“Bright Lady!” Talia grew as cold as her breakfast, thinking about the multitude of possibilities this opened up. Had the unknown “my lord” she and Skif had seen her conspiring with brought her here? They had no way of knowing if that one had been among those traitors uncovered and executed after Ylsa’s murder, for neither of them had ever seen his face. They thought he had been, for there were no other stirrings of trouble after that, but he might only have gone to ground for an interval. Had even “my lord” guessed that she was not what she seemed? And where had she vanished to after she was unmasked? No one had seen her leave; she had not passed the Border, at least by the roads (and that was an echo of what Elspeth had just detailed), yet she was most assuredly gone before anyone had a chance to detain her. And who—or what—had given her warning that she had been uncovered? A danger that Talia had long thought safely laid to rest had suddenly resurrected itself, the cockatrice new-hatched from the dunghill.

“Mero is going to have my hide,” Elspeth warned, and Talia started guiltily and finished her meal. But she really couldn’t have told what she was eating.

‟—and that was the last incident,“ Kris finished. “The last couple of weeks were nothing but routine; we finished up, Griffon relieved us, and we headed home.”

He met the measuring gazes of first Elcarth, then Kyril. Both of them were shocked cold sober by his revelation of the way Talia’s Gift had gone rogue—and why. They had evidently assumed this interview was going to be a mere formality. Kris’ tale had come as an unpleasant surprise.

“Why,” Kyril asked, after a pause that was much too long for Kris’ comfort, “didn’t you look for help when this first happened?”

“Largely because by the time I knew something was really wrong, we were snowed into that Waystation, Senior.”

“He’s got you there, brother.” Elcarth favored the silver-haired Seneschal’s Herald with a wry smile.

“By the time we got out, she was well on the way to having her problems solved,” Kris continued doggedly. “She had the basics, had them down firmly. And once we got in with people again, we found that those rumors had preceded us. At that point, I reckoned we’d do irreparable harm by leaving the circuit to look for other help. We’d only have confirmed the rumor that there was something wrong by doing so.”

“Hm. A point,” Kyril acknowledged.

“And at that point, I wasn’t entirely certain that there was anyone capable of training her.”

‟Heaters—” Elcarth began.