her and it had reared up inside her, fierce, murderous. The black tendrils would show in her eyes in a moment, between her fingers, if she didn't stop them. And how could she? She was being attacked. For a moment she wasn't in Cousin Clary's kitchen at all, she was in her own house, a mirror shattering...

She screamed, the chaos swelled, no amount of breathing or thinking of trees was helping at all, and then the wizard cast his spell.

It froze her in place. The wards held her with a warm embrace as gentle as her mother's had been when she was little and sleepy. The reaching wisps of chaos didn't vanish, but they became fluffy as combed wool.

"Look at her," Tammas said, his voice seeming to come from far away though he was right beside her. "You cannot fear this child, or what is within her. Not if you look."

"But he does," Maud said, finding her voice. A memory flooded into her mind, the one she'd been hiding from. The warmth of the wizard's peace spell let her see it without breaking; the order of the spell had forced her to see it for the truth it was, not the nightmare she'd been pretending, wishing, it could be. Still she felt the weight of unshed tears. Deceptively calm, her voice added, "He may have good reason."

"This is no child, Uncle. She killed grown men, and she hardly looks sorry."

"They killed my mother!" The spell was loosening its grasp, her magic beginning to writhe uneasily and shed its temporary fluffiness. Maud's face felt hot. Her eyes spilled over, a shudder wracking her. Her mother was dead, she'd never see her again, why should she even try to keep her magic from breaking things? It was too late for her to be good. Too late for her to save anything.

Maud would have fallen, but Clary caught her. "Rose is dead? Oh, Maud." Clary's arms were tight around her. Maud sobbed into her cousin's warm shoulder. Another warmth pushed into her side -- Pireet. He licked her hand, sandpaper tongue rasping.

"There," the wizard said, his voice angry. "How dare you, nephew. Begone."

Maud looked up only long enough to see the two men retreating. Her magic was everywhere, tendrils of chaos filling the room, yet nothing was broken. The wonder of that broke through her despair. She untangled herself from Clary and followed close enough to watch the men, though well out of reach of them.

The wizard spoke coldly as he pushed the White Mage out of his house. "You have no cause. Mage law permits killing in defense of family -- even by untrained children. She's of the age to be apprenticed, and I have no apprentice these past twelve years. I will teach her."

"Uncle, have you lost your wits with age? A chaos mage as your apprentice?" Eren tucked his chin, splaying his fingers across his forehead as if trying to hide his face. "When she kills you and knocks your house to the ground, I'll have my revenge then. So be it."

Maud had not expected Eren to look so defeated. She thought it must be put on for his uncle. He would try something sneaky, she suspected, to get around whatever rule this was. But at least it sounded like she'd have protection even outside the house, outside the wards. She could shop, go to the park, go outside. Maud was surprised to realize she wanted to try those things. It -- how could she? Go out? When her mother had been killed. And yet, as she looked past Eren out the open door, her tears dried, and she felt a longing for everything she saw.

Clary closed the door firmly behind Eren. While she did that, Tammas watched Maud, a serious expression on his face. "I'm very sorry for the loss of your mother, Maud," he said, ignoring the evidence of her magic everywhere. He didn't look frightened of her at all. "You have a place here for as long as you need it."

"But wasn't he right? Look at all this! I'm inside your wards, I could break your things." She thought, but didn't dare say, she could hurt Clary, the cats, maybe even him. But nothing was breaking, she could see that perfectly well. She didn't understand it, but it was real.

The old wizard looked around them, then pinched his chin. "Perhaps you could. But you won't," he said to her with astonishing confidence. She could see he wanted to smile at her, but he wouldn't let himself. Wanting to smile at her when he ought to be afraid, by everything she'd ever been taught. So she smiled at him. It felt strange to smile, when she'd never see her mother again. She ought to still be crying, a part of her insisted--

-- But then Pireet hopped up onto the table and nosed at Maud's hand. "Egg," he said.

"You don't get eggs, Pireet, you know that." The cat was a reason to smile, Maud thought. She used her napkin to dab at her eyes. She didn't want to cry again. If she started, she feared she wouldn't be able to stop.

"I meant what I told my nephew. I would like you to be my apprentice. Not only to protect you from him. I think it will be very interesting to teach you." Tammas smiled back at her now.

"It's too dangerous," Maud said. "It might not be breaking things now, but that's all it can do."

"You must know this, child. Even though it will be unlawful, Eren and the other White Mages will still be your enemies. I will teach you to defend yourself from them, not the way the magic in you defends itself instinctively, but safely. Without destruction."

"It's not possible," Maud tried to explain to him, her voice low. "He was right. My magic is chaos."

"Because you are a Wilgrimore? Part of Clary's father's family?"

At this, Clary slid behind the wizard as if to avoid his view. She picked up Lila, who had come back out and was licking the floor where the pie had fallen. They hadn't cleaned up all the crumbs, it seemed.

"She was only saying I wasn't to protect me," Maud said in Clary's defense.

Clary and Tammas began to speak at the same time. Then they both stopped, both told the other to go on. Maud almost laughed at the two of them.

It would not be so bad to stay here. To learn whatever Tammas could manage to teach her. To have Clary and the old wizard and his cats. Maud missed her mother terribly, but for the first time since the mirror had shattered -- no, longer than that, because being hidden in her mother's house had been steadily more stifling as she grew, as her tiny world seemed smaller and smaller -- for the first time in longer than she could remember, she saw a chance for something she'd never expected: a future.