"I understand," Quen said. "Mama's always at Odds & Ends. Darius and I try to help her whenever we can, but there's always so much to do." She shrugged. "Good thing Mama loves running a store so much. Shopkeepers must really love what they do, to spend so much time doing it." Then again, Quen supposed that was the case with anything. Most people seemed to put a lot of effort into what they chose to do with their lives. Hadn't Quen been burning the candle at both ends, so to speak, when she'd decided at the beginning of the summer to become a Black Mage?