I contemplated. I was healed. I could gag him now and get answers for where Mallow was, but then he'd drop the spell, and I would be too broken to restrain him. And alone, he would kill me and no one would know. I watched his body language. He seemed like a sadist. I knew this from the encounter with the fairy and the pain spell. Yet it wasn't as simple as that. Sadism did not seem to provide him either competence or confidence. His posture was anxious. He was scared of those other beings, too much to go on-

"Azark, did your relationship with your family get better after your Age Day?"

I blinked, taken aback by the question.

"Enchanted One?"

"Your family... wherever you came from before you decided to take up lying and deceit as your primary occupation. The ones who were around you as a child."

"I know what a family is, Enchanted One."

"That is surprising, for in all my wisdom, I am not sure that I do." Winsor shifted away from me. Shutting down. "Never mind."

He had gone quiet, like Mallow did. Mallow. I needed to keep his trust. I needed to maintain it so I could find out where he was keeping her. For that, I must give something to him, some form of honesty.

"No," I answered. "It got harder after my Age Day. I haven't spoken to my mom in decades, though she was alive and fine in her dad's home when I last heard of her."

Winsor's eyes searched my face in the dim light.

"Your parents were divorced?"

"If that were it, loves flame petering out, I would seek out my mom this very minute. No. My family lost our herd on our ranch. The ranch it had taken our entire lives to build up, far up north at the edges of the Arcanacracy's reign. There weren't any sorcerers supervising the area so the land was cheap, the cows and bulls less so. And then, one day... it was all gone. We went from comfortable to poor overnight. My mom had gotten used to comfortable; I certainly was... and then, because we were always hungry and working hard to survive until we could rebuild, my father got sick... and my mother left when things looked to be at their worst. She didn't even have the grace to sneak out in the dark of night. Some man from the town we used to sell to came and picked her up in a carriage one afternoon. She told us never to follow, she was done, this hadn't worked out."

"But... that is when you needed her most. I'm sure she felt quite the fool when you and your father improved—"

"She was wrong in saying things couldn't possibly be worse than when she left. They did get worse. Maybe... she had no choice. Maybe leaving was the only thing that kept her alive." I felt a sudden pang of sympathy for my mother, unable to meet my eyes as she left. At first I had called after her begging her not to go, before I called after her with cruel names as the carriage faded from view. "We went to another town nearby. A few weeks after we arrived, my father died of starvation and disease," I finished succinctly.

"What about your town's Avalons?" Winsor asked.

"The Avalons were too busy. The day my dad died, I had spent most of my time waiting for them. I did eventually get some bread and some cheese, though they refused to come back to where my dad was. I couldn't move him; he was too sick. I'd waited for five hours and gotten my food. I hoped it would help Dad get stronger. If he had enough to eat, to fill his stomach for once..."

The neglected, molding shed my dad and I had been squatting in all those years ago rose in my memory. Its uneven roof more imposing than any tower. The sun had been setting behind it, casting a long dark shadow I walked through to get to the crooked door. I had seen, through the gaps, my dad slumped against the wall. No, not my dad. His body.

"...but when I returned to him, he'd already died. He had died alone while I waited with hundreds of other fools only a few blocks away."

"Hundreds?" Winsor's eyes were moist in the dim shadows from the fire. This strengthened me for some reason, seeing his overly sensitive reaction to it made my loss a melodrama instead of real. I had to be strong to compensate for his fragility.

"Hundreds. The harvest was bad, and we were not the only ones starving; if we had been, I am sure the families around there would have helped us."

Winsor swallowed his tears with a quick gulp. Anger and skepticism tried to claw away the despair as his lips curled into a crooked frown.

"I can understand a few starving, the lazy or the extremely unfortunate, but hundreds? I'm appalled your Divinis would allow the situation to degrade so disastrously... or even a Whimsight. They should have bartered for food for the town until the crops improved. Such negligence should have resulted in the loss of the town by whatever sorcerer held it."

"Our ranch was far up north, unwanted territory. It was unwarm nine months of the year. No sorcerers for many, many days journey."

Winsor shook his head, biting his lip. Replacing his emotional turmoil with physical pain. He was trying to imagine a world where nature was brutal and untamable, where hunger and disease ran free.

"You survived, though? I mean, obviously, you're here. And fine. Er, not fine. You're injured. But I took care of that. Though I did cause it. But you were fine yesterday—"

I cut off his guilty rambling.

"Yeah, I did survive. By lying... But, that's all in the past, Enchanted One. Why do you care of the origins of a humble Assistant?"

"Perhaps you are lying now." He swept the back of his robe's sleeves across his eyes.

"Perhaps I am," I said. I wasn't, this time. It was easier to tell him than Mallow. Maybe because he wasn't depending on me to protect him. If Mallow had known I'd almost starved to death before, she would have been scared I couldn't take care of us. If she had known my first feeling upon discovering my father was relief that I didn't have to share the food, she would have thought even less of me than she did already. She'd never forgive me. I never had forgiven myself. Even if I'd mourned his loss for months afterwards, the selfish part of me won at that moment as I ate before shedding my tears.

Winsor was speaking again.

"I was wishing for reassurances that my trouble with Bernard would improve once I was fully mature. And perhaps my mother would be warmer toward me... and maybe, father a little less disappointed. But your story has me more concerned than ever about dark fortunes looming."

"He's not disappointed in you," I said.

"How can he not be? Are you so foolish you've already forgotten how I inadvertently disfigured you seconds ago with my botched casting? Or that humiliating puddle debacle in the restaurant?" Winsor groaned and covered his face with his hands.

Because I'd been spying on their conversation at the circus, where he coddled his grown son who was crying like an infant in public instead of scolding him, I knew he adored Winsor. If it wouldn't have been a huge scandal, I was sure he would have given into Winsor's request to have Mallow as a guest in the Manor. I couldn't tell him that I'd been spying, though.

"Just witness this Age Day celebration. I've never attended a festival so grand."

"A show of power, that's all it is," he mumbled around the palms pressed to his face.

"I do not think so, Enchanted One. When he looks at you, it is with pride. On Divinis Wenrick's face I see the same look my father would give me. If he ever had to, he would feed you his last crumb of bread rather than watch you go hungry."

Winsor peeked up between his long fingers.

"I... suppose you are right." He lowered his hands. "When Bernard injured me at the wedding, when everyone else thought I would die, father never left my side. He was with me for weeks." He sat up a little straighter. "Even if Bernard and I are never allies, I can take consolation in the fact that my father will never abandon me." He grinned. "When I inherit Blythe, I will simply have Bernard's shop burned and him banished. All family problems solved," Winsor giggled.

Oh, so Osoro was right about that.

"Let us hope it is soon," I said.

"Not too soon. I love my father, I do not wish him dead or retired just so I can inherit the city... Maybe I'll travel first, like most sorcerers do after their Age Days," He grimaced. "I hate new places, but I could gather rare artifacts and ingredients."

"Traveling is delightful, as long as the company is good, " I argued. "There's so many wonderful cities I've been to." Though I didn't mention that I wasn't welcome back at most of them. Winsor stared ahead, no doubt pondering if he should try to become a Divinis like his father. Maybe he'd work with an Arcanacrastic department as a  Magester, or maybe go into mercantile endeavors as a Mysti-

"You could be my guide!" He spun toward me with excitement, the sheets twisting beneath him. "I can travel with you and the Moon Giant, then you won't have to lie to not starve. The Moon Giant will be appreciated by an actual sorcerer who would know how best to study her. You won't gossip about me to other Assistants like my past ones did; you're on more dubious ground than I am." He grinned. "Let's tell Father, after the party. We'll travel!"

"We?"

"Yes! Though... travel might be hard with my daily medicinal potions... I've had to take them ever since the accident... Oh, but I'm sure father will tell me how to brew them now that I will be a full sorcerer. No need for secrecy."

My face felt hot. What? Why would he volunteer to travel with us if he kidnapped Mallow? He must be tricking me. I tried not to act surprised.

"Of course, Enchanted One. What a honor. A delightful idea. Though, of course, I humbly ask that you inform me even more of sorcerers ways."

"Oh, yes. You are currently very ignorant. I'd teach you how to properly cut Kratswinner, to start with..."

"Yes, educate me, Enchanted One. Why do you rhyme when you cast? It keeps landing you in trouble."

"I haven't quite mastered it yet. The idea is it forces us to focus. It's also why we try to come up with new rhymes every time. Closes out all distractions. If we used the same rhyme again and again, eventually we'd get complacent."

"So..." The throbbing in my head was beginning to recede. I thought of making my move now. "If I ever wanted to distract a sorcerer, what I should do is... right when he's getting ready to cast..."

"Let nary a vowel nor consonant seep, from welded lips unable to peep."

We heard this from the doorway. Winsor and I turned in unison. I couldn't open my mouth, and from Winsor's wide eyed horror, he couldn't either.