Felaras sighed. "I know Teo. Thank the gods for him, too. He won't go raising my hopes for no reason." She leaned back and took another sip of wine, retreating into the shadow cast by the back of the chair until all Kasha could see were her eyes glittering in the darkness. "Thank the gods for you, too. And Zorsha. You're all sensible and I can depend on you, and you know this situation may prove to be the life or the death of the Order. And if everything goes to hell either one of the lads can train himself in this seat, and you'll help. Because I surely won't have time to tell them everything they'll need to know."
Kasha shivered. "Don't say that. It sounds like you're ill--wishing yourself."
"Why not? It's true. We of all people should be able to face the truth."
They both took good long pulls at their mugs; Kasha as much to drive the night-fears away as for any other reason. It worked; she felt the wine going to her head.
Felaras brooded a while longer in silence until Kasha couldn't bear it. "Say something, Felaras. Anything."
"Like what?"
"What you're thinking."
Felaras coughed. "It's pretty selfish. I'm thinking it isn't fair. I am sixty-two damn-'em years old. I should be taking things easy, training the Terrible Twosome, enjoying a comfortable old age. I should be getting respect! What do I get? The Order playing politics under my nose, barbarians on the doorstep, and a Second who puts her feet on my desk!"
"If you really didn't like it," Kasha pointed out, "I wouldn't do it."
"I know it; and I was as snippy with Swordmaster Rodhru as you are with me," Felaras replied. "When you're snippy, I know I can trust you. Kasha, I wish I wasn't Master. And not just because I never wanted it. I wish I could pass the seat on to you. You'd make a better Master than either Teo or Zorsha,"
The chair creaked as Kasha shifted uneasily. All this talk of passing on the seat—Felaras was fey tonight. It wasn't like her to be this gloom-ridden. "I wouldn't have your seat; Swordmaster I'd take under protest, but not that—"
"That's the point—you don't want it. The Master's seat goes to the most qualified person who wants it the least." The fire popped and Felaras took another large swallow. "That's how I got stuck with it. Ruvan frankly wasn't qualified—even he said so, when you could get his nose out of a book. Zetren wanted it too much. So did Halun, for that matter, but he was automatically out of the running. So it was me."
Kasha shivered in a bit of draft, and listened with half an ear to the fury of the storm outside the study window. "I didn't know that."
"You're not supposed to. Just like nobody outside the Watchers is supposed to know that a third of us are wizards." She coughed. "Kasha, how long have you and I been working together?"
"Since I was novice; um—twelve years, almost."
Felaras put her mug carefully on the desk and laced the fingers of her hands behind her head. "I've stayed out of your private life as much as I could—"
"I know—" Kasha began.
"Don't interrupt. I'm about to crawl into it with a vengeance. You and Zorsha and Teo have been a triad from the time you could crawl. Which one of them are you sleeping with?"
Kasha's face flamed, and she choked on her wine.
"Both?"
"No!" she exclaimed, trying to get herself back under control. "I mean we—you know kids, but—when it started to—I wouldn't—dammit, Felaras, you've got no right to ask that of me!"
"I know that," Felaras replied calmly. "I have a reason. You know them both better than I ever could. I need another perspective. Should I pass the seat to Teo, or to Zorsha?"
Kasha went from hot to frozen. That was the very last question she'd ever expected out of Felaras.
"You're drunk," she stammered, finally. "You're drunk, or you'd never have said that."
Felaras shook her head, gently curving grey strands just brushing the tops of her shoulders. "No, I'm not. Or not that drunk."
"Felaras—I—" She was at a total loss for words.
"Have either of them asked to be your permanent lover yet?"
"No!" She flushed hotly again. "We're . . . friends. That's all. I don't want to have to choose between them, not ever! Not for that, not for any reason!"
"You're a Watcher—"
"I know that. I'm a Watcher before I'm anything else, Felaras, and—"
"So focus and give me the answer to my question."
Kasha took a deep breath and focused down until her stomach stopped churning; stilled her mind and let whatever would come rise to the surface.
And when the thought came, it seemed an odd one, but she spoke it anyway.
"Zorsha has never had a nickname. Teo has never been Teokane to anyone except as a signature."
Felaras took her words, turned them around, and looked them over; Kasha could see it in the slightly unfocused eyes, the frown-line between her thick grey eyebrows.
"Meaning?"
Kasha followed her thought, as carefully as she would have followed a track over barren ground. "I'm not quite sure. Except that—nobody ever gave you a nickname either. Or me. Can people obey somebody they still think of as 'young Teo'? Can they trust the decisions of a man who is still bearing the diminutive he wore when he was a child?" She had to shake her head. "I'm not sure what it means; I'm not sure it means anything."
"Let me lead you down a side path, then; suppose I told you to choose, not for the Order, but for yourself. Told you that you would have to make up your mind between them. Then what?"
Kasha shoved the extreme embarrassment and the uncomfortable feelings that question caused down into a corner of herself and sat on them until they weren't getting in the way of her thinking. "If I were forced into choosing one of them as my lover, it would probably be Teo. And that would be because Zorsha would be hurt, but not as badly, nor as deeply, by my making a choice. Which is why I won't." Her mouth was dry, and she was feeling very off-balance and unsettled, and she didn't want to have to deal with it anymore. "Felaras, I don't like having to think about these things—"
"Enough of it, then. Drink your wine; you look like hell."
"Do I?" She willed her insides to stop fluttering. "I feel like hell. I've avoided just this topic ever since the three of us figured out that boys and girls were different. And that I wasn't a boy. Like I said, we—but when it looked like it might get into something other than a game, I started saying 'no' to that. I enjoy what we have and I don't want it ruined."
"But you've told me what I needed to know, girl. That Teo isn't as resilient as Zorsha. That other people view him—how to put this?—with a little less than the full respect the Master needs."
Kasha laughed, hearing the edge of hysteria in her voice and hoping Felaras didn't. "You talk about respect? With all the fights in Council—"
"They fight me; that doesn't mean they don't respect me." Felaras chuckled out of the dark depths of her chair. "Somebody out there respected my abilities enough to try and joggle my arm tonight. An ill-wishing. I sent it home with its tail between its legs."
Kasha sat bolt upright, mug sloshing. "An ill-wishing? But—"
Felaras waved her alarm aside. "Don't fret yourself. By tomorrow whoever it is will have other things to think about. We're going to have those blamed nomads at the door; that should keep everyone's attention, and—"
There was a tentative knock at the door. "Come," Felaras called, and Zorsha slid around the door-edge with his hands full of papers, his blond hair and brown clothing dark with either sweat or rain, grey eyes looking a bit less sleepy than usual.
"Master Felaras, you said—"