I finally got to lie down, would wonders never cease. They left me alone, even Piers, though I knew he wanted to give me a long, hard talk about what I'd done. I read it in his sorcery-did he know mine sniffed and prowled and lurked around his own, begging me for just the barest taste of what he had to offer? I doubted it. If he had, I was sure his horror wouldn't have been long in making itself known.

Then again, he was a sorcerer, too. Maybe this was the nature of it and I ...