problem

those poor creatures up and down the canals that I can’t help because I haven’t the strength.”
“All right,” Marco mumbled, and when he got to his feet and shuffled out the door, Mascoli didn’t stop him.

He had already told Benito and Maria that he was going to be late, so he didn’t go straight back; instead he wandered the walkways and bridges trying to poke holes in Brother Mascoli’s argument. If you took him at his word that all of the ritual and incantation of magic (at least as a good Christian would practice it, leaving out all the invocations of heathen spirits and elves and whatnot) was nothing but prayer, then what he had been taught was dead wrong.
Now, Mascoli could have lied, of course. He had every reason to lie; he served the poor, he needed help, and here was Marco who could give that help if he chose to. But Mascoli was, if not a full priest, certainly an avowed and oath-bound Sibling of Hypatia. If he lied—which was, after all, a sin—it was a worse thing than if Marco lied. And more especially if he lied about something like magic, tempting Marco into deep, black sin.
Marco twisted and turned the problem every which way, and still came up with the same unpalatable answer, that what he’d been taught was wrong.
Finally, having worn out quite enough shoe leather, he turned his steps back to Caesare’s apartment, and walked into yet another mess.
At least this time it was none of his doing.
When he opened the door, Maria all but ran into him, only to choke off a muffled curse and half a sob when she saw that it was him in the doorway.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, alarmed.
“He’s gone!” she said, and fled up to the room she shared with Caesare. Fortunately,