 slowly taking on a human reasoning, and he started to become aware of things that had no meaning for him earlier.  Things changed around the house to help him respark the human awareness, such as Janine's change of attitude towards him.  At first, she barely tolerated him.  But as time went on, and he proved that he was no threat to her decorations or her daughter, the woman fell into a gruff acceptance of him.  She paid him no attention, but neither did she pay him any mind.
	It was after Janette's bedtime when Tarrin was laying sedately by the fireplace.  When he was not with his little mother, the fireplace was his domain.  He would go to bed with her and wait for her to go to sleep, then he would lay by the fireplace until it fell to embers, when he would go back up and sleep at the foot of her bed.  There was almost always a fire burning, even in the middle of summer, for light if nothing else, and its dry heat was very pleasing to him.  Janette had had to practice the flute before bed, just one of many lessons she went through each day, as her mother turned her into a "proper lady".  In that respect, the little girl drove her mother wild.  Janette would have been much happier on a farm, because she loved to be outside, loved to crawl through the grass and climb trees and catch frogs.  That was rather hard on the pretty silk and brocade dresses Janine the wife had her wear, and it was always a point of contention between them.  Ladies did not do such things.  What Janine the wife seemed to fail to understand was that Janette was not a Lady.  She was a child.  And crawling in the grass, climbing trees, and catching frogs were things that children did.
	Janine the wife was there, in her favorite chair, reading from a thick book, as Tomas the merchant sat in his favorite chair next to her. Janine the wife was a tall woman, thin and shapely, with a pretty face and her brown hair done up on a bun most of the time, except when she was entertaining, when it was let down in cascading waves.  Tomas the merchant wasn't at home very much during the day, off caring for his business.  He was a thin, tall man with lanky arms and a gentle face, his brown hair thick and long, and done up in a single tail at the back of his neck.  When he was home, he was either working on his papers or spending time with his family.  Tarrin rather liked him, because he was a calm, unruffled sort of fellow with a very practical mind.
	"You look worried, my love," Janine the wife said to him.  The two of them seemed to be deeply in love.  They certainly carried on as if they were.
	"The Star of Jerod still hasn't come in," he said, biting his lip slightly.  "It's three days overdue."
	"That's only three days," she said.
	"I know, but Bascone usually isn't late."
	"I thought Bascone was captain of the Wave Sprite."
	"He was," he said.  "He took over the Star two months ago."
	"I'm sure he's alright.  There's been some rough weather south.  He may have been delayed."
	"I hope so," he said.  "He was carrying Arakite silk, and if I lose that cargo, we're going to take a serious loss."
	Tarrin looked into the fire, transfixed by the dancing of the flames.  Just as he looked away, the fire popped suddenly.  The sound startled him badly.  Despite his time in the peace of the house, he still reacted with the reflexes of a warrior.  He jumped up and faced the fire, hissing defensively, until he realized that it wasn't an attack.  Then, feeling a bit foolish, he laid back down.  Tomas the merchant's chuckle didn't help his pride much.
	"He's a jittery thing," he remarked to his wife.
	"I think her last owner wasn't very nice to her," Janine said grudgingly.  "She follows Janette around like a puppy.  It's like she thinks she's the only good person in the world."
	"He," he corrected.
	"I thought it was a girl."
	"No, it's a boy."
	"Janette thinks it's a girl."
	"I know.  I don't have the heart to tell her any differently."  He shuffled a few more papers.  "I hope Bascone puts in tomorrow," he sighed.  "My buyers for that silk are getting impatient."
	"Bascone's a dependable man," she assured him.  "If he's late, then he ran into trouble."
	"I know, and that's what worries me," he grunted.
	"He's a good captain, dear," she said calmly.  "It'd take nothing short of the Gods themselves to sink Bascone's ship."
	"I can take the loss on the ship.  It's that silk I can't afford to lose."  There was a shuffle of more papers.  "Oh well, I'll worry about it tomorrow," he sighed.  "Shadow," he called.
	Tarrin turned his head and looked at him.  "He's a smart cat," he chuckled as he motioned to him.  Tarrin got up and yawned, then padded over to Tomas's chair, and jumped up into his lap.  He settled down as Tomas the merchant rubbed the back of his neck pleasingly.
	"Not you too," Janine huffed.  "Everyone in this house is in love with that creature."
	"I think you keep saying that just to be contrary, dear," he accused.  "You're just annoyed that our little girl browbeat you into keeping him."
	There was a long silence, then Janine the wife laughed ruefully.  "Maybe," she said.  "Janette can be a terror when she has her mind set on something."
	"She's her mother's daughter," he said fondly.
	"Any word of who owns it?"
	"None," he said.  "I've asked all around the neighborhood, but nobody owned him.  Not around here, anyway.  Looks like we're stuck with him."
	"I think that was a bit obvious," she said dryly.
	Tomas the merchant chuckled.  Tarrin started purring as Tomas's fingers found all the itches.  "I don't mind him," Tomas the merchant said.
	"He doesn't like me," Janine the wife said gruffly.
	"Try being nice to him," Tomas the merchant replied.
	"I am," she said indignantly.
	"You don't kick him, or beat him, or dunk him in boiling water.  Yes, you're so very nice to him," Tomas the merchant said.  Janine the wife laughed helplessly.
	"What are you going to do tomorrow?" she asked.
	"I think I may send the Sprite out to look for Bascone," he said soberly.  "He's using the standard route, so if he's in trouble, Pichet will be able to find him and help him."
	"Is Pichet on the schedule?"
	"Not right now," he said.  "I can't buy that wool shipment until the silk comes in, so Pichet's in port until Bascone gets here.  At least this way, Pichet and his sailors have something to do."
	Janine the wife chuckled.  "They do get rowdy after a few rides in port."
	Tarrin tuned them out, putting his head down.  Being a cat gave him a great deal of time to think, and lately, his thoughts were becoming more and more sober.  He thought alot about what had happened, and his current situation.  More and more, he was starting to realize that being a cat was all well and good, but his human awareness made going through the motions day after day to get a bit old.  And he'd been thinking of his family.
	He missed them.  Even with what happened, he loved his family very much, and knowing that they were only across town made it even worse.  He knew they were worried about him, despite what happened, and that added to his concern.  Allia was probably a wreck by now.  Without him, she had nobody, and despite her strength, in this foreign land, a friend to talk to was absolutely vital to her.  He just hoped that she met his parents, and that his parents and sister would somehow take his place in her life.  Give her someone to talk with.  Dar was probably in the Initiate by now; he wasn't sure, because time had a surreal quality to him, caught between his human awareness and the Cat's eternal now as he was.  Tarrin hoped that Sorcery was everything the young man dreamed it would be.  He had several real reasons to leave, to return to his life and take up his responsibilities.
	But the knowledge of what he had done, and his fear of himself, kept him firmly in place.  It was better for him to stay here, stay in a place where there was no temptation, no danger.  His little mother was the sole reason he hadn't gone totally mad, and wasn't dead at that moment.  If not for her, he would be gone.  And in her arms, he felt absolutely safe and secure, and knew that nothing bad would befall him.  He knew that that little girl was the only thing standing between him and insanity, and he just didn't feel he was ready to go on without her there to soothe his fears and make all the pain melt away.  He just wasn't ready to leave.
	He wondered what happened to Jesmind.  Without him there, she had no reason to stay.  And after so much time, if she hadn't found him yet, she wasn't going to find him.  He wondered if she was combing the forests and plains around Suld in an attempt to track him down.
	The next day taught him that someone was looking for him.  Nanna the maid answered the door, where a sober looking young man wearing a coat and breeches of soft gray velvet stood.  He was wearing a shaeram.  Tarrin hunkered down in the shadow of the hallstand as the man took off his three-corner cap and greeted Nanna the maid politely.  "Good morning to you, madam," he said.  "I was wondering if you could help me."
	"What do you need, good sir?" she asked.
	"The Tower is looking for something, madam," he said.  "It's a black cat, just a bit larger than an average cat.  He's wearing a black collar.  Have you seen such a cat?"
	It hung there for several seconds.  "Whatever is the Tower doing looking for a cat?" Nanna the maid asked curiously.
	"It belongs to the Wikuni Princess," he said ruefully.  "If it's not found, there's going to be some very strained words passing over the Sea of Storms."
	"Well, I'm sorry, good sir, but I've not seen this cat you seek."
	"Ah, well," he sighed.  "Should you spot him, there's quite a substantial reward for the one who brings him back.  You can bring him to the Tower gate, and the guard there will direct you."
	"I'll keep that in mind, good sir," she said.  "I'm sorry, but I have work to do.  Good day to you."
	"A good day to you, madam," the man said, dipping his cap to her again.  Then Nanna the maid shut the door.  She shook her head, and then noticed Tarrin hunkered down under the hallstand.  Nanna the maid didn't miss much of anything.  "The Royal cat, eh?" she chuckled, beckoning to him.  Tarrin approached her warily, an irrational thought that she meant to carry him after the Sorcerer crossing his mind.   But she just cradled him in an arm, scratching him behind the ear.  "Well, get that out of your system, Shadow," she smiled.  "I saw how you acted when you got here.  That royal brat was very mean to you, and I'll not give you back to be tortured.  Besides, Janette would be devastated."
	And that was that.  Nanna the maid never made mention of the visit to the others, not even to Tomas the merchant, and it was simply dropped.
	But it was important to Tarrin, and he brooded over it for several days after the visit.  It was obvious that though he was done with the Tower, the Tower was nowhere near done with him.  It also told him that they did want something from him, else they wouldn't be looking for him.  And it told him that they knew he was still inside the city, else they wouldn't waste people's time by sending Sorcerers door to door looking for him.  But, on another note, he realized that they couldn't find him with Sorcery, else they'd have been here the day after he fled.  That was a very important bit of information, something that he filed neatly away in his memory.  But he was a bit more careful after that, not going out into the areas of the garden that were visible from the street, and not laying in the windowsills looking out as he used to do.
	But life inside did not change.  He was still with his little mother most of the time, content to just be near her when she was busy with something else.  And yet, as days passed, he found that his desire to be with his little mother faded from fanatical, to important, to merely being his wish.  He was healing, he knew, coming to terms with the trauma that had put him in Janette's arms in the first place, and he was relying less and less on the little girl's calming love and affection.
	It was probably then that he knew that, while he loved this house dearly and everyone in it, that it would not make him content to live out his life here.  Eventually, he would leave, would have to leave, and find a life for himself elsewhere.  Janette would grow up, and her life would become full with husband and children.  And while he knew that, should he stay, he would be a part of that life, it seemed wrong to him to take away something from her just for his own selfish desires.
	He knew it would be soon, but "soon" was a very vague concept to one that had trouble marking the passage of time.
	He laid and thought about his eventual departure often, while Janette was busy with something else, but he had no idea how many days it had been since he had made that decision.  The eternal now of the cat prevented him from simply counting the days, since the memories of the past days seemed to blur into one another in a jumble that made it impossible to discern one day from another.  Janette's world was one of strictly regimented activity, for she performed the same lessons almost every day, did the same things every day, and there was nothing different from which Tarrin could refer to try to calculate the amount of time that had passed.  All he had to go on was the seasons, and it was still hot outside during the day and warm in the night.  It was still summer.
	It had been a day, like any other.  Janette had spent time with him between her lessons, playing with him, or taking a nap with him, or just petting him, as she always did.  After dinner, she was sent to bed, and Tarrin stayed at the foot of her bed, as was his custom, until she was asleep.  Once she was asleep, he would go down to the fireplace and lay on the hearthstones, soaking up the fire's warmth and listening to Tomas the merchant and Janine the wife talk.  He was on his way there when a sound from the kitchen disturbed him.  Thinking it was Deris the cook, Tarrin thought to beg a treat from the portly, jovial man before moving into the living room.  Deris was a friendly man, and like the rest of the household, he rather liked Tarrin.  He gave Tarrin scraps and treats whenever he was cooking, so Tarrin made a special point to be the man's friend.
	But it was not Deris in the kitchen.  It was empty, and the sound he heard was someone using a thin probe to unset the latch on the door.  Tarrin's ears laid back as he realized it was an intruder, not Deris.  The door opened, and a thin man dressed in dark clothes, and carrying a knife in his hand, stepped into the sacred confines of his little mother's house.  Tarrin came around the corner ears laid back, back up, and growled at the man threateningly.  He wouldn't get in without a fight.
	"'Ere now," the man chuckled in an evil voice.  "The mouse thinks 'e's a lion, 'e does."
	The man took a step towards him, but he did not move.  It occurred to Tarrin that if they made a racket, Tomas the merchant would investigate, and he would walk in unarmed against a man with a knife.  His life would be in very real danger.  And since he had been in the form of the cat for so long, simply changing form to deal with the bandit didn't occur to him; changing form was something he didn't even think of anymore without working himself up to it.  Tarrin knew he was no match for a human, not as a cat, but he absolutely could not let the man get by him.  The life of his little mother depended on it.
	In desperation, Tarrin suddenly felt something drawing in, filling him with a seething life that almost set his blood on fire.  A fuzzy image of fire came to him, fire roaring from the hands of a pretty brown-haired girl, even as the world around him seemed to be overlaid with impressions of glowing strings crisscrossing the room.  The sensation of drawing in moved those strings, causing them to draw towards him, until little pieces of them flew out and entered him.
	That image of fire seemed to weave itself from his imagination and into reality.  A red-hot tongue of flame lashed from him, simply materializing in front of the defensive cat, and it roared at the man.  It washed over him, singing his hair and setting small licks of fire to his clothes before flashing out of existence nearly as quickly as it appeared.  The man cried out and dropped the knife, staggering back towards the door.  Angry red welts were already forming on his face, and the skin on his hand had an almost liquid consistency from its immersion in Tarrin's fire.  "It's a devil-cat!" he cried, then he turned and fled out the door.
	Tarrin suddenly felt too weak to move.  It was as if all his strength was sucked out of him with that fire.  He wilted to the floor as a suddenly concerned Tomas charged around the corner, holding a rapier in his hand.  Tarrin was surprised that Tomas held it with a cool familiarity that told him that the man knew how to use it.
	"Shadow!" he called in sudden concern, kneeling by the exhausted Tarrin and putting a gentle hand on his back.  "Are you hurt, boy?" he asked, his eyes staying on the door.
	"What's the matter, Tomas?" Janine the wife called, coming up behind him.
	"The kitchen door is open," he said.  "I think someone tried to sneak in, but it looks like Shadow here startled them."
	Strong hands picked him up, and Janine cradled Tarrin to her breast, her free hand checking him for injuries.  Despite his exhaustion, he meowed plaintively to her, and put his head against her shoulder.  "There's a knife on the floor," Janine said.
	"I think Shadow attacked the man," Tomas the merchant chuckled.  "He must have been up on a counter, and leaped at him when he came in.  That's a good cat," he said with a laugh, petting him gently.
	"He knows who feeds him," Janine said with a laugh.
	Tomas looked out the door, then closed it, reset the latch, and then locked it.  Then he picked up the knife.  "It's still warm," he noticed.  "I think I'll have a talk with Deris about leaving the kitchen door unlocked when he's not in the room," Tomas the merchant said.
	"Be easy on him, Tomas," Janine the wife said.  "I'm certain that it was an accident.  He's usually very careful."
	They took him back to the living room, where Tarrin spent most of his night on Janine's lap.  He was very frightened, frightened of what had just happened, so he clung to the woman like a child clinging to its mother.  Janine, a bit startled that Tarrin would show her so much affection, stroked and soothed him the way only a mother could, easing him from the death-grip his claws had on her and coaxing him into simply laying on her lap.
	He had used Sorcery.  And just like his sister, it had been raw, uncontrolled, an attack made in desperation.  That changed everything.  It was the reason he had fled from Jesmind in the first place, and he realized that, until he learned how to control it, that he would not be safe, nor would others be safe around him.  He could have easily set fire to the house, or killed himself with his ignorance.  He knew then that he had to leave, and very soon.  He had to go back to the Tower, go back to the only place that could help him control his power, and he had to go before it happened again.  Next time, he may not be so lucky, and he knew it.  He had to accept his responsiblities, stop hiding from them.
	It was time to grow up.

	Tarrin had been solitary all the next day.  It hurt Janette a little bit, but Tomas the merchant and Janine the wife figured that he was still a bit shook up over his encounter in the kitchen.  What he was doing was making a decision, one that didn't come lightly to him, and he needed time by himself in order to reach it.
	That night, after everyone was asleep, Tarrin padded up into Janette's room.  He looked at the darling little girl, all snug in her covers and with a cute little expression on her face.  How he was going to miss her.
	After a few moments of concentration, Tarrin changed form.
	The realignment of his thinking was quite profound.  After so much time in his cat form, with the cat in control, it was unusual to have to think through the cat's distraction in order to form thoughts.  The cat accepted the reversal of roles graciously, returning to its place in the corner of his mind.  And when it returned, Tarrin bade it farewell as a brother, not in relief that it was gone.  The time in his cat form had allowed him to come to a deeper understanding of his cat instincts, and though he still feared what he may do someday when he was in a rage, at least he could face that future with at least some hope that he could prevent anything as horrible as what he nearly did to his mother from happening.
	He knelt by her bed, putting a paw on her shoulder.  "Janette," he called softly.  "Janette, wake up.  I need to talk to you."
	The little girl opened her dark eyes.  Though he was a stranger, Janette did not scream or look up at him in fear.  The light of the moons and the Skybands filled her room with enough light for her to see his face, and though he was unknown to her, his gentle way of waking her seemed to allay any fear and replace it with curiosity.  "Who are you?" she asked.
	"I'm your cat," he said with a smile.
	"You are not," she said indignantly.
	"Yes, little mother, I am," he told her, cupping her cheek in his huge paw.  "Well, I'm not really a cat.  Not just a cat.  Here, let me show you."  He stood up and stepped back from her.
	"You're not wearing any clothes," she remarked.
	"I know," he shrugged.  "I don't have any.  Now watch."  He changed form for her, and saw her eyes widen and heard her gasp.  Then he changed back, and returned to his spot beside her bed.  "See?"
	"You're not a girl," she accused.  Tarrin marvelled at her innocent way, at how she could so easily accept what would have been earth-shattering to an adult.  Children were very adapatable.
	Tarrin laughed.  "No, I'm not a girl," he agreed.
	"If you're not a cat, why were you a cat?  Why stay here?  Don't you have a home?"
	"Well, it gets complicated, little mother," he smiled, stroking her hair.  "You see, I was lost.  I was lost, and very frightened, and very sad, and I didn't know what to do.  I was so afraid that I didn't want to go on living.  And then a little girl fished me out of a bush," he said, tapping the end of her nose with his fingertip.  "You saved me, Janette.  If you wouldn't have found, me, I would have died.  Here, with you, I found my way again, little mother."  He cupped her cheek again, his paw almost swallowing her face up.  "I can't ever thank you enough, Janette.  You showed me how to live again."
	Her eyes welled up with tears.  "You're going to go away, aren't you?"
	"Oh, pumpkin, I don't want to leave you," he said, collecting her up into his arms.  "I love you very much, Janette.  You're my very own little mother.  But sometimes, we all have to do things that we don't want to do.  Like when you take your lessons with the flute.  I know you don't like it, but you have to do it."  He looked into her eyes, wiping away a tear.  "I have things I have to do out there in the world, little mother," he told her.  "Just like your father, when he goes out every day to mind his affairs.  As much as I love you, and I love this house, this isn't my place.  I can't do what I need to do here.  Can you understand that?"
	"I guess so," she sniffled, "but I don't want you to go away."
	"And I don't want to leave you," he said, smoothing her hair.  "You're very important to me, little mother."
	"Why do you call me that?"
	"Because that's how I think of you," he smiled.  "You are my very own little mother, there to make all the bad things go away.  You made me feel like I had a reason to keep living, pumpkin, and because of you, I think I'm ready to go back to what I'm supposed to do.  And every time I feel lost or scared, all I'll have to do is think of you, and it won't seem so bad."  He sniffled.  "I don't think you'll understand how much you mean to me, Janette.  I was so close to giving up.  So close that you'll never understand.  And you brought me back.  I want to thank you for that, Janette."
	He held her very close for quite a while.  "I'm sorry, pumpkin, but I have to go," he told her.  "And for that, I'm going to need your help."
	"What do you want me to do?"
	"You have to open the door for me, little mother."  He let go of her and changed form, then jumped up into her lap.  He nuzzled her as she picked him up, and he savored the scent of her, the feel of her, as she carried him downstairs.  She opened the door and set him down, tears rolling down her cheeks.  He changed form again and knelt by her, holding her close one last time.  "I'm going to miss you, little mother," he told her.  "I wish there was something I could give you to remember me."
	"I don't need something to remember you," she sniffled.  "I don't want you to go, but if you have to, you have to."
	"I won't be gone forever, pumpkin," he told her.  "Someday, I'll come back.  I won't be your cat, but I'll come back and see you."
	"Promise?"
	"Promise," he said, tapping her on the nose.
	She was clutching something in her hand, then thrust it at him.  "I won't need this with you gone.  Maybe you'd like it.  Just in case."
	He took the object.  It was the little wooden doll, tied to a string, the toy that they'd used to play with for hours on end, day after day.  His eyes filled with tears as he clutched the tiny doll.  "Oh, little mother, you still know just what to do to make me happy," he told her, hugging her.  "This little toy means quite a bit to me."  He fashioned the string into a loop, and then put the doll around his neck like a necklace.  "I'll be back as soon as I can.  Until then, think well of me."
	"I will," she said.  Then she gave him a look.  "What is your name?  I know it can't be Shadow."
	"My name is Tarrin, little mother," he smiled.
	"Goodbye, Tarrin," she said, putting her little arms around his neck.  He held her close for a moment, and then let her go.
	"Goodbye, Janette," he returned.  "Don't forget to shut and lock the door," he warned.  Then he let her go, and turned away from her.  He didn't want to look at her again, else they'd be eating breakfast together.  He changed form again, then slunk out of the garden, wriggled through the fence, and then went off in search of the Tower.

	It only took him about an hour to find the Tower.  The problem was getting in.
	The guards were as thick as fleas on a dog.  They patrolled the fence in such tighly packed patrols that it would be absolutely impossible to sneak in.  He didn't want to just walk up to the front gate, because he wasn't sure how they would react to him.  They may have received orders to kill him.  He had no idea how long that he'd been gone, so he wasn't sure if they thought he was a raving maniac.  Not that he'd been too far from it, but he didn't want to have to fight off a pack of guards just to prove that he wasn't crazy.  He'd sat there and watched until well after the sun came up, looking for an opportunity to get in, but one never materialized.
	He was laying under a wagon, pondering the situation, then something quite suddenly grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.  He yowled and tried to kick free, but that grip suddenly wrapped around his neck.  If he struggled too much, he'd break his own neck, so he went very still.
	"I am very put out with you, cub," Jesmind's flat voice came to him, even as her smell, concealed by the miasma of the city, reached his nose.  She turned him around and gazed into his eyes.  Tarrin couldn't struggle, and with her paws on him like that, he couldn't even change form.  "If you had any idea what I've gone through to find you," she grunted, then she sighed.  "Ah well, that's water under the bridge now."
	He hissed threateningly at her, and her flat eyes narrowed.
	"Don't take that tone with me, cub," she said ominously.  "Or I may forget my promise to your mother and kill you here and now."
	"Promise?" he asked in the manner of the cat.
	"I promised her I would bring you back alive, and I'll do just that.  Now shut up.  I regret it enough as it is, but my word is my word."
	That revelation came on two fronts.  One, that she had went out to find him not to kill him, but to return him to his mother.  The other was that she had very strong prejudices against lying.  When he split from her, she accused him of breaking his word.  Now he understood why it made her so angry.  It seemed to be a part of her elemental nature to accept a promise as a sacred bond, and if it was broken, then it violated her to the very core.
	The ten men at the gate lined up to block her at first, but a few deadly looks made them part like water before her.  Five followed her, at a discrete distance, as she made her way along the paved road that led to the central Tower.  She carried Tarrin like a purse, still throttled at the neck, and Tarrin was pretty sure that it was because of him that they let her inside the grounds.  "I can walk," he told her.
	"No, you can't," she said in a grim tone.  "If I let you go, you may take off again."
	"I won't," he said.  "You found me because I was coming back."
	"I'm not taking any chances," she said in a cold tone.
	She took him into the Tower, along the curved hallways, up stairs, until she reached the antechamber to the Keeper's office.  Duncan, the Sorcerer who acted as the Keeper's personal secretary and attendant, stood as Jesmind barged into his office.  In that large room, his desk was right by the door leading to the Keeper's office, and three of the four walls were lined with chairs and couches.  He said not a word, just eyed the black cat in her paw keenly, then simply stepped to the side and opened the door for her.
	The Keeper was sitting behind her redwood desk, scratching out a letter or some other correspondence, when Jesmind marched into her private domain.  The floor was covered with a single massive Arakite carpet, and two ornate, deeply cushioned chairs stood in front of her desk.  A portrait of a vibrant brown-haired man in robes hung behind her on the wall, the room's only wall decoration.  The Keeper's gray eyes narrowed as she looked up at the disturbance.
	"I didn't think you'd have the nerve to face me, Were-cat," she said in a steely voice, setting down her pen.
	Jesmind raised her arm, the one holding Tarrin, and then dropped him on her desk.  "I said I'd bring him back alive.  Here he i