The mansion appeared past the ridge, squat and wide and dug halfway into the hillside, windows glowing amber, smoke curling from three stone chimneys. A wall of black iron surrounded it, worked with runes that hummed when Grimhold's aura passed the gate.
"Your workshop," Sarah said, waving at the eastern wing as they crossed the courtyard. "And your lab is below, you built it yourself, remember? The stairs that creak, the third one, you always said you would fix it and you never did."
Inside smelled of woodsmoke and stew and something chemical from the floor below. Dorbin squirmed down and ran to a wall covered in children's drawings, charcoal sketches of a bearded man holding a smaller boy on his shoulders, of a fat woman with a crown of braids, of a house with three suns.
"I drew these," Dorbin said proudly, patting the wall. "That one is you winning a war. That one is mother winning an argument."
"Accurate," Raven said gravely, and Sarah laughed wetly through her tears.
