Work, as we usually think of it, is energy expended for a further end in view; play is energy expended for its own sake, as with children's play, or as manifestation of the end or goal of work, as in "playing" chess or the piano. Play in this sense, then, is the fulfillment of work, the exhibition of what the work has been done for. -Northrop Frye (1912?1991), Canadian critic

Lirssa had come to realize how scheduled her life now was. It had not been that way before. Before what she could not exactly say, but maybe it was before she was suddenly able to take responsibility for other people. Maybe it was before she had taken charge of her education. Whatever it was, she now had a schedule and so many whims and wishes had to be snuck in between those rigid moments of her life.

Adults, she had noticed, did not have that. They went when and where they wished, for the most part making up their lives still as they went along, or like leaves in a river, bumping up against one another or some purpose for a time and then floating apart again further on down the rippled waters. Lirssa, though, had people to see, plots and plans to make, and all the while help with the raising of money for special endeavors.

Miss Aja — though she did wonder if the lady was actually Captain Bird or even Admiral, but Miss Aja seemed to do well enough — had been accommodating for Lirssa's schedule. So, it was that Lirssa helped with the paperwork for two hours a day three days a week. Amazingly enough, Lirssa felt there was progress made in this small amount of time, and the coin was certainly helpful.

She also had her studies, and even though that was also two hours a day three days a week, it took up more time at night to prepare for it. Then there were her regular chores around the house and the performances at the Marketplace, checking in on foster homes, finding children who needed to get off the street, and the note running.

One morning, Lirssa woke up and realized — she was tired. Still, she struggled out of bed, trying to focus on the birdsong outside the window that brought a smile to her face. If the birds could wake up each morning with a sunny disposition to continually feather their nest, find their food, and keep going, then she could as well. There was a reason she did all this, and it was in each child's face when there was more hope than despair.

Still, as she drew on the motley outfit, tugging it into place and packed up her bag, she knew something had to give, and the note running was the first in mind.

The weather really could not have been better for Lirssa's time in the Marketplace that day. The sun was out, the air was cool, and the breeze soft as a baby's breath. Her hair was braided in an intricate pattern of thick swirls. Ribbons and bells were woven into that pattern giving soft chimes with each flip, spring, and bounce. The motley pattern, raspberry and sage, contorted along with her body as she shaped herself and tried to not think about how she was going to get out of that deal with the Minstrel Man.

Minstrel Man is what she had come to call him for lack of his true name. She had tried not showing up to pick up the notes, hoping that would sever the tie. Confident she could keep out of his grasp now she knew what kind of man he was and not to be taken unawares again. Unfortunately, others were not so lucky. He knew her ties to the urchins of the street. In twisted glee he had smiled at her when she saw him from across the Marketplace with a rope about the neck of a little boy. The boy looked terrified. Lirssa had run the note to free the boy, but she knew it would not be the last time Minstrel Man would stoop to such tricks to get her to do his bidding.

The memory broke her concentration, and only through a quick twist and roll she managed to save the routine. The crowd gasped then laughed and clapped their delight as she sprang to her feet with a wide smile. "Come lords and ladies, great folk and gentle person, the tales I will tell can chill your bones or inflame your souls, but not a word of truth will be spoken here. Only fancies and words of wildness fall from these lips. Will you hear my tale" I will play it out for you." The last words stopped a few that had begun to turn away. Curiosity puckered lips and furrowed brows, suspicious of what she meant.

With a leap she landed on one foot with grace and ease on the edge of the fountain. "A great lord looked out his window to the bounty of his garden." She bent one leg upwards to act as the bottom of her window sill, resting one elbow on it and her chin in the hand. "He looked as he looked every day. He saw the great trees, the dainty shrubs, the statues and the benches. Along the far wall, there were the rose bushes bushes. "What wonderful targets", he thought, as he always thought. "Let me get my bow!?"

Her hands held her foot that was raised as part of the sill and pulled straight up. She twisted in the middle, contorting so that she still held her foot, but now it was bent behind her, to make herself the bow. "The great lord had no real use for the roses other than to practice his aim. No matter that others of his land might cherish them, find beauty in them, or enjoy their fragrance. He pulled his bow," she bent backwards while bending her knee to make the shape of a string pulled bow, then snapped up, "and shot a rose." Again she bent her back and leg, then sprang, only this time she let go and used the momentum to bring her leg sharply forward and flip herself back. "But the bow broke! Out popped a fairy from the bow. "No more," the fairy cried, "no more will I let you use my bow to shoot those roses." For the fairy had been the keeper of the tree that had sacrificed a limb for the making of the bow. "I have tried to warn you with the broken string, splinters in your fingers and unwrapping of grip, but you would not listen." The fair was mighty cross."

Lirssa had been shaking her finger, cheated towards the fountain so it might play the role of the great lord while she was the fairy. ?"No more, I say. If you do not enjoy the roses, I will take them away. Take them away I will." And she spun," as did Lirssa, "and as she did the great lord watched as all the roses faded away and fell to the ground. Every bright red and brilliant yellow no more than brown, withered petals. At first the great lord was very angry and went wild with rage. No one was safe in his presence." Lirssa sprang one way and then another, twisted and flipped, all along the edge of the fountain. "But when he had fumed his last fuming, growled his last growling, and all his breath was spent, he went to mourn the flowers, not because he missed them, because he had to find new targets." She retook the pose of the man at the windowsill. "But, look! There by the rose bushes was a little child. That little child picked up the dropped dead roses, caressed each one and tucked it in a satchel. The great lord ran down into his garden. How grand the garden was! He had never been in it before. Dismayed at the height of the trees, the texture of leaves and the smell of the goodness, he wandered aimless for an hour until he nearly stumbled over the little child." Lirssa pretended to stumble and caught herself on the very edge on her pointed toe, balanced to perfection. ?"What do you do here, child?" Demanded the great lord. "I will make beads of these my lord, since you saw no use to them. May I not still cherish them' Nurture them into something good and useful?" "Cherish the cast offs" Nurture the muck of the earth?" The great lord was amazed and amused. "Of course, of course, just take them away." So the child did, with great hurry, and the lord went back to his window and looked out at the garden and felt the last beat of his heart snap like the broken bow clenched in his hand." She flopped over her raised and angled leg, feeling the tautness of her center to hold balance.

At the applause, she sprang to life again and somersaulted back off the fountain to start collecting her things. She had realized what she needed to do to get free of the Minstrel Man. She had to learn the secrets of the notes and who was on the receiving side. They weren't going to let her free with the not knowing, she might as well learn. Mister Jolly had always said knowledge was power. She needed some. Her coin purse full with the coin earned, she ran to let Val know what she was up to. An adult would interfere, maybe make things worse, but someone had to know what she was going to do in case things went'she shivered"killer wrong.

Lirssa strolled the streets towards High Spire House. The light rain didn't bother her all that much, though she did hold the bag of books close to her and under the light cloak about her shoulders to keep them safe. Not much at all of the usual bustle of the city scattered into a rush by the weather troubled her. Her thoughts had their own bit of poor weather to muddle through.

The lesson that day had gone through its usual routine, but she could tell Mister Jolly was suspecting things. He asked questions wanting more detail of her work and how her family was doing. The comings and goings of her day was of high interest as well, but when she asked what he was nosing about for he only said he was going out of town a few days and was curious.

Now, Mister Jolly has always been curious. It was why, Lirssa was rather sure, she and he got along pretty well, though he was a proper gentleman and she just a kid. However, he had never been quite that inquisitive before, and it made her decide against trying to trick him into reading one of the notes — not that she had one on her as it was.

She would pick one up that night, and that thought made her pause. The unexpected lack of motion caused others following a little too close by behind her to nearly stumbling into her, though she skipped out of the way. They still cursed her something solid, and she cursed them back with less vulgarisms and more creativity. She doubted many would call another a rotten apple core with mealy seeds for brains.

Her footsteps turned towards the inn. The dark eyes of that man on the bed still plagued her dreams at night, and floated up in her thoughts during the day like ghosts of memories. They were more powerful than memories of Bubber. Each time they rose up, she shook her head to free her mind from seeing them. They would go away and return sometime later unexpectedly.

The inn during the day was rarely busy. Like a pot just ready to boil it simmered with the anticipation of what the night would bring. Lirssa would have to return that night with all its pandemonium, but right now she took the steps and went to that room.

Without touching the doorknob, she leaned to press her ear against the door. No sounds could be heard. She reached for the doorknob and turned, but it did not move. It was locked. Shamefully, she sighed in relief. It was a foolish notion to go in there again, she realized.

But the eyes came up in her mind again, looking at her from inside. It was worse than seeing them from the outside. She set her hand to the doorknob once more and turned. It snicked open, deadbolt giving way. That very idea made Lirssa's skin begin to crawl, but she pressed on inside and closed the door quickly behind her.

The room was much as it was before. Darkness only partially kept at bay by two blue burning candles. Why they burned blue, Lirssa could not say, but the man was on the bed as before.

With care she crept closer, hands out to her sides as if they might help silence her way through the room. She stopped two feet from the bed and looked at the man. His skin was so pale and it took on a luster of the blue candles so that he almost glowed like moonlight. It was unhealthy, unnatural glow though.

His eyes flew open and stared at her, pleading, begging — so much pain and despair in them. Lirssa shook her head, "I don't know what to do." Her voice cracked in the soft anxiety that stifled her breath.

It was as if her voice had broken through to a new realm of anguish. The man's eyes closed, his brow creased in silent agony. He shook his head, but nothing of the rest of his body moved. "Tell me what to do." Lirssa asked.

She did not know if this man was good or evil, but she knew the Minstrel Man was a rotten man and if he was on the opposite side of this man, then it only made sense that he was her friend. If nothing else, if she removed the purpose of the notes, to be delivered to this room, then she would be free of the Minstrel Man.

The intensity of the moment had made her oblivious of the coming footsteps, but she head the rattle of keys and the grumping dismay at the door being unlocked. She dashed under the bed and pulled herself up close to it hooking her feet and hands into the ropes. She closed her eyes and tried to be one with the bed. Memories of childhood on the streets, hiding in sewer pipes and alleyways, hiding from the bad men, just wishing to be a shadow came over her. She was frozen there.

There had been a note. It had been a note she could not show anyone. When she went to the duels to watch the adults play at their fighting, she kept the note in her hand, thinking over it in dull repetition like a refrain from a song one can't shake from their mind.

"Now we know who you are."

It had been as plain as it could be. She had opened the note and felt her heart ache and stomach drop when she read it. There was no convincing herself it was a ploy or some such trick. The notes from those people held power.

She had stayed only long enough to keep suspicions at bay. Made greetings, smiled to questions and duelists, and then she ran for the inn. She had to face that man again. She had to tell him she failed. There was nothing for it but to face those great, pathetic eyes. Crossing the inn to the stairs was like crossing a path in the forest. The people were trees, and she was as aware of them as she would be any tree, no faces, no personality, just a living object in her proximity. Climbing the stairs, she focused on that door, and when she reached to turn the doorknob, it opened with the bolt sliding back as it ever had before.

Without a moment's hesitation she slipped inside and none who stayed into the late hours of the inn's common room saw her come back down.

Lirssa shook her head. She had not wanted this. It was just a job. It was just a way to earn money — running messages and slipping them under the door. "I wouldn't have looked if you'd let me free." She snarled at them. Cornered little cat that she was, she could feel her back arching shoulders curling forward.

"Yes, well, foolish of Maudry, I admit, but you were so very prompt with the notes. You held out the longest against curiosity of our previous note runners. Pity it came at the end." The woman simpered, her smile like sweetened medicine that carried an acrid aftertaste. Opal eyes that had no distinct color, shifted to the man on the bed who had closed his eyes once more. "What do you think of our little pet' Rebellious little pet that he has been, refusing to do what he is told. Much like you, only you're a wastrel shell and he, oh he is much more."

Lirssa did not want to hear more or know more. Knowing more was what got her into this mess. Knowledge wasn't power. It was anything but power. Dodging one way and then the other, desperate to twist and slip about the adults, confident of her abilities to spring free, she sprang to the bedside, and twisted in the air.

Her body began to fall as a grip like a vice snatched at her ankle. As nimble as that cat of before, she twisted to gain her balance hearing a cry out of the woman full of surprise and rage. "No!" It was the same word echoing in Lirssa's mind in a stereo of her own inner voice and the man's.

Shutters flew open, the light of day spilled inside, and Lirssa felt her body grow. It did not change of shape or size, but the feeling was like a balloon filling fast with air. Shapes became shadows and like strings attached to her thoughts, she was directed to act against her aggressors with no forethought of her own.

Sight was an insubstantial thing, seeing and yet not the change in the two before her into collapsing quiet broken dolls on the floor.

"Come, young lass, let us be free while we can." The man stood beside her, his voice came from his mouth as he gently urged Lirssa to the door.

Lirssa who was herself once more, slight and simple, and more than ready to flee the chaos that had cocooned her for the night, and in truth, the past several weeks. As any chain with links long and heavy, the bargain had held her.

She ran for the door and out the back way to the alley only stopping a moment to look behind for the man, but she did not see him, she only heard him as one hears a farewell through a closed window. "Thank you."

She ran on.

It was on nights such as the one before, curled up in an alcove of a shadowy garden with one dog to her left and one dog to her right as warmth and comfort, that Lirssa missed her adopted family. They had moved a little further away closer to a smaller town. As much as she cared for them and they for her, Lirssa had felt compelled to stay in Rhydin city proper. She had work to do here.

She could have stayed at foster homes, she knew that. They would give her space, but there were others that needed the space more than she. Lirssa knew she was in deep with those, the Minstrel Man and his company, but she had lived on the streets since she could remember. There were places, hidden places, safer places, she could spend her nights and still do what she could to earn coin for the fosters and street kids.

This day she had chosen one of the smaller squares, not the major Marketplace square, to perform her tumbling, juggling, story telling routine. Without the constant income from the note running, she had returned to performing more and in a variety of locales.

Not since the night at the inn had she seen the lady in the violet dress nor her hammy counterpart. She had avoided them by climbing a drain pipe and running across rooftops as far as she could until, exhausted, she collapsed into a slumber beside a chimney. Its stones still warm from the baking of the evening meal.

She visited the duels, a place unlikely the two people hunting her would try anything, but she was getting tired of running, hiding, and letting people down who had taken chances on her, like Mister Jolly and Miss Aja. Both had been sent notes of her absence. She couldn't stay anywhere for long.

The most wearying thing was not understanding why they were still after her. Why they hadn't just let her stop running the notes in the first place. This all would never have happened if they had just let her stop. There had to be a reason. Over and over the play performed in her mind, her actions and theirs, her words and theirs.

Her feet moved along the line of a buildings shadow: bright of the sun with the firm demarcation of a shadow, and she balanced upon it as she walked. She looked about her to find a place to set up her performance and had just decided upon a corner of one of the bridges when she saw the Minstrel Man across that bridge, his hand so hard upon the little urchin's gray bare shoulder that even at this distance she could see the fear and pain in the child's round, pale eyes.

No words need to be spoken. It was a message as clear as the one before. Even exchange. Her for the urchin. Lirssa sighed and started to walk towards the Minstrel Man across the bridge. He shoved the child forward who walked slowly and left a wet trail down his leg and across the stones. As they passed each other, Lirssa gave the little boy a reassuring smile and said only, "Go to High Spires. Tell them Lirssa sent you. You'll be okay."

She walked on. With the boy free, the edge of the bridge looked tempting. She probably could survive it, swim away, that is if she didn't hit a boat passing beneath, or get caught by a current. Still, they would just get another child and it would be worse than this time. She walked on, met the man and drew up her courage. Arms folded, severe frown, she growled, "What do ya want' Why won't you folks leave me alone?"

"In due time." His smile was like that of the shark she had seen in the museum, all toothy and terror inducing. Even Lirssa felt a tremor go down her spine. "Come along." He pushed her onward and walked close behind her to a carriage that waited.

The woman, Arabella, studied Lirssa. If it had not been for the situation Lirssa was in, particularly the fact she felt she could not escape it, the study would not have made her feel odd at all. Many people had looked at her strangely in her life; some with pity, some with hate, and some with greed. This woman with her peculiar opal eyes seemed to have them all combined. It made Lirssa's stomach go queasy like she had walked too close to the mouth of the sewer that dumped things into the sea.

Arabella set aside the teacup without a single clink of the delicate china. "You like stories, Lirssa. Let me tell you a story, and I believe you will find many answers to your questions in it. Though, I will leave the greater questions, the deeper questions, to Master Fitzhugh. He has been delayed but will join us this evening."

With a mild shrug of her shoulders, Lirssa almost argued that she'd rather just have questions answered plain and simple. However, Arabella had offered a new name. The name had been spoken with great admiration, a dark gleaming reverence. It was the same sound that came out of slaves and those who worshiped the hops and highs of addictives. "I'll make a bargain with you, Arabella." Not a soul she had met so far of this group deserved the respect of a formal title. Lirssa felt rather sure Mister Jolly would agree, but then he respected some odd folk. "You tell me what you want with me, and I'll listen to the story. It better be a story that tells me why you people wouldn't let me quit while there was none of this nonsense between us and why you're threatening innocent kids to pull my strings like a flippin' puppet."

The woman's jaw clenched, rolling the muscles beneath the fine skin. She smiled like a slice of a knife. "Puppet is a very appropriate term, Lirssa, but I hope you will change your mind in the end so this...masquerade can come to an end. Please, have a petit four."

The woman lifted a plate of small square cakes, and Lirssa took one. With a motion of the hand holding the cake, Lirssa nodded, "Alright then, tell your tale. I got places to be, connects to meet." She tossed that out there. Let her stew on that a moment. Lirssa was by no means without friends, though she would never go to them, it does not mean she cannot use their names for a little leverage.

"Connections is it' Oh, yes, dear, we have learned of your connections. The hapless professor, Dr. Gardiner" The wayward entrepreneur, DeMuer" Some raggle taggle clan of farmers?"

The woman's smile had grown as Lirssa felt the threat to herself grow to encompass those people. Arabella had named some of them, those Lirssa thought would mean some sort of weight, as if they were nothing. It was a ploy, a trick, but the bright triumphant smile was well played. "Could be. Maybe not."

A pitying sigh slipped from the smile. "I could list more, but let us not drag them into this, Lirssa. It need not concern them, and you would not want to see their lives destroyed because of your defiance. Master Fitzhugh does not want to see that either. Now then, let me tell you a tale."

Lirssa gave into the tea in the cup in her hand, sipped to regain some moisture to her mouth, and then popped the entire petit four into her mouth to keep her thoughts from spilling out of it. Things were even more confusing now as she had been so very careful to stay away from people when things went bad. Well, she had been seen with the Smiths at the inn and Mister Jolly at the Teas 'n' Tomes. No doubt some had seen her visit the High Spire House. She had done a poor job, and that was that. It was time to listen to the tale.

It was not a fear she should have had. A hand to her arm gentle stirred and stirred until Lirssa blinked awake. It was the same maid servant as before. "Come now, sprout," the woman's voice had the light of her smile in it. "Master Fitzhugh has arrived. We need to wash you up and dress you proper for dinner."

Lirssa moved from the bed, her head slowly freeing itself of the cobwebby feeling of unanticipated slumber. "Who are you?"

"Anne is my name. I will be helping you get ready, and Miss Arabella has sent up a dress that will fit you proper. Come now, the bath is all ready." She lead into another small room adjacent to the one Lirssa was in and there was a steaming bath in a great lacquer tub. It had been some time since Lirssa had been properly bathed, though she had done her best to wash a bit of her each day and the rains had helped.

Undressing with a frown to Anne who tried to help, she climbed in. "I can wash myself, thanks." She sank beneath the water and pulled her hair down with her. Under there she let herself think as long as the breath could hold.

She was going to get her answers this night or to the devil's hand with it all. She could move. She could find her family and she could leave. If her being around was going to put people in harms way of these folks, well, then she'd just be gone.

The breath ran out and she sat up and began to scrub, but the thoughts continued. Arabella had said she answered her questions, but she just didn't want to hear them. Well, question one was why they didn't let her go when she wanted to. From near as Lirssa could tell, the reason was Maudry didn't want her to be let go. That was nothing new, and still not reason enough.

She paused as the suds of the soap tingled on her skin and in her hair. No, it was something more. It was some sort of talent or some such. Lirssa could be a nimble girl, that much she knew, but everyone knew that.

Starting to rinse, the work was slow because her thoughts took up so much of her attention. The change came with the notes. She had wanted to stop delivering the notes that were stronger when she delivered them. Probably because the other messengers were lazy and walked or didn't deliver them promptly. That's what they had said...she was so prompt.

"Come along, sprout, they won't take kindly to waiting." Anne called from the other room.

"Yeah' Well I don't take kindly to being threatened and drugged." The tea had to have been drugged — or the petit four. No, it was the petit four. Arabella had had the tea, but not the sweet. With a grumble, Lirssa splashed the murky water and scrambled out.

She was rough on her hair drying it. Part of her just wanted to tear her hair out and go screaming from the building. If they thought her crazy, maybe they'd lose interest. Lirssa took a moment to seriously consider it, but in the end, she realized that being crazy wasn't uncommon nor did it keep many people away. Some of the most well known people she knew were crazy by her definition.

Anne helped her dress and arrange her hair. "Law, does this ever dry?" Anne remarked upon the thick strawberry blond curls.

Lirssa turned with a jerk, feeling the hair rip from Anne's grasp. "Yes, of course it does. 'Course I could just braid it up and use it to choke you and the rest of the people here and be done."

Fortunately, Anne had the sense to laugh off the threat and she opened the door. "Of with you now, sprout. Dinner is being served."

Finding her way down the stairs she was further conducted to the dining room by the jowly man who had almost caught her under the bed. "This way, Lirssa." He opened the door and there was a squat man in a dinner jacket and well pressed pants with a high collar shirt in conference with Arabella.

"Thank you, Jasper. Ah, here she is," Arabella broke from the man with a smile for Lirssa and set an unwanted arm about the girl's shoulders. "Master Fitzhugh, this is Lirssa."

He had a thick mustache but a warm sort of smile that reached almond shaped brown eyes. "Welcome to my home, Lirssa. I hear you have been causing my people some trouble. Almost as much as Eliot did. Is he still at large, Arabella?" Fitzhugh remarked as he approached Lirssa.

"I am afraid so, sir." It was as if Arabella had failed to find a select bit of fish at the market instead of losing a captive. "I am sure we will find him soon enough."

"Let us sit to dine. I understand Lirssa that you still are not certain why we have taken such a particular interest in you." He motioned for a seat at the dinner table which Lirssa took and the others took theirs.

She did not reply to him. He seemed to know everything he needed, and only asked questions out of some need to hear the question asked or to make others feel included in his knowledge. "Yes, well, have you ever heard of an amplifier?"

The first course was brought out and a serving set on her plate, but with her previous experience with the food of the house, Lirssa did not even pretend to eat any. "Sure. It is something that makes things bigger or louder. There's even magic ones around West End."

"Not hungry dear?" Arabella asked as she took her own half spoon of soup.

"Not after this afternoon, thanks." Lirssa scowled, her forehead tight with the angry furrows there.

"I felt it best you rest, Lirssa, and I doubt you would have done so on your own account. A little sedative was required." Arabella replied just as smooth as cream.

Fitzhugh chuckled and continued with his own purpose in the conversation. "Yes, well, in the arcane there are such wondrous things as amplifiers as well. Some use focusing stones. Others an object of personal value. But most rare of all is the amplifier that is a living, thinking, creature. Such as you, Lirssa."

If there had been thoughts in Lirssa's head before, plots and plans, they were no more. "What?"

"Maudry, good fellow he is, noticed the pattern first and that is why he refused to release you, and had to do everything to keep your working. I understand you find his methods unsavory."

She was out of her seat in an instant. "He hurts kids to manipulate me! I don't take that as unsavory, mister, that's wrong. Then she there threatens the adults" If you people wanted something from me, making me mad bain't the best way to be goin' 'bout it." And she was angry now, born of confusion.

"Do sit, Lirssa," Fitzhugh asked with a pleasant smile. "Of course, our methods seem harsh to you, one who hopes to end the suffering of young ones. I should admonish Maudry for using the children so, but you were being quite difficult to find to even have a discussion. See, here we sit, as easy new companions able to discuss the matters at hand." As nonchalant as if at a charming dinner party full of gaiety and convivial friendship, the man continued his meal as the second course was brought in to be served.

As the door opened and closed again, Lirssa caught sight of Jasper standing just outside the door. This still was not resolved. They still had some reason to keep hunting her, and no matter what Fitzhugh said, she doubted he would keep Maudry or Arabella from using whatever methods they could to keep her under control.

A rumble in her stomach also convinced her to take a seat again. She ate but little, hoping that whatever they might have laced her dishes with, though she had noticed they came from the same serving plates as their own, it would not put her out for too long. "Now, Lirssa, you have a talent. I would like to help you encourage and build that talent, and naturally, in return for this help, in giving you food and clothing and training, you would do favors in return for me."

"What kind of favors?" Lirssa asked as she finished her second bite of the fish.

Fitzhugh's eyes sparkled. "You are an arcane amplifier, Lirssa. Perhaps it would be best to show you what I mean. Will you permit Arabella to touch your hand?"

Arabella reached across the table with a smile, "I will not hurt you, I promise."

With a snicker, Lirssa reached across, almost hoping she'd just die so it would all be done with and people she cared for safe. "Yeah, well, lady, your promises don't mean much right now, so just do whatcha gonna do."

Fitzhugh even chuckled a moment at that, but watched with a wiggle of glee to his smile. "Now, Arabella, just a little parlor trick if you would please." He spilled his glass of wine sending a red blot growing across the pristine white tablecloth.

"Lirssa, as I showed you before, run your hand over the stain."

With a skeptical look, Lirssa eyed one then the other, but Arabella nodded and with a sigh, she ran her hand over the stain. The stain was gone. "How'd I?"

"Well, really," Fitzhugh chuckled once more as the two unclasped hands, "it was Arabella, not you. She worked through you. It was how you were unable to lock the door to Eliot's room. He is able to unlock doors, among other things, and he was able to use you to get to him."

"But he didn't touch me." Lirssa felt so confused.

Fitzhugh's head wobbled one way and then another. "No, but, and do excuse me for saying so Arabella, dear, Eliot is quite a powerful talent. He did not need to."

Not until the end, Lirssa realized, when he did whatever he did to knock aside Arabella and Jasper. He had grabbed her ankle, made the contact, and Lirssa could remember little else than feeling pressed aside inside herself; her body too small to hold herself and the other that used her.

"Now then, let us finish our meal. I think young Lirssa has much to think about, and I trust that if we let her return to her normal life she will make the right decision, won't you, Lirssa? We can help you, afterall, for we know what you are. They cannot, and you wouldn't want them to worry over absences we can prevent. I should hate to have to make a visit to Monsieur DeMuer or any of the others in search of you."

Lirssa was still neatly trapped, as never before. She felt not herself, other and alien, strange in her body. The meal ended without her taking another bite, and she was released into the night.

But she did not return to her old paths or her old ways. If they had not seen her, her favorites could not help them. If she broke with them, there would be nothing for Fitzhugh to use against her. Lirssa crept back into the shadows of the street and even avoided her pack of dogs, finding a small drain pipe near the ocean to curl up and cry.