The white walls of Laed appeared at first to be a mirage, shimmering among the clouds, their edges wavy and obscured by distance. It was like a fairy-city from a legend, and Kiri stood at the front of the boat all afternoon as they approached, watching it slowly becoming solid and defined.

Even though Kiri hadn’t done anything to invite it, she also spent most of that time politely listening to the chattering of one of the other passengers. The barrel-shaped middle-aged woman often took it upon herself to chat with Kiri, seeming to think it unseemly for a young woman to spend her time alone. She herself traveled with a wiry grim-faced man who seemed always to be carrying her things. On this occasion she had taken it upon herself to lecture Kiri about what-not-to-do in Laed. This mostly consisted of a list of places and times to avoid so as not to get robbed, or worse. Kiri paid careful attention, though not for the reasons the other woman supposed. As soon as she arrived in town, Kiri decided she would check some of them out. There she could find some prey from a rooftop perch, dressed in black.

It was hard to put the shining fairy-walls together with the seedy places the woman described; it wasn’t until they were very close that the grime started to show in shacks and sheds along the riverbank.

The journey downriver had been long, lengthened partly by the bullying master of oarsmen. If she could have unleashed the Firebrand, Kiri would have, but she couldn’t risk the Firebrand’s identity by revealing herself on a ship that carried so few passengers. So she saw the whip marks, cut lips, and bruised eyes on the crewmen, gritted her teeth, and held it in. It was disappointing to learn the ship would be going on after stopping in Laed, but she did not doubt he would be back. If she paid attention she could find a time to teach him to treat his men better. In the meantime, there would be plenty to do in Laed for the Firebrand. It would be satisfying to save some innocents from criminals after having to stay her hand so long on the boat.

They had passed through the river-gate into Laed, leaving behind the view of the shining walls. Here in river-town, the buildings were all dirty, and gray, and the people dirtier and grayer.

The barrel-shaped lady insisted on accompanying Kiri into the city. Despite Kiri’s attempts to head her off, feeling guilty and annoyed at the attention, the lady wouldn’t hear of “abandoning” a young woman in the city. Kiri was certainly not in the kind of danger the other woman seemed to suppose she must be if left alone, but in the end an escort right to the front gate of the Academy was useful if annoying. She might have lost a good deal of time had she tried to find the place herself.

At the end of a long walk, during which the lady talked incessantly, they reached the Academy. Kiri thanked the lady, and the wiry man who might have been her servant or her husband, and hiked her bag up higher onto shoulder so she could lift her skirt clear of her toes to mount the stone steps. They had taken Kiri to the Central of the Academy’s three buildings. It was by far the largest, and the facade was all great stones that were larger than anything in all the buildings of Westfall Valley. Kiri had no idea how anyone had lifted them into place. The other two buildings were wood and stone, more plain and ordinary, and were linked to the center building by low halls fully lined with multi-colored windows. Her escort had informed her those were the dormitory and the library. The Academy itself, where all the classes were held, was this central building.

The front doors opened into a high-ceilinged, imposingly wide chamber. Halls opened off of it in every direction, and off the rings of balconies that Kiri could see went up many floors. She stopped and scanned, trying to decode the movements of the people going about their business all about her, seeing if there were any clues as to where she could go. There were, as far as she could see, no signs.

“New students to the left, third hall, matron’s office,” a voice behind her said.

Kiri whirled about, and saw a boy not any older than herself seated behind a spindly-legged table. He had a book open before him, and wasn’t looking at her.

“I-” Kiri began.

“Left, third hall,” the boy repeated, still not looking up.

Luckily, the directions proved accurate. Right where he had sent her there was a door with a sign! It bore the label:

JILLA

MATRON

Feeling confident, Kiri knocked twice, firmly.

“Enter,” a warm, soothingly, fittingly, matronly voice, called. Kiri obeyed.

The matron, seated at a desk much sturdier than the boy’s in the entrance had looked, was as matronly as her voice had sounded. She smiled a dimpling smile at Kiri and rose to her feet.

“New student?” she asked.

“I am,” Kiri said.

“It’s not the beginning of term, of course,” Jilla the matron said. “But arrangements can be made, if you come recommended. Do you?”

“Of course,” Kiri said, and was glad to find her letter from Lord Westfall easily in her bag. She placed it in Jilla’s waiting hand. The matron’s eyes flicked quickly over the letter and she nodded. She sat back down at her desk and pulled a big book over in front of her. She flipped it open to a marked page. Kiri could see it contained a long list of names.

“Wait,” she said, as Jilla moved a pen to the page.

“Yes, young lady?” the matron asked.

“Well, you’ve seen my letter, and it speaks to my skills, I hope,” Kiri said. “And it’s my skills, I think, that are important. The thing is, I’ve come here for a new beginning. And, well, surely my name isn’t important.”

“The Academy isn’t a place to come to escape the law, you know,” Jilla said, with a disapproving frown Kiri could imagine on her own mother’s face.

“Oh, it isn’t legal trouble,” Kiri said. “There’s just a man I’d rather couldn’t find me.”

“Ah, say no more,” Jilla said. She tapped the side of her nose. “What name shall I put down then?”

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“Shaela of Highfalls,” Kiri said, giving the name she had used on the boat.

“Well then, lady Shaela,” the matron said, writing the name as she spoke. “Let’s get you settled in.”

Kiri looked over the list the matron had given her. It looked like she finally had everything. A good thing, too. Her bag was so heavy it was digging a line into her arm that would probably last hours after she put it down. At least she hadn’t had to have anything delivered to her room. The fees were scary high, and she wasn’t sure she remembered the name of the hall where she was staying. It’s always embarrassing not knowing the answer to the question “Where do you live?”

Someone bumped into her as she paused in the pathway between the market stalls. She immediately checked her coin purse, even though she had been assured by her boatmate that theft was very rare in the market. That was the opposite of what she would have expected. The market was a mix of all of Laed, from the poorest to the richest and everything in between. Surely this was the best access to rich purses that a poor pickpocket could hope for? Not only that, the stalls were built right against each other and the paths between them dusty and full of jostling bodies. Many of the wares sat out in the open. It seemed like the perfect hunting ground for thieves, but Kiri had heard and seen no sign of any ill-dealings. Maybe Gilliam had overstated the corruption of Laed, if everyone here could so easily cooperate in such a place. Kiri felt almost silly about the Firebrand clothes she was wearing under her dress. What did she think she would need them for?

Kiri glanced up. The sun was hidden behind clouds, but the sky remained bright. At least an hour till sunset then. She probably had enough time to look around a bit, maybe even buy something she didn’t strictly need, though that might not be a good idea considering she had no sure source of income as yet.

She had been accepted into the Academy on a trial basis, on the strength of Gilliam’s name and Lord Westfall’s letter. However, she would have to pass some exams before she became a permanent student. Being a student came with a lot of duties and responsibilities besides attending classes. Students did nearly all the work of keeping the Academy’s books, and most for the city government as well. In return for this they received room, board, and a small allotment of coin once a week. Kiri, not being fully accepted yet, had no assurance of the coin. If Gilliam had not been right about her qualifications her plan was pretty much doomed. There was no other way that she could count on getting by in this city. Plenty of the shops here in the market employed young women, but Kiri assumed they were family of the owners. They wouldn’t likely give a girl off the street a job. The only places likely to do that, Kiri didn’t want to work for.

Some way into the market the ramshackle stalls gave way to colorful tents. There were now few goods on display and not much sign of what lay behind the curtained doorways. The clientele that entered these tents seemed mostly to be among the wealthier people. Kiri was glad she had changed into her newest dress for the day, the one she had bought for meeting the regents at the Academy. She wouldn’t look too out of place stepping into one of these tents. She guessed this is where the artisans sold their goods. There was very little art in Westfall Valley, and almost no one who made a living at it. So it was with some excitement that Kiri pushed back the hanging drapes on one of the nicer-looking tents and stepped in.

She was in a glass-maker’s shop, it was immediately obvious. Most of the light came from a circular opening in the top of the tent. Directly beneath that opening a circle of cut-glass teardrops hung from a metal ring. The light went through them and threw rainbows all over the tent. The center of the tent floor was open, having only a circular white rug, which was clearly chosen because it showed the rainbows so beautifully, but the rest of the tent was full of shelf after shelf of sparkling glassware of all shapes, sizes, and kinds, all of it sparklingly lit by rainbows that slowly danced as the ring of teardrops stirred in the small wind that pushed through the tent from the open drapes and blew down through its center. Kiri stopped in the doorway, staring at the confusion of color.

“Close the door, if you don’t mind, dearie.”

Kiri spun around. An old man grinned at her from a stool set back by the entry of the tent. Kiri let the curtain fall, and smiled back. The old man was holding a set of tools and some wire. A basket of little glass beads sat at his feet. He had that look that the very old sometimes get that makes it seem like they have been dried in the sun, everything shrunk and wrinkled. His white-white hair looked dry as straw. He also had quite deliberately chosen to sit where he could watch people coming in without them seeing him. Kiri thought that perhaps the prism-ring was his handiwork and he liked to see people’s reactions to it.

“Looking for anything in particular?” he asked.

“Um, not really,” Kiri said. “Do you mind if I look around?”

The old man waved one shriveled hand invitingly. “By all means.”

Kiri put her bag in front of her and held it with both hands so it couldn’t swing and knock over some valuable piece of glass she couldn’t hope to afford with a whole term of wages from the Academy. She walked to the nearest set of shelves, automatically avoiding stepping on the white rug in the center of the tent.

The shelves held bottles of all sizes, but none of them were the simple kind she was used to. Their forms were curved elegantly, and the toppers likewise were all exquisitely shaped. Many of the bottles held their own glistening colors in addition to being dotted with rainbows. Holding her bag tight against her stomach, Kiri leaned forward to look more closely at one bottle that was shaped like a fish; its topper was a curving tail fin. She imagined there must be some reason she needed some pretty piece of glass. Maybe not one so obviously expensive as this, but maybe something. She straightened and looked around, trying to find a shelf that held something she might use. Somewhere in this tent there must be the kind of glass that perfectly suited the lifestyle of a new accounting student.

The rainbows skittered along the glass as someone lifted the flap and stepped into the tent. Kiri heard the elderly shopkeeper murmur a greeting. She ignored them both and focused on her shopping. She would have to go back to the dormitory soon, and it was fun to pretend that there was a possibility of buying one of these lovely pieces. She paused to imagine one of the teardrop prisms hanging in her window. They made her think of magic, and not the deadly kind that came from her hand as the Firebrand, but the pretty stars-and-songs kind that the Eldan always had in the happier stories.

There was an abrupt shuffling noise behind her, followed by a kssh of glass crashing on the ground. Kiri did turn around then, and to her surprise the other patron was running out the door, carrying something shiny in one hand. He jumped easily over the cane the old man tried to put in his way and slipped past the entry drapes. Kiri immediately ran after him.

“I’m paid up!” The old man yelled at her, as if it should mean something to her. He reached for a bright red cord that hung alongside the door just as Kiri ran through it.

At once the air was filled with a high, loud ringing sound. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Kiri only paused for an instant in the doorway a little disoriented by the light and sound, but then she spotted the thief slipping into the crowd and set off after him at once.

“Stop, thief!” She yelled and pointed, hoping someone else might decide to help out. But instead of trying to apprehend him, the crowd seemed to take her shout as a cue to scurry away from the fleeing thief. A moment later, Kiri found out why.

Two armor clad men appeared, from absolutely nowhere, shimmering into existence from the very air, on either side of the unlucky thief. He stumbled back and away from them, but he didn’t stand a chance. In no time at all they had laid hold of him. One of them wrested his hands behind his back and tied them, while the other took the thing he had stolen-it was a glass figure of a leaping dolphin-back to the shop. The crowd stood silently by until he returned, pulled a black hood over the thief’s head, and all three strode away, the thief understandably stumbling a little on the rough path.

“Fool,” muttered a man who was standing near to Kiri. “Everyone know the artisans is always paid up.”

There was that phrase again. Not wanting to appear stupid or out of touch, Kiri didn’t ask for clarification, but she still had to know more. “He must’ve been desperate,” she said, picking her words carefully. “To, uh, to risk it.”

“Well, hard for thieves these days, innit, makin’ a livin’?” The man shook his head. “He won’t have to worry ‘bout that no more.” Kiri raised an eyebrow and the man traced his thumb along his throat.

“Right,” Kiri said, swallowing hard. She glanced back at the doorway of the glass shop, but she’d lost her taste for fantasizing. She pulled her bag up onto her shoulder and set off to her new home