"Ah, no," Elias muttered.

Imaret was barely tall enough to peer around Master a'Seatt's back and over the counter. Her kinky brown-black hair was tied back, but too many errant strands bounced around her caroutround hamel-tinted face. And her eyes lit up at the sight of Jeremy.

Elias scowled, but Imaret didn't notice.

Why did grim Master a'Seatt have a thirteen-year-old girl working in his scriptorium?

Imaret was known on the guild grounds and had suffered more than once as she tailed Jeremy about. Instead of attending one of the four public schools run by the guild, someone, somehow, had paid for her more intense tutelage. Certainly not her father, who was only a retired sergeant of the regulars.

"Hello, Imaret," Jeremy said politely.

Elias rolled his eyes, but again no one noticed.

Imaret dropped her gaze bashfully, opening her small mouth to speak.

"You have finished cleaning up?" Pawl a'Seatt asked, not looking up from the pages.

Imaret raised her eyes, her mouth still open.

"It's late, girl," Teagan added. "And I don't need another sharp word from your parents."

Imaret's pout turned to a vinegar scowl, and she backed through the door with a last lovesick glance at Jeremy.

Pawl a'Seatt finished another notation. When he set down the quill, Teagan snatched up the sheet of notes.

"Seven?" the old scribe moaned. "Seven corrections to the translations? I can barely read half the sages' symbols in what we transcribe, let alone know what they mean. Our task is to provide clean copies for their master codex—not to correct their work. How would you know what's an error or not?"

Elias wondered how, indeed. Translating scattered passages from Wynn Hygeorht's texts had been a slow and tedious process, from what he'd heard. Whatever pieces could be completed with certainty were recorded in the sages' Begaine syllabary. Occasionally this might include certain untranslated words or phrases carefully rendered in the original symbols and languages.