alive?”
“That’s a rather inelegant way of summing up a week’s worth of argument-but I
think that you’re fairly close to the heart of the matter.”
“And we don’t want our visitors from the capital to know about her or the
Stormchildren?”
“I think it would be safe to say that whatever chaos the witch could cause on
her own it would be made immeasurably worse were it witnessed by someone, as you
say, ‘from the capital’.”
“And because we don’t know where she is, or what she’s going to do, or when
she’s going to do it; we’re trying to guard against everything and starting to
distrust each other. More than usual, that is-though not you and I, of course.”
Molin smiled despite himself-beneath that affable dense-ness the prince
concealed a certain degree of intelligence, leadership, and common sense. “Of
course,” he agreed.
“I think, then, we’re making a mistake. I mean, we couldn’t be making it easier
for her-assuming she actually is planning something.”
“You would suggest we do something different?”
“No,” the youth chuckled, “I don’t make suggestions like that-but, if I were you
I’d suggest that, rather than guarding against her, we put some sort of
irresistible temptation in front of her-an ambush.”
“And what sort of temptation would / suggest?”
“The children.”
. “No,” the priest chided, only half in jest now; the prince’s suggestion had
him thinking of intriguing ways to deal with both Tempus and magic. “Jihan
wouldn’t stand for that.”
“Oh.” The prince sighed and got to his feet. “I hadn’t thought about her. But it