THE march back to Dvigrad had given Liara time to build her ire anew and she bristled at the reproof. Phenlick looked tired again, the starch taken out of him. Good. Let him feel her wrath, her impotent rejection of this town and their silly ideals. Her anger was all that had been left her.

Only when the two of them were safely within Phenlick's vestry with the door firmly shut did the priest address Liara again. "You haven't the faintest idea of how lucky you are to have gotten off today."

"I know, Father, and if I had really thought there was magick in me, I—"

"Magick? And we are back to that already? In spite of all that just happened."

So this was to be it then. The questions that had haunted her for as long as she could remember never to be answered. Reviled for powers she did not have. Ordinary. Was that why her father, the wizard—the man whose demons had raped her mother—had never come back? Perhaps he'd known of her all along, his non-magickal flotsam of war.

The priest seemed to sense Liara's careful inattention for he waited, hands folded patiently. His eyes blazed, not with a fury to equal her own, but with a fierce supplication. And she knew him well enough to understand and she hastily hid her scowl, curiosity over what he had to say stronger than her stubborn ire.

Eyes flicking to the door and then back to her, Phenlick continued, his voice low and urgent, "And if all along you'd have known yourself to have such powers, how would that have shaped you? What would you have done? Revenge? Retaliation? We—I—would have you raised better than that.

"Liara, I have watched you grow into a strong, capable young woman. Even with the slights and knocks; even under the hailstone of buffets and spitting. Even with the Zarije's of the world. You've your mother's endurance and your . . . your father's iron will."

Liara could tell from the falter at the end of Phenlick's words that he'd meant to say something else. But she did not stop to question it, her own rejoinder already on her lips. "Endurance," she sputtered bitterly. "The spells that made me drove my mother mad. Dying was her escape—from the madness and 'the Zarije's of the world.' Then, you just hid her—her and the memory of everything that happened to her. And buried me in a monk's cell to keep me out of sight."

"Liara!"

"Stop blaming me for what happened. I wasn't there when the raiders came. I wasn't there to stop the wizard from attacking. Me with magick? You should be so lucky. Dvigrad is helpless against it. Magick makes me better, Father. It makes me greater than, than . . ." She gestured to the bleak gray of stone and mortar.

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare insult the walls that have kept you safe. After all I—" He stopped short and Liara couldn't tell if he had checked his words or merely lost his way. In that instant, Liara felt the little girl inside of her return in a rush.

Beyond the lectures, the reprimands and impromptu homilies, this man had dried her tears, treated her hurts. In the face of the Zarije's of the world. And though she often resented the priest's interference with the rest of her life, she was well aware that, when pressed, reminding her assailants that she was under Church protection had gone a long way in saving her from anything worse than a split lip or bruised cheek.

. . . Like earlier today.

But that was the problem, wasn't it? Hiding behind the priest's skirts. Always beholden. Never powerful, self-sustaining. Did he not see that she couldn't stay his ward forever? She needed more. And they kept taking that from her.

". . . always about you," his words bled into her thoughts. "And I know that you know better, Liara. Your life was not over at conception; nor did it end with the Uskok's cry fading into the woods."

Phenlick's words washed over Liara, as if from far away. Or perhaps the distance was self-imposed, some instinct screaming at her that something was coming, something worse than a tree set afire, or idle threats by pompous men with swords and false power. Something terrible was about to happen and Phenlick was trying to warn her.

"You are not a lesser person for the superstition and enmity that follows you. You are stronger for it. I know, for I have seen your littlest moments and greatest pains. But you limit yourself when you only see what everyone else says of you. And when you look only at yourself, you discount the pain of others. You are correct, you were not here for the troubles that Dvigrad saw. For that I thank God daily."

The words were familiar, said a hundred—nay, a thousand—times to her in this very same room. But the tone was different. Again, the foreboding from before rose within her and Liara felt her arms and legs tingle, her throat clench.

"Liara, if you remember one thing, remember this: do not throw kindling onto the blaze. Give that other cheek, endure the snubs, the rejection and give them nothing more to embolden such littleness of heart. Can you not stop and think before you act? Before you give us reasons to dislike you on top of the multitude of imagined reasons? Commit this one thing to your memory, if nothing else, and I will have done right by you, in spite of all."

Recoiling from the priest's impassioned speech, Liara's building apprehension gained control over her voice and she used it now to outstrip the fears that pressed at her heart. "Fine words from someone who is loved and respected by all. But I'm a castoff. I can't afford to think that way. I can't control the rumors, but the soldiers would have hanged me for them. Nobody would lift a finger to defend me if the Uskoks came back. They would feed me to the mage that made me."

Father Phenlick flinched as if struck. "Yes, you stubborn girl. Yes, you have magick running through your veins. I thought to save you from it; to give you a real life. Love, belonging, in spite of all. You say that we have done nothing. And yet it is precisely because of you that Dvigrad cut itself off from the world, lest rumor of the mage's offspring reach the wrong ears. In protecting you—and us from the threat of a similar attack—we have tolerated the presence of a half-fey whip of a girl who couldn't care less about any of us."

"That's not true!" Liara spoke through her tears, though to which part she most objected—the accusation of magick or that she didn't care—remained unclear. She suspected the last, but would never have owned to it.

Phenlick's comfort reached out to her, even as he kept his careful distance, the same adrift pain of earlier lining his careworn face. "You've questioned me about your parentage for as long as you've been able to speak. And I've seen all of you as you've grown. You've a heart divided, Liara. Wanting so desperately to be normal, to be accepted despite your origins, and yet hungry for the particulars and how they might be of use to you even now."

"So you did know who my father was." Liara leapt on the priest's comment, making room for a glimmer of hope. The guards had long gone, the charges dropped. Phenlick was speaking to her more openly than she could ever recall, back from wherever his distant meanderings of thought that had taken him moments before. She was safe. It was time to get a little of her own back.

Father Phenlick shook his head. "Had any of us known more than what I've told you, when your mother died you'd likely not have been shoved off on a dusty old priest like me."

Liara tried to gift the 'dusty old priest' a smile, but it came out broken. He really had tried with her. And in her own way, she'd tried her best for him. She did care. Surely her personal failings were not larger than the singular regard that had grown between them.

"But now we've a problem, Liara. The law demands . . ." Father Phenlick closed his eyes.

Left with the half-sentence hanging in the air, Liara waited anxiously for the priest to continue. He did this to her a lot, praying in the middle of a sentence. Preferring action, Liara found it annoying. Considering the priest's next words, though, Liara would have for once preferred the silence to continue indefinitely:

"I'm sorry, Liara, but you can no longer stay in St. Sophia's."

~*~

Funny thing about being an orphan-turned-ward-of-the-Church: it came with little to no possessions. Especially as they've burnt the only things I ever owned. Liara packed in a matter of seconds. Which was lucky, for it gave her scarce time to dwell on what had just become of her life.

But the second she stepped out into the spring sunshine, it all became painfully real. Familiar faces, everywhere. Silent, cold, judgmental. Liara was pretty sure that most of the gathered crowd hadn't the faintest idea of why Phenlick's orphan ward was leaving, and yet they'd come to watch her go and guess at it.

Let them wonder. Feeling the hot prick of anger rise to her cheeks, Liara closed her face to the villagers, shifting her meager pack as if eager for the journey ahead. The journey to God-knows-where.

It was laughable, really—this silent gathering of onlookers, their blank, stupid faces. But the looming gate at the end of the street . . . the gate that she must exit, should nobody come forward to claim her. Not that she particularly cherished that idea, but neither did she have anywhere to turn.

Liara risked a furtive glance around the multitude of faces. Maybe somebody yet wanted her. Half the people there practiced some form of witchcraft in the privacy of their homes: housewife cures, symbolic offerings and prayers to gods not recognized by those of Father Phenlick's cloth—not that any of it necessarily worked. Perhaps Liara would even learn something, a way to harness and make use of her inborn skill.

Surely she must have some magick in her for the tree to grow as it had. The fear on the soldiers' faces was confirmation enough, was it not? Or maybe her tree was just a natural—if convenient—occurrence, as Phenlick had said. But then, he was protecting her. But from which? The hard justice of the Venetian guard? Or the crushing disappointment of being nothing more than a common orphan, and a bastard at that? Sixteen years of jeers and insults would have come to naught.

And then there was Krešimir. Where are you?

Krešimir, her one friend. His regard seemed a bitter lie now, though the woodsman's son had made her no promises. How could he have? He was a somebody—a handsome somebody—and she was less than nothing.

Liara ceased her nervous searching, seeing nothing but unfriendly faces. Zarije Babić was there, frowning as always, even in her triumph. Yes, this worked out better than you could ever have dreamed. Liara returned the sour frown.

Her long walk from St. Sophia's continued, leading her to where Father Phenlick stood waiting in the center of town. Looking upon his face, one wouldn't know the turmoil that had recently lived there. Stoic and calm, the priest watched as Liara approached, not offering her even the barest hint of a smile. Only his whispered apology when she reached his side offered comfort, the quiet words speaking volumes to his former ward who had nobody else to turn to.

Father Phenlick turned to the crowd, raising his voice to echo in the quiet streets. "My heart is saddened by recent events. As ward of the Church, certain expectations were required . . . and not met. The delicate circumstances surrounding the birth of Ana's daughter have not served either side well, I fear. And so, per the laws of the Republic of Venice which I serve, and in view of the witnesses gathered here, I release you, Ana's daughter, and ban you from dwelling within the walls of our fair city, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu 1679."

The words washed over Liara, drowning her with each wave. Ana's daughter. Ward of the Church. Father Phenlick's words were carefully impersonal. Stripped of feeling, ten years of a relationship, and the closest thing Liara had to family, the words were a sentence, a condemnation. Standing in the glinting sunlight, she felt a hot pressure building between her ears as the color bled from her vision. For a moment, she worried she might faint.

"I'll take her in, if nobody objects."

A chill shivered up Liara's spine, snaking its way down her arms and legs, as the crowd parted to reveal a tall, dark figure who stood under the eaves of a nearby cottage. The man lingered there for a long moment, as if savoring the stunned reaction from the crowd, then strode forward.

"You're—you're the wizard Nagarath." Liara's words emerged as a whisper. As if the dark cloak of power and ornate staff weren't indication enough, his was a face that every child in Dvigrad knew from description alone. From ice-gray-blue eyes, to the tip of his craggy nose, to the speckled-gray hair gathered and bound at the nape of his neck, the wizard's reputation had long preceded him. For, though magick was forbidden, children would be children, and many a long hour had been whiled away playing at wands and spells, pretending they were the wizard in the wood, the Mage of Parentino who lived on the other end of the Limska Draga valley.

The mage's eyes flicked to Liara for an instant, then fixed themselves on a point somewhere over and behind her shoulder. With a jolt, Liara turned to watch as Phenlick locked eyes with the newcomer. Liara could only guess at whatever conversation passed in that silent exchange, but at the resultant nod from the priest, she let out the breath she'd held.

The mage turned to her. "If you come with me, you must understand that I am not apprenticing you in my Art. Not ever. Understood?"

Liara was still stuck on his first words. "If I come with . . .?"

Nagarath blinked in surprise. "Yes. It is your choice, Liara."

A choice. Liara couldn't remember having ever been given a choice. But how could there be any other option when a wizard offered to take her into his castle, offered her a home and a place away from the dark memories of Dvigrad? Of course she was going with him. And she said as much.

It was only when they had left the town, the southern gate swinging closed, that Liara wondered: How did he know my name?

~*~

Even within Father Phenlick's hallowed soil of Church, diligence and duty, the wild black bird that was magick had flown over Dvigrad, dropping the seed that would one day be Ana's fey girl. In spite of the good Father's best efforts, Liara had grown untamed and unchecked, a weed in the midst of Dvigrad's crop of good folk. It was only right that one such as she should be plucked up and cast outside the town's safe and sturdy walls.

Or, as was the case this day, given to one of her own.

The wizard looked down on his new ward as the massive gates of Dvigrad swung shut behind them. The girl didn't even flinch. In fact, she looked impassive.

Nagarath wondered at the non-reaction. What a coldhearted little thing.

A solitary wizard, living alone for ten years in the ruins of Dvigrad's twin fortification, Nagarath had expected chatter, girlish excitement from the child. From his sporadic correspondence with the priest, he assumed Liara was nothing but an endless string of impertinent questions, noise and teenage babble. And here she was, walking alongside him, face cold and resolute.

Likely sulking because I won't teach her magick. Nagarath frowned, their brief exchange in Dvigrad rising again to his mind. The priest had caught his eye, appearing almost amused. The question 'What have I done?' redoubled its presence in Nagarath's mind, speaking to disappointment, in addition to the academic puzzlement he had already entertained.

He didn't know what to do with a sixteen-year-old waif. She's not my problem, after all.

But even this argument with himself fell flat. The girl was, in many ways, exactly his problem. And it was high time he owned to it.

Besides, Father Phenlick hadn't quite known what to do with a six-year-old orphan, but he'd managed. Had managed for ten years. Picturing Liara as a sullen six-year-old, dumped unceremoniously into Phenlick's care, Nagarath found himself fighting a smile. Surely he'd fare much better than Dvigrad's stern priest.

If only the girl wasn't so quiet, though. It was like traveling alongside a conjuring.

Of course, immediately following these thoughts, Liara chose to speak. Perceptive. Nagarath eyed the slip of a girl walking stolidly at his side. I'll have to watch this one, then.

"You didn't mean that, right? Now that we're on our own, you'll be teaching me magick." Liara was direct now that they'd entered the wood, leaving the little township behind. Her eyes flicked to his carved staff meaningfully, then darted away.

Eyebrows raised, Nagarath revised his assessment of her yet again. He'd not have to watch Liara so much as be wary of her. She didn't know how to let a thing drop. 'Spritely,' Phenlick had called her in one of his letters. The description was apt.

Nagarath struggled to find the words, afraid that he had no satisfactory answer prepared, and annoyed that she hadn't taken him at his word back in Dvigrad.

Liara continued, clearly misinterpreting the pause—though whether this, too, was willful or merely through force of personality, Nagarath couldn't tell. "It makes sense that you would. And that you'd hide it from the priest. After all, I am the most magickal person living in—who's lived in—Dvigrad. And Phenlick obviously let you keep on your magick all these years, so—"

"I will not teach you magick, Liara. I thought I had made that clear." The urge to smile intensified, but he wrestled it into submission. He continued, his voice stern. "I promised Father Phenlick and have my own good reasons for doing so, never mind that it is banned in the valley. And besides, what magickal tendencies have you shown thus far in your short, untutored life?"

Remembering the catch in Liara's voice as she'd spoken of Dvigrad, and seeing the black look that crossed her face, he softened his words. "We all wish you safe, Liara. Not wandering the world, prey for who-knows-what. That is the extent of it. No apprenticeship. No magick." He paused, adding almost as an afterthought, his face cracking into a playful smile, "You'll also find that I am much harder to steal from than our mutual friend, Father Phenlick."

For a moment, Nagarath feared the girl would cut and run. She had that look about her.

Instead, Liara appeared to consider his words, again falling into her strange, sullen silence with a, "Yes, Master Nagarath."

Satisfied, Nagarath led the way once more. Clearly he did not know Liara, in spite of the details given him from Father Phenlick over the years.

"So. Where are we going?" Her query came bright, almost cheerful.

Now I'm getting to her. Nagarath smiled down at his new ward. "Parentino. My home on the south—"

"The old ruins?" Liara interrupted, excited at long last. "I didn't think you actually lived in them, you know. The whole place is on the verge of collapse. I know—I saw it once."

"They're not 'ruins,' Liara. Least not anymore," Nagarath sniffed, pride temporarily overriding his urge to chide the girl for the interruption. Thoughtfully running a finger along his jawline, his smile deepened. "So, you saw Parentino and thought it naught but a heap of old stones . . . You know that I've been living there for over—"

"Since the last magickal attack, I know." Liara again ran slipshod over Nagarath's words. "You're our Wizard of the Wood, you know. Krešimir and I used to play at being you . . ." The girl trailed off, blushing.

"Ha!"

Nagarath's short laugh split the air, loud, booming, as if the humor building up inside had found the quickest vent possible, his head thrown back and eyes sparkling. Played at magick in the woods? Pretending to be me? The picture he conjured was as ludicrous as it was flattering.

Perhaps, for once, he could finally drop the dark wizardly demeanor and stop running from his past. It felt good to laugh again. To speak freely with another might feel even better. It had been so long since either had occurred that he was more than willing to overlook the girl's small oddities.

Perhaps this won't be all that big a challenge. Nagarath turned back down the path, eager now to impress Liara and perhaps provoke another bout of merriment.

~*~

Though her resentment toward her situation had doubled the moment Nagarath reaffirmed that he wouldn't be teaching her magick, Liara couldn't help but feel a small spark of warmth for the man as his laughter rang out in the darkening wood. The wizard was nothing like Phenlick, who'd have likely scolded her for her impudence. She liked the difference.

Encouraged by the mage's response, she pressed him for details, feigning interest in answers magickal and non-magickal alike, teasing out in the exchange what bits of information she might find useful later on. She would again build her nest, this time with knowledge rather than mere trinkets. After all, she was about to enter the home of a wizard. There would be time to press the issue of her magickal education later. With Liara, a tactical retreat was never surrender.

And, she was curious. Superstitious accounts of a wizard were one thing. It was another thing entirely to come face to face with said rumors, finding that the fabled wizard of the wood actually existed.

Clearly Father Phenlick knew him. She'd seen their silent conference, noting that the men recognized one another. The priest had outlawed magick in the Limska Draga valley some twenty years ago, and here was Nagarath, wizard of Parentino, come to claim Dvigrad's magicked orphan girl. Why hadn't Phenlick banished him?

It occurred to Liara that perhaps this wizard was a sham, a fake. He certainly didn't look the part of wizard: eyes alight with laughter and good humor, face open and honest.

"So you're a real wizard?" Liara approached the matter directly.

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'real,' but yes, I am a mage who performs magick." Nagarath's reply came with a sly smile. Liara suspected the wizard might be playing her own game against her.

"Even though Father Phenlick said you shouldn't."

"He and I have an understanding, if that's what you are getting at." Nagarath seemed more cautious, prompting Liara to switch tactics.

"I just wanted to know how you're able to live in the wreck of a castle, that's all."

The last of the late evening sunshine had ceased to illuminate the small footpath before them. In the deepening gloom, Liara imagined she could see Nagarath's answering smile. But no words followed to answer her query. Quiet alarm reentered her mind. She remembered the journey across the valley to Parentino's ruins from her excursions with her friend, Krešimir. It was not long, nor difficult, and though the fading daylight rendered the landscape foreign, she knew they should be close . . . if, in fact, that was their destination.

Lost in new worries, her footsteps lagging, she nearly ran into the wizard from behind. Nagarath turned, gently ushering Liara ahead of him on the path.

"Behold, Liara. My humble home."

Rising darkly amidst the towering wood, Parentino looked just as Liara remembered it. Stone thrown from stone, crawling vines crisscrossed over broken walls, the ruins were every bit as forbidding as she feared. And while the tops of the nearby trees still wore their crown of late-evening gold from the sun's fading rays, the ruins stood in hulking darkness.

Facing the wreck of the old castle, Liara almost wished that the wizard had been spiriting her off to somewhere unknown.

Deep and gravelly, Nagarath's voice sounded behind her, the foreign words delivered in a near whisper, strange and sharp. Liara felt her skin prickle, first from apprehension, then from the mage's touch as his hands rested gently upon her shoulders.

Liara had little time to ponder the spell—for spell it must be, of this she had little doubt. The sight before her demanded all of her attention: Parentino was growing. Twisting upward, the stones shook off their leafy cover, piling neatly upon one another as walls and sagging battlements righted themselves. In the space of a breath, the castle ruins became a wonder, restored to their former glory by the mage's power.

Reluctant to look away from the fortress, lest it somehow change back to tumbled stone, Liara stared at the castle with hungry eyes until Nagarath dropped his hands, calling her back to herself.

"And that is how I manage to live in a 'wreck of a castle,' Liara." The mage was smug. He had every right to be.

Liara let out a slow breath, her mind still trying to process what she had just seen. "How did you—?" She reached up to her shoulder thoughtfully. Had Parentino just changed, or had she?

"The illusion that Parentino has stayed untouched but for the ravages of time is something to which everyone, save I and I alone, is subject. Until now, of course. You'll find that I have all manner of . . . defenses . . . built into my home. Defenses that I need to alter to allow for you, now."

Liara tried to follow the rush of words. Did this mean that he'd magicked her just now? Or did it mean that all who lived in Limska Draga lived under Nagarath's spells without their knowing it? At this thought, a prickle of fear returned. She longed to ask, but did not wish to expose her ignorance. Perhaps if I pay closer attention?

Nagarath strode forward eagerly, gesticulating at things and babbling magickal theories that were far beyond what Liara could ever hope to understand. The mage seemed quite lost in his showmanship, content to allow his new ward to follow meekly in his wake.

You will teach me magick, Liara thought hard at the mage, making sure her face conveyed nothing save a common sort of bright interest. I will learn the magick I was always accused of having, the magick I was meant to have from he who made me. Tactical retreat.