"Jennifer, he has yellow eyes!" Alex said into her mirror that night. "I've never seen anyone except us with those eyes."

"Hmm...Maybe he's a distant relative," her twin reasoned. "How did you come across him, anyway?"

Alex sighed. She knew it would come to this. "You can't tell, promise. I'm at the palace, disguised as a boy page," she told her. "I'm great friends with Joshua and everyone now, and nobody suspects, not even the Queen, and she knows about my magic. A lot of pages here have magic, surprisingly, and we have a class to learn it in, taught by the Queen. Anyway, Rufus came today, with four other new pages, and I'm his sponsor."

"I'll ask Mum and Dad about him," Jen said. "What's his last name again?"

"Pinarela, but he's adopted," Alex reminded her.

"Yes, I know. First, I'll poke around the study. It wouldn't be good to just ask about him out of nowhere," she said. "Now, I should be going, if I expect to find out anything before supper. Bye, Alex."

"Goodbye, sister," Alex said, and the mirror cleared to reveal her own face.

"Alex, stop talking to yourself," Stuart told her from the hall. She opened the door and glared at him.

"I am not talking to myself," she told him.

"Sure. Anyway, I wanted to tell you it's lights-out, before the servants come and yell at you," he told her. "Good night, Alex." He went into his own room across the hall, and Alex closed her door, before noticing that she hadn't been wearing her necklace.

Well, at least none of the pages were in the halls, since it's lights-out, and the servants haven't gotten here yet, she thought with a sigh as she climbed into bed. She had to be more careful about when she took her necklace off.

"What are you doing?" she asked the mischief girl.

"Learning a well-kept secret," Jen replied. "Mother, who's Rufus Pinarela?"

The woman's face went pale, and she sighed. "I'll get your father," she said, and left the study.

"Well, I was planning on showing Rufus around..."

"Then, he can come with us," was his reply. "I'm sure he'd love it. But, I can't stay for long, only an hour or so. I just need an escape for a little while."

Alex laughed. "I can imagine." Rufus walked out of his room. "Hey, Ruf, want to go into the city today?" she asked him.

He looked up, startled. "Well, I promised Stuart I'd meet him at the stables later, but I've got a couple of hours to spend before then," he said with a smile. "Sure."

They hadn't been in the city long before Mraek found them. "How did you know I was here?" she asked the grinning man.

"Are you kidding? After yesterday, I'm having you watched when you come into the city," he whispered to her. "Felipe saw you leave."

"The stable man?" she asked. "I had no idea he was one of your men!"

"Aye, the palace crawls with my people," he said solemnly. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

"Oh yeah. Marek, this is Rufus Pinarela. Rufus, this is my friend, Marek Nazzir," she said in a formal voice, then added, "he's a friend of ours from the city, and we usually spend free days hanging out with him."

The thief didn't comment on his eyes, to Alex's relief. It seemed that everyone had, and she was getting fairly tired of it. "We should get shelter, so our little friend doesn't find us," he instead told them. "It's nice to meet you, lad." He led them towards the Singing Swan. "So, how were conferences yesterday, your Highness?"

Joshua grimaced. "Boring and pointless, as usual," he replied. "Mother only holds them to see how the country is doing. If it wasn't fine, I think we would have known about it."

They spent the next hour at the inn, socializing with the city thieves. Here, they were all normal boys; even Joshua, who was called Josh there, was simply a rich city-lad. Eventually, the Prince stood to leave.

"I'm sorry, but I must return as well," Rufus said politely, but with regrets. He had obviously enjoyed the company of the thieves. "But I'll visit when possible," he added with a grin.

"That's all I can hope for," Marek told him, then looked at Alex. "Are you leaving, too?"

She shook her head. "I plan on resting," she told him. "If I return, someone will no doubt find work for me." She looked at the door and watched her two friends leave.

"That one resembles you," Marek said plainly. "Peculiar eyes."

"When I take off my disguise, those are the only things that are the same," she replied to him.

He stood up. "Well, come on, if you have no other plans. I want you to meet someone."

"Who are we going to see?" Alex asked as they walked through the streets.

"The most powerful sorcerer this side of the ocean," the thief told her. "She's a nurse, but of course can't use her Gift for simple things. She's saved plenty of cancer patients with it, though. She's my mother."

"Why do you want me to meet her?" the girl asked curiously as they walked down a quiet street and stopped at a small, two-story house.

"Cause you've got a gift for healing, and you have to learn how to use it," was his reply before walking into the kitchen. "Mother, I've brought a visitor!" he called out.

A woman in her early forties appeared in another doorway. She was tall, with medium brown hair and sparkling hazel eyes, a few white streaks in her hair giving any sign of her age. She wore an apron; under that was a plain yellow-print house dress. She had Marek's smile and nose, and was still pretty, despite her age. "Well, who have we here?" she asked. "My long-lost son has come to visit me."

Marek smiled. "I just saw you last week," he said as he kissed her cheek. "Mother, this lad is a page at the royal palace."

The thief's mother's smile vanished. "Stop lying to me, boy," she said, just a hint of sterness in her voice.

"But I am a page," Alex told her.

Her smile quickly reappeared. "Oh, I don't doubt that," she said. "He was lying about you being a lad, when I know plain as plain you're a girl, and he's lying."

"Why do you think that?" Alex asked. "Nobody, not even the Queen, has seen through my disguise..."

"Oh, I didn't see through your disguise. I just happened to be mixing a batch of eyebright when you came, and some was left on my fingers," she explained. "When Marek said you were a lad, it showed me that he was lying. It does that, you know."

"Yes, I'm familiar with what it does, but never actually used it," the girl replied. "I'm- I go by Alexander Tirragen," she said. "It's not my real name, but close enough."

"And I am Iris Nazzir," the woman told her. "Why did my son bring you to me?"

"I was thinking you could teach her to heal, for emergencies," Marek told his mother. "She's got strong healing magic, and I figured you'd be a good one to teach her."

"She must, to keep up a strong conception spell like hers," Iris said. "But to heal, you need all of your energy, and will have to let go of other spells, so let's do away with them first thing, and tell me who you are."

Alex looked at Marek, and he nodded. It was apparent that his mother was as trustworthy as himself. Slowly, Alex took the charm off her neck, and told Mistress Nazzir all she had told Marek the day before. The woman raised her eyebrows at Alex's name, but said nothing. Alex told her everything, even about her encounter with the Mother Goddess. Finally, she stopped talking and sat back in her chair.

The sorceress' eyes were thoughtful. "For sure, this does require a lot to think about," she said. "You're quite the most unique girl I've ever met. But come, and we'll get you started on learning to heal."

They worked far into the afternoon, and Alex was drained of energy when she gave up. Tiredly, she slipped the necklace back over her head and walked through the city, leaning on Marek for support. "I need my own horse, to ride in the city," she said wearily as the sun went down.

The thief smiled. "Well, just be happy no one's decided to attack us today," he told her. "You'd probably go lie in a corner to sleep somewhere while I fought them off."

"Oh, and you'd do a marvelous job at it," she commented as they drew up to the palace gate. "Good night, George," she said as she walked through the gate and nodded to the guard stationed there.

Something flickered across the thief's face. She called me George again, he thought as he turned to walk back to his city. I'll have to ask her about that, sometime.

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