She hardly remembered the rest of the day. Several members of Church and Council quizzed her, and nobody was sure where the cultists had run off to. In the end they promised to track the kidnappers down, and she had no better idea than to let them. She couldn't sense the spirit's presence at all. It was the first time she'd had no access to Nusina's companionship and knowledge.

But as she returned to the Vissio estate with her two ex-bandit guards that evening, she reminded herself she had work to do.

"Do the city leaders hate me now?" she asked Virid. He, the household cook and his son had come to her room bearing cake. She remembered a shouting argument breaking out among the politicians.

The cook said, "It sounds like you're still welcome here, at least. A little of the fire got up here but we put it out. A couple of us helped with the magic you gave us."

Ruyo smiled a bit. "Do you two want the second level of it? Oh, you too, Virid."

"Please!" said the cook.

Ruyo went through the second-level Sorcerous Initiation with each of them, granting them the power to actually create water if not nearly as quickly as Ruyo. "That's the most I can teach for now. If zapping people with a bolt of magic that I got from people praying, even qualifies as teaching."

The cook said, "Hey, miss. You're doing some good already, and you'll improve."

Virid said, "We'll get your friend back, I promise."

"Thank you." She accepted a hug from him.

She thought back to the meetings earlier today. "It's the merchant girl they were after!" one noble had exclaimed, in an echoing meeting hall. "If not for her we wouldn't have lunatics trying to burn the city!"

Another had answered, "You clod! Do you remember how she first encountered them? These 'Inheritors' were lurking beneath our feet and discovering elementals before she even got here."

"It's Khyber's doing!" a third said, and then the shouting had gotten too intense to follow.

#

She had to move on while the authorities hunted the cult down for now. She had training to do.

The main bathhouse of Averell was a multi-segmented bastion that'd been expanded over the years as the city's wealth rose. The newer segment of it was smoothly polished stone, carved with scenes of craftsmen.

She went in through an older entrance, a bit rougher and now used as a women's section. It was early in the morning, before the official opening time. Bleary-eyed, she greeted the sleepy old guard. "Any chance I could go in?"

"You'll have to..." He woke up a little more. "Oh! Are you Ruyo?"

She smiled and nodded. She'd asked for permission to visit when there wouldn't be a crowd. Her charred clothing helped identify her.

"Yes, of course. The water's not warm yet but someone will show up to start the fires soon." He unlocked the door.

"Thanks." She had made ice before, but hadn't thought much about changing the temperature of normal water. Normally it was done by a mix of fire magic, apparently forever off limits to her, and ordinary flame. Maybe there was a different way to go about it, as Nusina had suggested about enchanting shields against fire.

Ruyo shook her head. She couldn't lean on her spirit guide right now. It was up to her to keep improving while others helped solve that problem.

The bathhouse was still dark but for a few dim, permanent enchanted lights. She felt the humid air swirl around her as she approached a room for women to store their clothes and stand under a waterfall that spilled from the mouth of a carved fish. Chilly, but it helped wake her up as she scrubbed off most of the dirt and ash still clinging to her.

In the main room was a pool neck-deep to her, lined with tiles. The vaulted ceiling was painted like a starry sky. North-facing windows let the early morning sun in for more warmth. She floated, practiced swimming a little, and relaxed. Then she got to work on magic.

She poured a few gallons of water from her hands to the pool. Moved it around by splashing and spells. Pushed it away from her to make a strange pit in the water that left her dry down to her waist. Held her breath as long as she could, tried to breathe water, and came up gagging. Then she climbed back to the shallow stairs and tried to set foot on the liquid, willing it to support her weight. Her first step wobbled and the surface barely held; it was like standing on a pile of crates. Her second step broke through, barely held an inch below, and failed again, dropping her face-first into the water with a painful slap. Ruyo winced and kept trying. She'd seen this done before by performing mages. On further testing, standing right on the water was barely possible. It was much easier to drop by a few inches, her feet like boats held up by accepting some sinking. It was like being on a cargo net, held steady by the many interwoven cords.

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She paced across the surface of the pool, unsteadily at first and then bouncing around atop it. The whole basin was her playpen! She raised up water elementals, made them spin around her, raced them. She froze a bit of the water and let it go, to see it splash and bob. Did that count as changing the water's temperature? She made more ice and this time tried to melt it. The melting seemed to make the liquid around it grow colder. Maybe she should talk with an ice specialist. And the power to shape water also meant being able to create a little current; ah yes, she could push enough of it to make a little wave without moving her hands, or splash extra-hard if she did. Water that boiled was always moving and ice stayed put; was there some connection between the heat and the motion? She played around with her ice and ripples without finding an answer.

This would be a good time to consider her powers. She carefully sat down cross-legged on the water's surface and concentrated, viewing once more the constellations of mana that showed how her abilities were organized. They'd grown more complex, so that not everything had to be closely linked to water itself. She examined the part of the structure that represented raw water magic, to consider trying to push more effort into it. But she'd already done it intuitively.

A man's voice called out, "Hello?"

Ruyo squeaked and crashed down into the water. She came up sputtering and red-faced.

"I'm not looking, ma'am," said the figure leaning into view from a side room, his eyes squeezed shut. "Just wanted to talk."

"Then get out and give me a minute!"

Ruyo fumed and climbed out of the water, completely losing her concentration. She stood up dripping and grabbed two of the cheap, flimsy towels to wear. She was draped in those when she relented and called out, "Okay, what is it?"

The man in the doorway bowed. He was dressed in a plain, undyed linen tunic, holding a little flame in one bare hand. "Sorry to catch you like this, Lady Ruyo. But I heard of your deeds and wanted to speak. May I open my eyes?"

"Go ahead."

He smiled. "I'm one of the workers here who heats the pool. We burn more than a ton of wood each day, but magic saves us several more tons. I am no slave, but I'm only a lowly worker here. May I ask for the power of water magic to make myself more useful?"

She peered skeptically at him. "There are other places to ask, you know."

"Are there? I visited one of the gatherings your priestess held, and while she talked about your many virtues, she couldn't grant any power. You're in and out of town."

"True. Are the Vissios allowing random people to come and go to the shrine?"

"During daylight, into that corner of their garden. I've prayed for your good fortune."

"Thank you, then. I can only empower so many people at a time, especially if they only go once, so I still have limits."

"I could go more than once, if that's your wish."

She was in a bargaining mood, not eager to be too generous with this peeping Tom even if he was being pretty gentlemanly. "I can only grant the most basic spells in a first attempt, and have to come back later to improve on that. Would you be willing to visit the shrine daily for a few weeks, for the first level?"

"If you will grant me the second when you can."

Cheeky of him to be bargaining back! Hmmph. "Yes, all right." She carefully walked across the pool's surface and touched him, to perform the ritual.

She coached him on the Shape Water spell, and asked him, "If you're a fire expert --"

"Hardly, Lady. I would be running a glass shop or forging metal. Or accepting a medal for slaying that fire beast."

"Can you tell me about heating water?"

He scooped up a ball of water and made it hover in one hand, looking delighted. Then he conjured flame again in his other palm and applied one to the other. "I don't know all of the theory. I'm told that fire imparts a little of its power to placid water, making it more excited. Fire can be released from wood, and water turns into some kind of air when boiled, so there's a connection. The elements might not be totally separate, or at least they work together."

They played a little, creating and melting ice and testing Ruyo's raw water-shaping strength against the mage's weaker ability. Ruyo compared the warm water touched by fire to the colder output of her magic, and watched in detail how an ice chunk melted.

He looked up at the windows. "Thanks very much for your gift, Lady." He bowed. "I will pray as asked and then some, hoping for your continued blessing. For now I need to leave and prepare the fires for the day."

"And thank you. Where are these fires?"

"Down in the tunnel network below the baths. Water flows continually from the aqueduct through here, and since it's then unfit for drinking, it's used to flush the sewers."

Ruyo blinked. "Show me."

He took her down to a surprisingly fancy underworks fed by the city's water supply. But he didn't have the key to the sewers. She yanked and kicked but he said, "That's not going to help. What do you want down there?"

Ruyo quit cursing at the door. Not everybody knew the full problem. "It's... it's probably not even there right now. Never mind. Thanks for showing me."

#

"Yes, we checked the bathhouse area," said a low-ranking member of the city guard, carrying a scrawled set of notes. He'd come out to meet her at the guard headquarters. "And I'm supposed to tell you there was a small-time smuggling operation involving a false-bottomed old coffin. Nothing yet to find your missing friend, but I'm told the Council itself is working on it. We have a prisoner to question."

And quit asking, was the implication. Ruyo covered her face and said, "I get it. Thank you."