Ruyo assured Baris that magic lessons were coming shortly. She headed off to Averell on foot, this time less worried about trouble on the road or back at the shrine. Even so, Baris promised to keep an eye on the place.

The Brotherhood monk had left quietly from Sor's Hill, to report back to his people. Ruyo wanted to be at home if they decided Ruyo was a problem and started searching for her base.

At Sor's Hill itself, she demonstrated her powers again for the villagers and gave them iron and cloth, food and glass. Maybe most importantly she went to visit the wounded people from the first attack on the restless spirit.

The farmer Naveen found her first. He was bandaged and walking with a cane but standing tall. "I heard about your latest scam. I'll have no part of it."

"I wasn't aware I had a previous scam," Ruyo said.

Nusina scolded, "Ruyo..."

Ruyo held up a palm. "It's fine. You don't have to do anything." She walked away faster than he could follow, to find the badly hurt woman Moira.

"How is everyone?" Ruyo asked a boy who was tending the wounded. Moira was there with one other villager who was awake and humming to himself.

The boy said quietly, "Two of the four have recovered. Moira's healing, but she's still the worst off. We haven't got the right medicine, and I've gone through her own supplies to check."

With some effort Ruyo could feel, Nusina pushed into reality and became visible. "What's wrong with her?"

The young medic stared at her. "So it's true you're some kind of spirit shaman."

"Something like that," Ruyo said. "Nusina here won't hurt anyone though."

"Can I...?" he said, reaching out a hand.

Nusina nodded, and he petted her. He said, "Um. Interesting. Anyway she's got an infection. She's woken up twice but is still feverish."

"I can give you more ice for that, anyway. I'm on my way to Averell; maybe I can buy whatever you need."

Nusina did her impression of healing again, floating over the woman and hoping Moira would sense her benevolent presence. Ruyo did what she could, but had to move on.

#

On Henrik's horse again, paid for with food, Ruyo hurried ahead to Averell. She had some of her remaining stock of trade items along, namely more dye and a few wooden toys and games. Her cheeks burned as she thought about the dwindling supplies. "It's humiliating to be burning through my stock just to make ends meet. I should have a growing stockpile."

"You did get robbed during the kidnapping," Nusina said. "And now you can create some resources out of nothing. Do you have no other money?"

"My parents owe me a bit, over in Starshore. For them it's working capital. I really need to send word to them about what's happened. As soon as I can write that without having to add 'send money' or causing a panic."

"What are they like?"

"They're great. Taught me everything about recognizing a profit, and how goods flow. My, ah, career change is going to be tough to explain to them."

"Hopefully they won't mind."

Ruyo grinned. "What are you doing, young lady! You risk collapsing the iron market with all those ingots! And why are you handing out glass bottles in Glasstown?"

Ruyo reminisced about Starshore, telling Nusina of the superb Wavebound Harbor, the smell of fish at the market, walls of glittering limestone and shell, the slow-turning blades of the windmills, the fluffy masses of sheep on the hills, and colorful clothing and awnings everywhere. Colder there due to it being farther south of the equator, making the seasons more interesting.

"What about the people?"

"Oh? They're all right. If you've got something worthwhile to trade, they don't much care what else you do. Some folks there are odd, but we mostly hold together."

#

In Averell, Ruyo tried to keep a low profile. She sought out the Vissios first.

They welcomed her into their estate. It was the brothers' elderly mother who greeted her, saying, "Virid keeps talking about you."

Ruyo bowed. "I hope he's doing well. Part of why I'm in town is to buy medicine for a lady who's been hurt by a monster back west."

That earned her a raised eyebrow. "I believe you owe us another story, and we owe you lunch."

"Fair trade."

The family sent someone to handle the errand to Sor's Hill in return for some iron and getting to take Henrik's horse back.

They ate in the garden. There was a salad with delicious orange slices from the trees just overhead. The mother, Virid, and one of the brothers pointed out the shrine in one corner of the estate. It was stone shaped mainly by magic, then carved economically with designs of clouds and slightly odd-looking waves. The main decorative touch was an arrangement of seashells from a few miles downriver. The overall shape was a cylinder around waist-high with a wavy top edge.

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Ruyo got the impression they'd tried to make something tasteful that didn't look like a tombstone, could be thrown together quickly, and didn't cost too much. She laughed; she might have done the same thing in their position. "Nusina, will this work?"

Silently she said, "I think so, milady. I sense you have mixed feelings though."

Ruyo replied privately, "I'm still feeling out this 'mythos' business. I don't think they were all that enthusiastic about my request, but I can't blame them. If it works, it's fine with me." She got up and touched the stone, saying aloud, "I accept this shrine."

The stone resonated faintly, and she could feel something sleeping inside it, like the potential for lightning.

Nusina said, "That's the main step for you. It will still need to be consecrated by Tulia though."

Which, Nusina had taught the slave-woman, was a tedious hours-long session of prayer. Ruyo thought it demeaning. Nusina explained that that was sort of the point: to consecrate a place was to abase yourself and call upon a deity to be present as a power greater than the mortal self. Ruyo hoped that the emphasis would be on calling for a connection between her own power and the shrine, and not on the new priestess declaring herself a weak and unworthy mortal.

Ruyo shook her head. "Is Tulia in town?"

The Vissio elder brother said, "She is, and we'll send word for her to complete the process."

Ruyo wrapped up telling the tale of the possessed man. "And so, now that the medicine errand is being handled, I want to stay here briefly and study magic."

"Which is part of your plan to instruct others?"

"Right. I might be able to hand out power without understanding it, but I don't want to be completely ignorant if I'm casting spells on anyone."

Young Virid piped up, "You're not. We talked about magic stuff last time, and you fought the monsters, and you've got Nusina!" The spirit had been popping into full existence only as needed to answer questions, but Virid could see her at all times. She floated next to Ruyo and kept playing with an orange.

"Do you want me to cut that?" Ruyo asked her.

"Please!" Nusina pulled the juice out of it and seemed entranced, creating a bizarre show of liquid flowing through her ghostly body.

Ruyo blinked. "Uh. Anyway, I do need to do some basic lessons so that I better understand what powers I'm handing out, and then I hope to offer basic magic access as a... well, a blessing. How is the investigation into the Inheritors' 'university' going?"

The mother said, "We're working with the Council to deal with it, but there's more to uncover, it seems. We'd still like you to not parade around doing magic tricks for now."

By talking about the need to sell her wares, Ruyo got the Vissios to suggest taking those products off her hands so that she wouldn't need to be seen at the market. (She let it be their idea to do her trading work.) Ruyo leaned back in her chair, saying, "Problem solved, then. I just need to meet with a mage or two, make sure Tulia does her part, and buy one other thing."

"What's that?"

"A decent pillow."

#

For the most part the plan went well. Ruyo stayed in a guest room at the estate, making herself useful by practicing her Flotsam power. She remained unable to produce anything more valuable, but could now do a large enough piece of canvas to be useful for clothing.

A group of magic scholars and tradesmen from the city's legitimate college came to see her. One of them, a master weaver, peered intently at her cloth and said, "It's vaguely like hemp canvas, but it's garbage. Feel this? It's rough and inconsistent and won't hold together."

"It's simple fabric," Ruyo said, feeling defensive.

"Bah. Putting a bunch of threads together in one place doesn't make sturdy cloth. Look." He tore it apart with just his hands. "It didn't even shear cleanly. If you want something worthwhile, there needs to be a pattern and order to it. Have you ever seen a loom at work?"

"No," she admitted.

A finely dressed man in white and gold said, "Her abilities are impossible, and you're critiquing them anyway?"

The weaver said, "If she's going to do the impossible for us, she should do it well."

Ruyo said, "The cook I spoke to earlier said the food I create is poor, too, because I don't know much about cooking. It might help to learn."

"Then we need to get you to a loom and have you throw the shuttle until you understand."

"No," said the white-gold man. "Not yet."

Ruyo said, "Excuse me; I missed being introduced to you."

He bowed slightly. He was dark of hair and eye like most of Khyber's people to the north, but dyed his hair a brilliant false gold and wore it in the short Averellian style. "Marcellus of House Anemos, at your service."

Ruyo's eyes widened. Among the noble families that supported both the city and the Steadfast Church, Anemos was prominent. For this man to be here at all was a message that she was being watched and judged. For now the wealthy man, of the family nicknamed Lords of Wind, was content to listen and offer advice. So long as Ruyo kept to the Vissio estate.

Ruyo took a drink of ice water and gulped. "Charmed. I'm happy to offer my unique services to the city."

"Uniquely?"

That one word was an offer of employment to work only for Averell. Ruyo said, "For the moment I can't promise that. But it seems you already know what I'm asking for, and what I can offer."

Anemos nodded, and let himself fade back into mere observation.

The weaver tested Ruyo. He showed Ruyo samples of cloth made through hard work. There was hemp, Starshore wool, cotton, and the miraculous flameproof fiber called salamander or asbestos. "Do you see the thread pattern?"

"Salamander," said Nusina. "That sounds familiar."

Ruyo tried to create more cloth in imitation of a sketch she'd just been shown, with threads tangled over and under each other.

"Hmmph," the weaver said, inspecting the result. "Better, but you still don't know what you're doing."

Quintus was among the group. "So she can improve, given exposure to real skill. Our first priority then should be to teach her the foundation of magic theory."

So Ruyo became the sole student for a gaggle of teachers, several of whom weren't themselves mages and had to be shushed repeatedly. Their focus was on mana as the base material of magic, that interacted with the world through the principles of the four elements.

"Which is an incomplete theory," Nusina observed aloud.

"The theory is accurate," Quintus said. "Our student's powers simply fail to match it."

The teachers left, threatening to come back tomorrow. The last to go was Anemos, who said, "We're wondering if you'll be able to demonstrate this magic-teaching power soon. Say, by granting magic to a few chosen students."

"I'll try, though having the shrine active would help."

"How is it that you've functioned so far without a shrine, if that's your power source?"

Nonchalantly Ruyo answered, "I'm not very powerful yet."

"How did you and your spirit companion meet? Considering what we just went through with the Inheritors' cult, the Council is very interested in obscure magic being brought to light."

"Through harmless methods, sir. Once we understand each other better, we can speak more about how this started. Our personal origins matter less than our deeds today, don't they?"

Anemos smiled slightly and let the matter drop. "You're going to be an asset to us, at least."