Theodora smiled. “I know you are. But go with the wizard. They’ll all think you’re beautiful in your blue dress when you reach Yurt. Aren’t you looking forward to living in a castle for a week?”

It was the castle that decided it for Antonia. She had never been to Yurt. She marched out toward the air cart, then darted back in to grab her bag and, somewhat belatedly, kiss her mother good-bye.

Theodora kissed me too. “I’ll see you both next week. She really is a good girl, Daimbert,” she added, “but make sure she gets enough sleep. She’ll keep herself awake for hours if you let her.”

And so, rather abruptly, rather than having a pleasant day with the woman I loved, I found myself leaving for home with the daughter with whom I had never before spent more than brief periods alone. A moderately skilled wizard, with access through the Hidden Language to the same forces that had shaped the earth, I felt at a loss before this serious-eyed young girl. I wanted this to be a wonderful week, an opportunity to gain the affection and confidence of someone who might not even be certain I was her father.

Boys I thought I knew about, from memories of my own childhood and from watching Paul grow up, but girls, I thought with something approaching panic, must be different. It was all very well for Theodora to say that she needed to get to bed on time, but what was involved in getting a girl to bed? Nightgowns and toothbrushes, I was sure, played a role in this, but how about her hair? Did I brush it? Was I supposed to rebraid it at night or in the morning? And did I even have the slightest idea how to braid hair?

I lifted Antonia into the air cart, climbed in myself, and gave the command to lift off. Her self-possession cracked for a moment as the cart rotated and rose above the twisting streets of Caelrhon. She clutched my leg and looked up at me-was it supposed to sway like this? When I smiled and the air cart’s flight leveled out, she smiled back, reassured.