“I’m sure you’re very good,” he said. “But these cloaks are special. Do you know anything about how magic works?”

I shook my head. “Not in the least.”

“Well…,” North began. “These cloaks are what I use for magic. If they’re not mended carefully, I won’t be able to use them.”

I held out my hand, still unable to look him fully in the eye.

“I’ll be careful,” I said.

North sighed. “One to begin with, all right?”

He tried untying them from around his neck, but the strings had become badly knotted, and his gloved hands were shaking so badly that I had to do it myself. The moment my hands touched him, he stilled.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Fine. A bit tired.”

“Are you sure?” I said, watching him more carefully now.

He nodded, holding perfectly still as I worked on the stubborn knots.

“Thank you for bringing me back to the village,” I said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever fainted before. I guess I was more overwhelmed than I thought.”

“And here I thought you swooned at the sight of me.” He gave me a crooked smile.

“Do you do this a lot?” he asked, when I had finally pulled the cloaks free and placed them in his arms. I didn’t answer, but accepted the yellow cloak as he handed it to me. They were made from a thin wool: rough but sturdy. I set to work immediately, sinking down next to him on my small pile of bedding. He glanced around the room, at my half-finished blankets and rugs and the small scenes of Cliffton I had created with yellow, brown, and red thread. His eyes fell on the silver circle on my wall, a larger version of my necklace. I would have to pray beneath the one in my parents’ room that night.

“It’s not much,” I said. “I’m sorry I don’t have a bed for you.”

“No, no,” North said quickly. “It’s not that. I’m just surprised that you’re a weaver.”

“Why is that?” I asked, pulling together a jagged tear in the stained yellow cloak.

“I just meant that you’re very young to be so good. At weaving, I mean.”

“I’ll have you know that I just turned sixteen,” I said, knotting the thread and cutting the excess. “Aren’t you a little young to be a wizard?”

“I’ll have you know that I just turned eighteen,” he said, mimicking my tone almost perfectly. “That’s four years out of apprenticeship and two years your elder.”

So much for wizards and their legendary kindness and courtesy. He was no different than any of the boys I had grown up with.

“Very funny,” I said. “A wizard and a joker.”

North shrugged, still looking around. “I see red…yellow…brown…ah, a little green, and of course our own Palmarta purple—no gray?”

“Why would I have gray?” I asked, giving him a sidelong glance. “We haven’t seen a rain cloud in years.”

He glanced up, toward the old blanket I had strung over my bed. What had once been an expertly woven image of Provincia’s castle and its surrounding lake was now faded and stained.

“Ah, but there’s the castle!” he said, craning his neck for a better look. “That’s a decent likeness. Have you been to the capital?”

“Of course not,” I said. “That was given to me by a woman who was traveling across the country selling her work. She gave me the blanket and told me to meet her in Andover when I was old enough.”

“And when will you be old enough?”

“When I’m born in a different village in another lifetime,” I said.

“But you want to go,” North said. He bit the side of his thumb, his expression troubled. It was not long before his eyes found the old map of Palmarta tacked up in the soft plaster of my wall. Each circle of string marked a city where Henry had traveled, making deliveries of our yellow dust. With Auster looming to the east and Saldorra to the west and south, our country looked ready to be swallowed whole.

“What I want will always be different from what everyone else wants for me,” I said, knotting the thread.

“You’re talented enough, if you really do want it,” North said. “You could support yourself if you settled in a city.”

I shook my head, surprised at the prick of anger inside me. He could flit in and out of towns and cities at will. I should never have brought the old woman up in the first place, but every time I looked at the blanket, I could feel her soft, wrinkled palms as she had brushed the dirt from my cheeks.

“Would you leave,” he asked, “if you could?”

“It’s not my choice,” I said. “It must be nice to go wherever you want. Have you decided how you’re getting to Provincia?”

He shrugged. “I’m taking the most direct route possible, cutting straight through the center of the country. There are a few cities like Dellark and Fairwell along the way, but I’ll be spending most of my time outdoors. You could start over, buy yourself a new, bigger loom—”

“Never,” I said. “That’s my loom, and it’s the only one I want to use.”

The loom had been with me since I was a little girl, watching my grandmother weave her own blankets and stories into it. It was an extension of me, as familiar as the face of my father. It had always been an escape—from drought and from every painful emotion.