Mistress Polls dropped her pencil and jumped out of her chair. "Do not call for your men, ma'am," said Teacher. "I am not here to harm you, but to make a purchase from you."

"A--a purchase?" she stammered, eyes wide behind her spectacles.

"The twins you have in residence. Allis and Issak Obby."

"The twins--? The twins, ah," she said, recovering herself. "That was quite the confounding trick, sir! Are you a stage magician?"

"No," said the Teacher shortly. "But yes, a trick if you prefer. Now. The twins."

"Yes," she said, smiling charmingly and removing her spectacles, revealing velvety brown eyes and a face that was still quite handsome. "You are interested in both of them? Do you want them one at a time, or at the same time, or do you wish to merely watch them...perform, Mister--what may I call you, please?" she asked demurely.

"I want none of that," said Teacher. "I am here to purchase their mother's debts from you and take them from this place."

Mistress Polls chuckled. "A collector, then! I will be sad to lose them, they are dear children. As it happens, I have my account book right here. I must say though, sir, I doubt very much anyone can afford—-"

"Never mind accounts." The Teacher removed a bag from the robes and placed it on the table. "10,000 gold." Mistress Polls stared, and the Teacher could see the thoughts linking and unlinking in her head. Who was this person to plunk down 10,000 gold without haggling? Could she get even more? "Mistress Polls, do not attempt to bargain with me or I shall simply take them from you without any payment at all."

Her liquid brown eyes turned hard. "I should very much like to see you try, sir."

The Teacher plucked a light wand from the lamp beside the accounts book, lengthened it into a wand and twirled it at the end of one long finger. "I would love nothing more than to lay waste to this fine establishment, Mistress Polls. Nothing more." The wand lengthened into a staff, and the Teacher struck the floor with a crack. The study lit up in flames, and Mistress Polls screamed.

"Take them! Take them!" she cried. "They're in number 24! Pagg save me, what are you!"

"What I am is none of your concern," said the Teacher, sweeping the fire back into a staff and then extinguishing it; nothing in the room was even scorched. Mistress Polls stayed curled in a ball, sobbing. The Teacher ignored her and strode down the hall to number 24.

The door opened into a spacious, airy room with a very large bed draped in filmy gauze. Sitting cross legged on the bed were two children, both with thick, black hair and the same green eyes. The girl wore nothing but her chemise; the boy wore just a simple pair of drawstring trousers. He was reading to the girl from a book while the girl brushed the curls of a delicate china doll whose hair and eyes matched her own.

When the Teacher entered, they both dropped what they were doing and scrambled to stand. The boy bowed and the girl dropped a curtsey, both children surprisingly, unconsciously graceful. "Good evening, good sir," they recited together.

"Good evening, dear children," the Teacher said. "I'm here to take you to a new home."

"A new--what?" said the boy shakily.

"We've been bought, Issak! I told you!" hissed the girl, clutching Issak's arm. She let go of her brother, pulled herself up as tall as she could, and put up a brave front. "Please tell us, sir, have you bought us? Mistress Polls often said that if we weren't good, she would sell us. Has she sold us, sir?"

"I have paid your debts, Allis--for that's your name isn't it?" said Teacher, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Yes. But you are your own person now. You can come with me if you'd like, or stay here."

"I don't want to stay here," said Issak, "but we have nowhere else to go."

"Do you want to come with me?"

"Where would that be, sir?" said Allis, unconsciously taking Issak's hand.

"To the capital. You would live at a very nice Mother's House, and I would visit you every day and be your teacher. In fact, that is what you may call me--Teacher."

"Oh, you don't have to teach us, sir, we already know," said Issak frankly. "We grew up here. Whatever it is you like, I'm sure we already know."

"And we can't live in a Mother's House," added Allis.

"Whyever not?" asked the Teacher.

Allis shrugged matter-of-factly. "We're whores. Mistress Polls said we can't ever even go inside a Mother's House, they'd beat us and turn us out in the street."

Tears formed in the gray eyes, but Teacher would not let them fall. "I swear I will burn this house to the ground some day. No, little Allis, all children are welcome in the Mother's House, even children who grow up in houses like this. Come, sit by me and I'll tell you about it." Allis sighed and dutifully crossed to where Teacher sat. She perched on a black-clad knee and began unbuttoning the Teacher's black waistcoat. "Stop!" said Teacher, grabbing her hands. "You never, ever have to do that again if you don't want to. Do you understand? I will never, ever ask that from you, ever. Either of you."

"Don't you like us?" said Allis, her huge green eyes filling with tears.

"I like you very, very much, and adults should never do things like that with children. Do you understand? Where we are going you will never have to do that ever again if you don't want to, and certainly never with an adult until you yourselves are grown. You will have good food to eat, and a nice place to live, and other children to play with. I will come and teach you every day, teach you things like music, and poetry, and history, and maths."

"Will there be books to read?" said Issak shyly, looking up through his black forelock as he took Teacher's proffered hand.

"More books than you've ever seen, Issak, I promise. So, do you think you'd like to come with me?" By now, Mistress Polls had recovered herself, and though Teacher had left the bag of gold coins on her desk, she was in a mood to exact a little revenge; Teacher heard her voice in the distance, and the sounds of her men's footsteps clattering down the hall toward number 24. "We must go now, children. All right?"

Allis looked at Issak, and he nodded. She stood up, took her brother's hand on one side and Teacher's on the other. "But how are we to leave, sir?" she said. "There's no other door, and Mistress Polls doesn't sound--oh!"

For Teacher had found a mirror. The image in it changed to a room lined with books, and before Allis knew it, she and her brother and this strange black-clad stranger were no longer in number 24, as Mistress Polls discovered as soon as her men broke down the door. She searched wildly through the room, but there was no sign of either the rich stranger or the children. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, but once she'd settled herself back in her sitting room with a stiff glass of wuisc she began to feel better about it all--a good deal better when her eyes fell on the sack of gold coins still sitting on her desk.

Ten thousand gold! The thought cheered her up so much she sent her servants out the next day, and all the girls in the house got a new pair of slippers and a robe. Mistress Polls carefully marked the cost down in the account books against what each girl made. Somehow, it never did balance out in the girls' favor.