No one was allowed to wear jewelry, especially in the forges.  It was too dangerous.  Firewylfs loved metal of all sorts, and were apt to flow into any that was near.  Stories were told of fiery loops burning into girls’ necks and arms, or searing their ears.  

The first day after I’d arrived, the Forge Mistress had let us watch her call them.

“No jewelry.  Nothing metal of any kind,” she said in the open area outside the forges.  She looked at the five of us sternly.  I pulled the protective amulet my father had made me over my neck and laid it on a stone block.  The Forge Mistress’s eyes moved to Kebbe who wore a betrothal stud in her nose.

“Take it out.  You can leave it here beside Shennafi’s amulet.”

Kebbe’s eyes widened.   "I can’t!  Deste won't marry me!"

The Forge Mistress closed her eyes momentarily.  “You may wear it as long as you are not in the forges, but what will your Deste think if you come to him with your nose burnt half off?”

Kebbe scowled, but unscrewed the stud, setting it beside my amulet.  The other girls didn’t have anything to leave outside, and we followed the Forge Mistress into the forge building.  

I could hardly walk for staring.  The outer walls were cut away into wide, low arches, and inside was a honeycomb of smaller rooms.  Huge bellows dangled from the ceilings and smaller ones stuck out from the backs of the forges.  I couldn’t tell how they’d hollowed out the chimneys.  Maybe they had done it with firewylfs.  A thrill ran up my spine.  

The Forge Mistress stopped by a small brick fire-pit.  She reached into a pouch at her waist and sprinkled something over the coals.  A thin, aromatic smoke curled into the air.  

I held my breath as she began to work the bellows, murmuring something under her breath.  The coals brightened, flared, and burst into fire.  The air shivered.  I gaped as flames leapt up, reaching nearly to the low roof.  They curled and danced, changing into shape after graceful shape before dwindling into the coals and vanishing.

Kebbe’s breath hissed between her teeth.  She bent forward a little.  

“They dance to the music of the stars,” said a low voice; I couldn’t tell whose.

The Forge Mistress didn’t contradict her.  “You will be taught the prayers and rituals when the dry season is over and the rains come,” she said, leading us back outside.  “Until then, attend to your classes well, so that you will be ready.  Now, as it is Mistday, you may do as you wish until Sunset Vigil. Don’t be late.”

Two of the girls ran off towards the largest building where we slept and ate.  

“There’s a waterfall over there,” Kebbe said to me.  “Have you seen it?”  Her voice sounded strained.  

“No, I haven’t.”  As we turned, I noticed the last of our class - Hetta, I remembered her name was - standing uncertainly by herself.  

“Come with us,” I invited.

A shy smile brightened her thin face, easing the wariness in her black eyes, and she nodded.  We both had to hurry to keep up with Kebbe, who was walking fast, hunched over herself.  When we got to the waterfall, she yanked her shemma over her head and ran straight into the pool at its base.  

Hetta and I looked at each other.  I shrugged and grinned, and pulled my own shemma off, dropping it on the grassy bank.  Kebbe was squatting down, so only her head showed, holding something on a cord away from her body.  

“What are … Kebbe!”  I’d seen the glint of gold at the end of the cord.

She looked up at me, her eyes laughing.  “Don’t wear jewelry around firewylfs.  The Forge Mistress was right.”  She stood up, thigh-deep in the pool, still holding the ring out in the air.  “It burned me.”  She pointed at a spot between her breasts, where an angry circle showed in her skin.  

Kebbe was beautiful.  I didn’t want to be married:  I was going to be the best Ladysmith ever, and men had no part in my plans, but I wouldn’t have minded looking a little more like her.  She was plump and curvy, her skin the color of smooth ebony-wood.  Her hair fell in glossy black ringlets, the spray from the waterfall adorning it like diamonds.  I looked down at myself - frizzy-haired, brown and bony - and sighed.

“You should have told her!” Hetta said.  “What if it doesn’t heal properly?”

“Oh, it will be fine,” Kebbe said.  “It didn’t burn very badly.”  She grinned at us.  “It’s my marriage ring, do you want to see?”

I bent over the ring.  It was made of thin wires intertwined, in varying colors of gold - white and rose and yellow - and I could feel the Ladysmith betrothal blessing even without touching it.  

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.  

Hetta finally waded into the pool to see, though she didn’t take her shemma off.  “Is it a Ladysmith working?” she asked.  “It is lovely.”

Kebbe beamed and began to babble about Deste and how long it had taken him to save up enough money to buy it and find a Ladysmith to bless it properly, and how they would be married as soon as she finished her schooling.  

I stopped listening and looked out at the school instead.  I’d never seen anything like it.  The cliffs had been carved away in a semi-circle, so that walls grew seamlessly from the ground and arched into roofs.  Stairways rose as if they had blossomed in place.  All the buildings save the temple were round, and were laid out in a circle as was proper for a place dedicated to the Sun Queen.  The cliff walls curved protectingly around.

The sun vanished behind a thin cloud, and I shivered, suddenly chilled.  Splashing out of the pool, I grabbed up my shemma and yanked it over my head.  “Come on, quick.  You can tell us about Deste the Divine and your sixty-three children-to-be later.  If we’re late for Vigil, the Forge Mistress will slaughter us.”

We ran to get our white shemmam.  I made it to my place just before the sun touched the horizon.  “You’re almost late,” whispered Kebbe.   Hetta’s spot beside me was still empty.  We stood facing N’kete, watching the city’s walls and towers become a silhouette as the sun sank into the desert beyond.  The mistresses, and those of the students who had learned to imbue light, held tiny glowing orbs.  

Hetta came running up just as Em’yete Taeche stepped onto the stone anvil and started to sing, but any hope that the slap of her sandals would be masked by the music was doomed.  The Forge Mistress turned her head the bare fraction needed to direct a withering glare our direction before returning her attention to the sunset and the song.  The sound, high and pure and sweet, gave me goosebumps.  

When the sun was fully set, we scurried through the lamp-lit darkness to our rooms.  I hung my white shemma on its peg and pulled on my every-day one.  Except at Vigil, we wouldn’t be allowed to wear the white ones until we became Ladysmiths.  As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered what the Forge Mistress would do to Hetta.  

But when I asked Hetta the next day, as we walked to the forges after a morning spent copying out scrolls on the various properties of brass, she shrugged.  “Nothing.  She said to be on time next time or she might decide I didn’t really want to be a Ladysmith.  That’s all.”  She hardly seemed to care, though that threat from the Forge Mistress herself would have reduced me to a state of near panic. 

I’d wanted to be a Ladysmith since I’d seen one at my aunt’s in Vier’saan when I was six.  As tall as the trees, dressed all in white, with tiny flames danced in her black, curly hair, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.  People flowed magically away from her, like water parting and leaving a space for her to walk through.  Being here, learning to be a Ladysmith myself, was the best thing in my life.

We went into the forges and set to work.  We were learning to make brass lamps.  That meant making the brass as well as the lamp itself.  The bowl for the bottom was easy, thanks to all the hours I’d spent practicing under Papa’s watchful eyes.  But the chimney had to flare in the middle, and I was having trouble with the reflector.  

“No,” Em’yete Konti said again.  She took down a pair of tongs and lifted my latest attempt from the coals.  “It needs to be  smooth and flat.  Look.”  Turning it this way and that so it caught the light, she looked at me.  

With the shadows laying across the brass, I could see where it dimpled instead of lying perfectly flat.  “I don’t see what I’m doing wrong,” I grumbled.  

She frowned at me.  “You are impatient and hasty.  What is the first rule of the forge?”

I sighed.  “Know your materials.”

“And?”

“This is brass.  Brass is the wedding of copper and zinc,” I recited.  

She just looked at me, waiting.  I searched my memory.  “Um, copper is the Sun Queen’s second favorite metal because of its color, even though it is more sympathetic to the Mist King.  And zinc is the color of mist, but its affinity is air, which is nearer to fire.  So they are opposite, but balanced.  It should work!  What am I doing wrong?”

“The marriage is too weak.  See how pale the color is?  The Sun Queen won’t bless something that is nearer her sister, the Moon Princess, than herself.  You will have to melt it again and add more copper.  Also, your fire needs to be hotter.  When you see the faintest blue core, it is right.”

I tried not to roll my eyes.  The Sun Queen sounded like Elkite back home who thought she was the prettiest girl in Abhoi, and got mad if anyone admired someone more than her.  But if being a Ladysmith meant putting up with the vagaries of a mercurial goddess, I would do it.  I would do anything.  I started the bellows while Em’yete Konti laid the reflector back into the melting pot.  

As I pumped the hand levers, air streamed into the forge below the coals and they brightened instantly, then roared as flames leapt up.  Despite my frustration, a smile widened over my face.  I loved smithing.  I love the heat and roar of the fires, I loved the colors that bled and flared, the moment when the metal yielded beneath my hammer.  I even loved the tiny freckle-like burns anointing my face and fore-arms where slivers of over-heated, over-stressed pieces buried themselves when unready metal burst apart. 

When the metal had melted and the new copper had been wedded into it, I poured it and set it to cool.  I couldn’t do anything more until tomorrow.  Pressing my fists into my back, I stretched.  

Through a doorway, her figure wavering slightly from the heat-shimmer between us, I recognized Isttel.  She was working the double bellows, using both hands and feet to get the hottest fire possible, and her face was set into a grimace of concentration.  I didn’t dare to interrupt her, but I stopped outside and watched and a thrill of excitement tingled in my belly.  I was sure she was calling her firewylfs.  

I’d been perfectly silent and still, staying far enough away that nothing of my spirit could reach out and distract Isttel, but after a few minutes, she stopped pumping the bellows and turned to glare at me.

“Go away!  They were almost here, and then you made them leave.  Get out!”

I slunk out of the forge, confused and ashamed.  What had I done to make her angry?  The firewylfs didn’t really dislike me, did they?  They couldn’t.  It must have been something else.  

Later, I sought Isttel out in her room.  

“Yes?”  She looked up smiling from a bowl of scented water when I clapped outside her door, but her expression soured at once.  “What do you want?”

“I want to apologize,” I answered.  “I didn’t mean to disturb you this afternoon.  I didn’t realize I was close enough for you to - “ I faltered.  

She sniffed.  “Very well.  But stay away from me when I’m smithing, do you hear?  I don’t want you messing things up again.”

“Yes… I’m sorry.”  I hesitated in the doorway.  “I - er - I saw your leaving ceremony when you left Abhoi to come here,”  I ventured.

She scowled.  “And you think this should make us friends?”

I flushed.  Then, lifting my chin, I said, “I did.  Clearly, that is not the case.”

“I hated living in that wretched town,” Isttel snapped.  “You will please me if you don’t remind me of it.”

“What if I don’t want to please you?”  I ran down the hall so I wouldn’t hear if she answered, anger burning in my chest.  Fury at Isttel’s rudeness mingled with a longing so deep it ached.  Why did we have to wait so long before learning to summon the firewylfs?  I didn’t think I could.  

The sandstone floor was cold and uneven.  The walls were several feet thick, even here on the upper floor where the students’ rooms were.  On the ground floor, the doors were nearly tunnels.  I ran past a moth-eaten tapestry of some ancient king’s coronation hung there, with a hole where his face had been.  

What if Isttel was right?  What if it wasn’t just that someone was there, disturbing her - what if it was me, specially?  Maybe there’s something about me that the firewylfs don’t like.

My steps led me unerringly towards the forges.  I stopped beneath the ancient archway leading into a red-glowing darkness, and took a deep breath.  ‘Emotions went into the metal and could ruin the working.  A smith should only work in calmness and serenity,’ I recited silently.

I wasn’t very calm, but I went further into the metallic darkness anyways, letting the heat of the fires leach away my anger.  I wandered aimlessly through the building, awe growing as anger faded.  One room had tiny, delicate knives and picks, and some round glass discs that I didn’t recognize.  Another had bronze hammers with round heads, each small enough to hold two or three in one hand.  I picked one up.  It was no longer than the palm of my hand and balanced easily on a finger.

By the time I reached the forges where the most advanced students worked, the tension had loosed its stranglehold on my chest.  I stopped to watch one of the teachers explaining how to set gems into a finger-ring.  Nearby, the Fire Mistress herself was telling two girls how to imbue a blessing of love into a marriage ring.  As I watched, she finished her explanation and turned away.  I snatched at my opportunity.  

“Em'yete… “

“Yes, Shennafi?”  She turned, waiting.

“Um.  Well.  Ah - the firewylfs - “

“No, you cannot learn to call them now.  You will be taught in Sene, when the rains come.”  

“I know.  I didn’t mean that.  It’s just that, well, I was watching Isttel earlier, and she said that I stopped them coming, and I’m sure I was far enough away not to be a disturbance…”  My voice trailed off.  I couldn’t say it, as if somehow, speaking the words might make them true.

Her face was sympathetic.  “You’re worried that there is something in you that repels the wylfs,” she said.  

I nodded, sudden tears stinging my eyes, and blinked hard to keep them from falling.  

She patted my shoulder.  “Don’t worry.  It’s merely a matter of concentration.  I daresay Isttel wasn’t focusing enough, and blamed you for her own failing.  You will do fine.”

I closed my eyes and drew in a great breath of hot, fire-smelling air, before smiling at the Mistress.  “Thank you.”  I didn’t tell her how badly I wanted to be a Ladysmith, or for how long I’d been harboring that dream, but she smiled as if she knew, and left.  

Relief made me giddy.  Papa hadn’t wanted me to come.  “I don’t want you messing around with that sun magic,” he’d said.  “It’s frippery stuff.  Unreliable.  Anyways, I can teach you all the smithing you need to know.  Aren’t you going to take over the forge for me when I get too old to be hammering iron any more?”  

It had taken me a long time to convince him to let me go.  I couldn’t fail.

The months passed swiftly, Hidar turning to Tir and Tir to Ginot.  I was busier than I’d ever been in my life.  Before I knew it, it was Yekat and philosophy gave way to astronomy.  

I didn’t see how the stars had any effect on forging, and I said so.  

“They don’t, directly,” Mistress Ogalech answered.  “But they affect other things that do.  For instance, certain herbs are more potent at certain times; some workings are more successful or more powerful when the stars are aligned properly for them; and the firewylfs seem to like some stars better than others.”

“They do?  Which ones?”  I stared up at the light-spattered sky, trying to remember which stars were which.

“It’s different for everyone.  You’ll have to find out on your own, when you call them for yourself.  So.”  She gave us a tight-lipped smile.  “The better you learn the star-patterns now, the less time you’ll have to spend in the future figuring out why the foot-warmer you made last week is so much hotter than the one you made this week.”

“Oh.”  I applied myself studiously to the stars, but I was cold.  It was hard to remember their names when I was shivering.  I knew the weather was mild here, everyone said so, but I was cold.  And this was the forge school for Ladysmiths, who were able to make foot-warmers (and hand-warmers, and surely arm, leg, and head-warmers) that stayed the same temperature forever.  Why did I have to stand on the roof in the middle of the night, and freeze to death?

For that matter, we were all of us smiths, with all the supplies a person could ever need stored under our feet.  I missed half of Mistress Ogalech’s next speech because I was busy plotting how to make a coal-carrier, preferably small enough to fit into a pocket but not catch that pocket on fire.

“… at night.  Why do you think that is so?  Shennafi?”  

I jumped and felt my face grow hot.  “Uh.  Only at night?  Well, er - “  I shot a frantic look at Kebbe who was standing next to me.  She glanced at the mistress and whispered, “Alliopin.”

My brain stayed blank.  Alliopin was a low-growing plant with spicily scented leaves and tiny white berries.  The flowers were pale green and hardly noticeable.  It was also known as ‘Azi’s Bracelet’.  I hadn’t the faintest idea how any of this related to the ‘at night’ of the missed question.  Except that the Aziza were rumored to come out at night and dance, using the berries for jewelry, and I was fairly certain that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.  Especially since, according to the same rumors, the Aziza were tiny, winged, and very voluptuous women who danced unclothed, with their hair swirling about them.  

“ - it, uh…”  I gave up.  “I don’t know, Em'yete Ogalech.  Um, you can smell the leaves more easily at night?”

She gave me a look compounded of disappointment and reproof.  

I felt about as tall as her boots.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t hear the question properly.  I was thinking about hand-warmers.”

I thought her mouth twitched.  “I asked,” she repeated, “If you knew why it might be that Alliopin berries are most potent at night.  And no, it is not because the leaves are scented.”

I blushed even hotter and tried to think.  I really didn’t know, but I hazarded a guess.  “I don’t know, Em'yete.  Would it be because they are white like the stars?”

“Very good.  And they are most sensitive to the Ten Ladies.  Why do you think that would be?”  Her gaze swept around our small, shivering group.  “Litte?”

Litte answered promptly.  “Because the Ten Ladies are in a cluster, like the berries.”

“Precisely.  Like calls to like, remember that.  But in rare circumstances, something that is unlike will call forth more power than the kindred item will.  Tomorrow, we will not meet after nightfall.  Instead, I want you at the bottom of the cliff stairs three hours before dawn.  Please bring your star drawings.  And Shennafi - a tea of fire-flower bark will help keep you warm.”

I thanked her.  I was sure it would.  I thought hand-warmers would be a great help also.  I didn’t know if I could get one done before meeting at the cliff-stairs, but I meant to try.

This past month, we’d been learning to make spheres.  It shouldn’t have been that hard - it was just two bowls fused together and polished smooth and I’d known how to make small bowls since I was thirteen - but I couldn’t get it right.  No matter how carefully I measured, one would be a fraction larger than the other, or the seam would end up crooked, or something.  Once, I thought I had it, only to notice (as I carried the finished product proudly out to show the forge mistress) that there was a bulge in the side.  

I meant to make my handwarmer a sphere with a hole in one end.  I would put coals inside the hole, then wrap it in leather and wool to keep it from burning me.  The problem would be how to keep the fire alive without letting the coals fall out.  It wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t perfect; if it kept me warm, I would be happy.  

Every spare moment I had the next day, I spent in the forges.  By night-fall, I had made the sphere and punched the hole in it.  A screen of some sort might work to cover the hole.  I searched sleepily through the discards and found one that looked like the right size.   Dumping a handful of coals into the opening, I wedged the screen in place and went to bed.

I dreamed that my hand-warmer grew to the size of an ox-cart, and the coals inside turned first white, then purple and roared like Wainaba the Dragon-snake.  It flew over N’kete, showering it with sparks that lit everything on fire and left only a plain of black glass.  Then Ogun the Smith descended from the heavens, breaking the glass with deafening blows of his giant hammer.  

I stared blearily at my door for a minute, wondering why Ogun was hammering on it, before I realized I was awake.  

“What?”

“Shenn!  Get up!  You’re late.”

I leapt off my pallet, groping blindly for my shemma, and hauling it on over my bed-robe.  “Coming,” I mumbled, pulling the end of the robe up over my head and grabbing a scarf to wrap around my hand-warmer.  I was out of the room before I remembered - the star drawing.  Groaning, I ran back in, trying to find it in the dark.  I knew where I had laid it, where was the stupid - there!  I snatched it up and ran.  

I wasn’t very late.  The other girls were clustered around Mistress Ogalech showing her their illustrations when I came panting up.  She frowned at me, but didn’t say anything.  

When she had inspected our work, we climbed to the top of the cliff, and walked west away from the herders' huts.  “The cliffs obscure these stars,” Mistress Ogalech told us.  “Tir is the only month they can be seen, and they never rise high in the sky.”  We climbed a small hill and followed her pointing finger south.  Just above the horizon was a bright group of five stars.  

“That is called the Queen's Jewel Box,” Mistress Ogalech explained.  “It isn’t very important because it is seen so rarely, but now and then, you will find a firewylf who associates itself closely with those stars, and they are best for doing very fine, decorative work.”  

I smothered a yawn and drew the constellation into my star-picture, then began to write the alignments and affiliations down, occasionally holding my fingers against the warm curve of my shawl to thaw them out.  I was still the slowest at writing, and I gritted my teeth while I formed the curving letters, trying to get every one right.  Mis-reading one word for another and ending up with a ruin instead of a proper work was not what I had in mind for my future.

“Shenn?”  Hetta’s voice quavered.  “Shenn, you’re smoking.”

I leapt up, throwing my kufa away in a panic.  My handwarmer fell out, scattering coals.  The screen had come unfastened and the coals had slid up against the cloth, scorching it.  Sheepishly, I gathered the kufa and the sphere, kicking dust over the coals.  

“It was a good idea,” Kebbe said, comfortingly.  “Next time - ”

“Next time,” Mistress Ogalech said, her voice severe, “You should think it through a little better, Shennafi.  But,” she added, “It was cleverly done.”

We made it back to the cliff-stairs just as the sun rose in the east.  Hetta stumbled climbing down.  Kebbe caught her, but yawned so hard her face almost split in half.  We all straggled into the courtyard, blinking and fighting back yawns, and Mistress Ogalech laughed.  

“Go back to bed, sleepy ones.”  

I didn’t even bother to take my shemma off before crawling beneath my sheet.

**

Warm, sweet air eddied around us where we sat in the herb-gardens that afternoon, diligently drawing the leaves, roots and flowers of the different plants, and noting down everything we knew about what they were useful for, when to pick them, how to prepare them…

I laid down my pen and leaned backwards, stretching.  “I’m so tired of writing!” I groaned.  “I can’t wait until we learn how to summon our very own wylfs!”

“Don’t you wonder how they do it?” Litte asked.  “Aren’t you nervous?  I am.”

“Of course, we wonder,” Kebbe answered, toying with the chain around her neck.  “But we’ll find out pretty soon.  In Sene, Mistress Naku said.  That’s just next month.”  She looked at the ring she held.  “I’m not nervous - I just wish it was done and over with.”

“Do you miss Deste?”  Hetta, always quiet, spoke even softer.  

Kebbe nodded, and her handed tightened around the chain.  In a low voice, she said, “I - I worry sometimes.  What if he finds someone he likes better than me?  It’s so very long before I can go home and we can be properly wed.  I - “  

Scooting closer to Kebbe, Femmnal put an arm around the other girl.  “Don’t worry,” she said.  “You know Deste loves you.  He’ll wait.”  Her voice gained a teasing note.  “Besides, no other girl could bring him Ladysmith power as a bridal gift!  Don’t cry.”

Kebbe bit her lip, then tossed her head.  “I’m not going to cry.  But I wish I could learn faster and be done sooner.  I wish Sene would come.  It’s ten-days away still.”

“You just said it would be soon,” Litte teased.

“It is soon.  It just doesn’t feel like it.”  

“The Fire Mistress said it was just a matter of concentration,” I offered.  “I’m sure you’ll learn quickly.  And once we know how to call the wylfs - “  I shrugged and grinned.  “How hard can the rest of it be?  You’ll be out of here before you know it, Kebbe.”

Kebbe seized on the first part of my words.  “She did?”

“When?” Hetta asked.  

“A while ago,” I admitted.  “I’d forgotten - “

“You forgot?  How could you!  Why didn’t you tell us what she said?  We’ve only been talking about it all year!”  They all spoke at once, their voices running over each other.

“I’m sorry,” I said.  “I didn’t mean to.  I - “  I hesitated, remembering, then admitted reluctantly, “I was angry.  Iste - Someone made me mad, so I went to the forges to calm myself down.  She only said it in passing; I just forgot.  That’s all.”

“Well, you’ve told us now,” Kebbe said, fair-minded as ever.  “Was that all she said?  Any other tidbits you’re holding back?”  

I had to shake my head.  “I’m sorry,” I repeated.  “That’s all she said, and honest, I would have told you sooner, but I’ve only now remembered.”

“Mistress Ogalech told me that you have to meditate until your heart is pure, and that there is a prayer you must say to call the wylfs.”  It was Femnnal.  Of course.  None of the others could have sounded so snooty without even trying.  “‘My heart is pure.  My strength is greater than ten women,’” she quoted. 

Only Litte was quiet, but her bright, eager eyes flicked from one face to the next as we discussed it.  Soon.  Soon.  It beat through all our veins, a drum we couldn’t ignore.  Soon.  The rains would come.   Soon, we would learn to call the firewylfs, and be truly on our way towards becoming Ladysmiths.

“We should try it.”  

Femnnal’s words made a pool of silence around them.  We all turned and stared at her.  She lifted her chin and stared back.  “Well, why not?  What can it hurt?  It’s not like we’ll actually be able to do anything.  But it wouldn’t hurt to - to practice a little, would it?”

“We should!” I said eagerly.  The yearning that lurked in my heart uncurled into exhilaration at the thought of the shining, effervescent forms of the wylfs.  

“I don’t think so,” Kebbe said.  

Litte agreed with her, her normally mischievous face sober.  But Hetta unexpectedly took our side.  She was normally so shy and diffident that I stared at her, astonished.

“I’d like to try,” she said, flushing.  “I’m usually so bad at things, you know I am.  Maybe if I could practice up ahead of time, I’ll be better when we learn it for real.”

“Come on,” I coaxed Litte and Kebbe.  “We won’t say the prayer.  And we won’t wear the white gowns.  We’ll just concentrate on having pure hearts.”

“I know how to build the fires.  You put in a handful of fire-flowers.”  It was Litte, capitulating.  

“All right, all right.  But that’s all - promise.”  Kebbe looked us each in the face, and one by one, we nodded.  “And we aren’t putting the flowers in either,” she added.  

“Of course not,” I assured her.  But a little thrill went through me.  What if the firewylfs really came?  What if I tried to summon them in truth, not just practicing?  I wouldn’t, of course, but what would happen if I did?