Nemienne doubted anyone had been.
Leilis glanced absently about the room and added, “You might hand me those slippers. Thank you. You might go to Kalches, too, if your sisters could spare you.”
Nemienne hadn’t thought of going to Kalches herself. She didn’t answer right away, for she hardly knew what she thought of the suggestion. She had hardly been out of Lonne; she had never really imagined leaving Lirionne itself. And to go to Kalches, of all countries! She wondered what her sisters would think of the idea.
Well, she knew, really. Ananda and Enelle and Tana would worry for her, but Ananda was too wrapped up in her marriage and Enelle in the stone yard and Tana in running the house for any of them to protest very much. Liaska certainly wouldn’t worry; far from worrying, Liaska would fight passionately to come along. Jehenne and Miande were the ones who would miss Nemienne the most: not just worry about her, but miss her. And she knew, as she would not have been able to guess half a year ago, that she would miss them both quite bitterly.
Leilis said calmly, “I believe Taudde would agree with me that a Lonne mage with a heart tuned to the darkness under the mountain ought to learn something useful from listening to the wind in the heights.”
“Anyone with a heart tuned to those shadows might,” Nemienne agreed. “Anybody who managed to tangle up magecraft with the magic of the dragon, for example. Especially anybody whose father was a mage.” She didn’t quite dare say, Or anybody who’s fallen in love with a mage.
“Why, yes,” said Leilis, in an extremely bland tone. She turned back toward the mirror, adjusted her silver bangles, and said to her reflection, “Yes, I rather think that might be true.”