The first time Alcarian Isas saw Kalania Gillain, she was eight years old and very pleased with the newly earned privilege of walking to and from the library by herself, and when she saw a little girl of about four playing alone by the docks, she stopped to ask if the younger girl was lost. It turned out that she was in fact the harbormaster's daughter, and perfectly safe within sight of her mother; and, satisfied in having done her duty as a citizen of Armethalieh and a member (however junior) of one of its noble Houses, Alcarian proceeded on her way.

Over the next few months, she passed the docks twice daily on her way to the library and back, and often saw Kala there. They learned each other's names and established a shared daily routine. Kala brought Rian pretty rocks she found by the shore, and nicknamed her for lack of the ability to consistently repeat four whole syllables; Alcarian brought Kalania iced lemonade from the street vendors, and called her by her entire name out of slightly misplaced eight-year-old dignity.

When Kala was five, nine-year-old Rian brought books to the docks and read them to her. When Rian was ten, six-year-old Kala started coming with her to the library. Despite the difference in ages, they remained close friends for years. When Kala at eight decided that she wanted to be a shipbuilder when she grew up, Rian was the first person she told of her new ambition. When Rian at thirteen found the Three Books of the Wild Magic in a brown paper package sitting on her windowsill one morning, she showed them to Kala an hour later, before anyone else, and cast her first spell right then with Kala watching.

The last time Alcarian Isas saw Kalania Gillain, she was sixteen and Kala was twelve and had just promised to come by her house that evening with fresh-baked muffins. They exchanged a cheery wave as Kala scampered off to help her mother take inventory on a shipment of pearls from the Selken Isles and Rian continued on her way to school to learn exciting new things about history and literature and mathematics.

That afternoon, while Rian was grappling with a particularly tricky integral, a poorly secured shipment of wood from up the coast came loose, and half a ton of raw lumber tumbled down onto the docks. Kala, caught in the middle of the disaster along with two dockworkers and spotting the danger before either of them, yelled a warning and shoved one out of the way of an incoming log; it struck her instead, crushing her ribs and spine. She died in her mother's arms two minutes later, just before the healers arrived.

Rian, when she heard, had trouble naming the emotion that swept over her in an all-consuming wave. For expediency's sake, she called it grief, and wept at the funeral.

It was a full week afterward when she realized that she was furious.