Skif took the tower stairs at a run, though for all the sound he made, no one would ever have known there was anyone on the stairs at all. He’d been back from the North for several hours now, and he was more than impatient. “You can’t see Talia yet,” they’d told him. “She’s with the Healers every morning, and they’ve left orders that they’re never to be disturbed.” Well, all right, but that didn’t make a fellow any less twitchy, not when he was worried about her. He’d determined to get up to her room as soon as he’d finished lunch; he’d all but bolted his food and nearly choked as a consequence.

He’d evidently misjudged the timing by a bit, for as he approached the half-open door at the top of the stairs, he’d heard voices inside. He shrank back into a shadow on the landing, and peeked around the corner. From where he was hidden he could see inside the room quite easily. There were two Healers there, both easily identifiable by their Greens, one on either side of a lounge that held someone in Herald’s Whites—Talia, without a doubt.

He winced inside, for her face was distorted by pain and her eyes streamed tears, although she did not utter so much as a single moan.

“Enough,” said the Healer on her right; and Skif recognized Devan. “That’s absolutely all for today, Talia.”

Her face relaxed somewhat, and the woman on her left gave her a look of caring sympathy and a handkerchief to dry her tears with.

“You really don’t need to be enduring all this, you know,” Devan said, a bit crossly. “If you’d let us Heal you at the normal rate it could all be done quite painlessly.”

“Dear Devan, I don’t have time, and you know that perfectly well,” Talia replied softly.

“Then you ought to at least let us work under painblock! And I still don’t understand why you don’t think you have time!”

“But if you worked under painblocks, I wouldn’t be able to help—and if I can’t help, neither can Rolan. In that case, it would take six of you to do what one does now.” Her voice actually held a touch of amusement.

“She’s got you there, Devan,” the woman Healer—Myrim, the Healer’s representative on the Council—pointed out wryly.

He snorted with disgust. “Heralds! I don’t know why we put up with you! If you’re not out killing yourselves, you’re trying to get us to speed-Heal you so that you can go back out and get yourselves ruined that much sooner!”