Pat Rin looked at her, foreknowing... “And that talent is?”

Priscilla smiled at him. “She may impose her will—to a very limited extent—upon the unwary.” Her smiled deepened. “And now that you are warned, you are armed.”

His mother a dramliza? It was only slightly mad, Pat Rin thought, considering the facts of Shan and Anthora in the present generation. But that one talent ...

“I think you are saying that it was my mother’s influence that kept me from qualifying as pilot?”

“At first, boy dear,” Luken said, gently. “By the time you had failed two or three times, you were quite able to fail all on your own.” He smiled, sadly. “It was my sorrow, my boy, that I could never allow you to see anything other than your own unworthiness.”

Pat Rin blinked against tears; Natesa’s finger’s tightened around his. “You did so much else, Father...”

A small pause, and then was Val Con abruptly before him, raising his hand so that Korval’s ring gleamed. Pat Rin lifted an eyebrow. “Korval?”

“You will,” Korval stated, “arrange time to study with Clonak ter’Meulen. You will learn the core coordinates, and such protocols as Scout ter’Meulen finds worthy. You will come to your delm inside of one local year and submit to such verification as may be demanded.”

“Ah. And my streets? My duties as boss?”

Val Con smiled, and put his hand on his lifemate’s shoulder.

“You’ll think of something,” he said.

Pat Rin drew a breath—to say what he hardly knew, or perhaps he meant only to laugh. The opportunity for either, however, was snatched from him by Cheever McFarland.

“Right then,” the big man said. “Time to finish it up.”

The fiddler provided a sprightly, skipping little melody as they filed into the parlor and took up position on a clear space on the rug, Val Con leaving them at the last to tend his ‘chora once more.