"What's… what is your name, boy?"

"Grimm Afelnor, Doorkeeper."

The name of Afelnor was somehow familiar to Doorkeeper, echoing and resonating in his head, although he could not quite remember its significance.

The old man furrowed his brow. "Was your father a mage here, Grimm?"

"No, sir, he was a blacksmith, but I don't really remember him. He and my mamma died when I was little. Granfer Loras looks after me now. He's a smith, too."

Sudden realisation flooded into Doorkeeper's mind: Loras Afelnor, the Oath-breaker!

Once the brightest star in the House firmament, Loras had fallen from grace some forty years before, and he had been stripped of all magic before being banished from the Guild. Now, Doorkeeper knew how the child had come by the ring.

Whilst he harboured the gravest doubts that Lord Thorn would accept the grandson of the Traitor as a Student, Doorkeeper still felt some kinship for his disgraced former Guildbrother, and he remembered the dignity with which Loras had submitted to the humbling and agonising ordeal that marked his expulsion from the Guild.

"Grimm, I promise I will take your grandfather's message to Lord Thorn as soon as I can, tomorrow morning. Tonight, you must eat and rest; I will accept no more argument on the matter."

For once in his life, Doorkeeper sounded as grave and serious as he had so often yearned to be; if the lad had a tenth of the power of his grandfather, a long and arduous road might lie ahead of him, and the grizzled mage felt sorry for the bedraggled boy.

Loras had been a Mage Questor, the most powerful and valuable class of Specialist, and Doorkeeper knew the making of a Questor was a turbulent and torturous affair. If there was any chance that Grimm might be subjected to the Questor Ordeal, as his grandfather had been, this intelligent, earnest child might be turned into a neurotic paranoid or worse, and the old man felt a frisson of distress at that gruesome prospect. However, Doorkeeper regarded Lord Thorn with nothing less than absolute trust, and he accepted that, sometimes, difficult choices had to be made for the good of the House.