My jug is still dry. My magic has always been difficult, complicated, messy. In my mother's parlor, all my will can barely manage a droplet. Even by the banks of the sacred Cantara, I gave up and drew my water with a bucket. But in the garden, when I'm with you, magic is so simple that it seems to happen on its own.

My city trembled and screamed as the waves battered the granite. The wall still held when the storm waned, but the sea-quake had frightened us all. That night, as soon as my hands stopped shaking, I wrote a letter to my father, asking him to send a magician. I sealed it with the imprint of my thumb in the warm wax; he always said that a caress, even at a remove, was better than a cold signet.