Free Touchstone by Melanie Rawn

occasion, up in Rafe’s big, airy bedchamber that occupied the whole of the attic high above the bakery, Cade’s attempted demonstration of how to expand and contract control had burst every piece of glass and ceramic in the room, including the mirror, and warped the chamber door into the bargain. It had never closed properly since, or so Rafe’s mother avowed with a wink at Cade every time she said it. She treasured the memory of that afternoon, for as it turned out, her son’s instincts had kicked him into containing Cade’s magic so that it didn’t run riot through the rest of the house. “Might have blown out every other window in the place, and in the bakery besides,” Mistress Threadchaser always said to finish the tale. “Cayden is that powerful—but my boy, he’s that strong!”
    Once Jeska announced himself prepared, and Mieka had agreed with Cade on the exact sequence and nature of the magic, and Cade had done the minor shifts in the spells already within the withies, Rafe sank back into his chair with a long sigh of weariness.
    “We go on at eight? Fine. Wake me five minutes before the show.”
    “What you want is your tea, mate.” Mieka sprang to his feet and bounded lightly for the kitchen door.
    Cade leaned towards his fettler, frowning. “Are you sure you’ll be ready for this tonight? Or maybe I ought to be asking if you can cope with him?”
    Rafe shrugged. “It’s a different sort of tired, y’know.”
    Nodding, Cade settled back again. He knew what Rafe meant. There was a look his friend wore sometimes after a performance that meant he’d spent the evening fighting to discipline an erratic or inexperienced glisker. This was not the same. Rafe had been modulating and adjusting, not struggling for control. The tired that came of satisfying work was entirely different from that of a long battle to a disappointing end.
    Jeska packed up the scuffed leather portfolio where he kept his charts, saying, “I can’t stop. Make my apologies to Mistress Threadchaser, if you would. And I’ll have to meet you at the Downstreet—I’ve accounts to be totted before supper.” As difficult as he found reading, arithmetic came as simply to him as breathing. Jeska supplemented his mother’s always shaky finances by keeping the books for a dozen local businesses.
    “Our duty to your mum,” Rafe said. He had very pretty manners.
    “Travel safe,” Cade added, and when Jeska had left the sitting room turned again to his fettler. “You really do look worn out. Are you sure he fits?”
    “Even boots made to measure start out a little stiff. But he knows what he’s doing, and what’s better, I know what he’s doing. It’ll come right, Cade, stop fretting.”
    Nodding once more, he pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll bring in the tea.”
    He knocked politely on the kitchen door—Mistress Mirdley had more than once threatened to smack his bottom for startling her at her work. The day she’d carried through on the threat had given him the biggest surprise of his life. There had been a napkinful of sweets on his pillow that night by way of apology, but he had never again forgotten to knock.
    No one answered from the other side of the kitchen door, and as he listened carefully he understood why. Mieka was talking. Did Mieka ever stop talking?
    “—shoulda seen me fa’s great-auntie, ears like big floppy bat wings—took all four brothers and a sister or two to hold her down in a spring breeze or she’d take flight! Mum was horrid scared I’d turn out the same, but it appears I got the best of all things Elfen,” he finished without a trace of conceit. Only stating the facts.
    “And there are eight of you? Mercy!” exclaimed Mistress Threadchaser.
    “Eight,” the Elf confirmed, “and no two sets like another. My older brothers, they’re all Human, down to the last curly red hair. Six foot five, shoulders like cannon mounts, no more magic in them than can stir the soup—which neither of