“Is it a little incongruous,” the woman wondered eventually, “for a Master of magics to be sitting at the bottom of a hole with his shirt torn and blood on his chin?”

Lute considered her shuttered face. “A minor reversal of fortunes. Only let me lay my hand upon my bag and neither this nor any other hole may contain me!”

“Oh.” The eyes were open again. “Where is it? Your bag.”

He pointed upward with a flourish. “Lady Drudae has it in her tender keeping.”

“I see.” She twisted her angular self gracelessly and sat up. “You’re an optimist.”

“A pragmatist,” he corrected gently. “But enough of me! What of yourself? What are you hight? Whither are you bound? How came you here? How will you go away?”

She raised her hands, feeling in the thick, unraveling knot of her hair. “Moonhawk. Where the Goddess sends me. Upon my two feet. The same.” Her hair became a cascade, obscuring gaunt features.

“Moonhawk.” He chewed his lip. “This is no good place for a name out of Circle. Call yourself otherwise, if you’ll take my advice—unless you’ve come to convert the heathen?”

She laughed, a pleasing sound in the dankness of the pit. “Hardly.” She ran pale strands through combing fingers. “You are devout?”

“I was raised to the Way and have traveled a good deal—Have you been to Huntress City? The lamps—harnessed lightnings, I was told, from the ships that brought our foremothers here.” He waved a hand upward, indicating the greasy shadows of oil light. “Far different, this.”

“There aren’t many places to compare with the glory of Huntress,” she said softly. “I would like to visit someday—Goddess willing. The last news I had was that Huntress Circle was collecting everything that might be from the Ships and placing all within a warded treasurehouse.”

“So? All the more reason, then, for one of the Circle to visit Lady Drudae. She possesses a most interesting artifact.”