Cythera favored him with a warning smile. Then she looked down at Croy’s scarred leg. “You should rest,” she told the knight. “Mother says if you don’t sleep twice as much as normal, the treatments will be inefficacious.”

“You are my lady, and I obey your command,” the knight said. He closed his eyes and in moments began to snore.

Malden shook his head. “Like an infant, he sleeps.”

“He believes that he has done a man’s work,” Cythera whispered. “He sleeps like the just. Come with me, Malden. I wish to speak with you.”

The two of them headed out onto the room’s balcony. It looked out over the remains of Hazoth’s villa. There wasn’t much left but a pile of ashes and a few scraps of useless lumber—the people of Ness had taken away everything of value, and their definition of value was quite broad.

“Tell me,” Cythera said when they were alone, “what reward has Kemper claimed?”

“I had Slag make him a new deck of cards,” Malden said.

She frowned. “But with his curse—the only way he could even hold the old deck was because it was so immured with his own essence. He had possessed those cards so long they had become parcel with his being.”

Malden nodded. “Aye. So the new deck had to be special. They’re made out of pure silver, beaten thin and etched with vitriol for the pips. They’re probably worth more than most of the stakes he plays for, but he can hold them easily, and even slip them up his sleeves or down his tunic.”

Cythera smiled. “And Gurrh, the ogre? What price did he charge you?”

“None at all. He wished only to serve the Burgrave. If every man had the nobility of that ogre in his heart, we would all live in Croy’s world.”

Cythera leaned out over the balcony. “Then it seems we all have been repaid for our trouble, and each of us came out of this nightmare better than when we began, and all unscathed.”

“All but one,” Malden said, his brow furrowing. “I did something, Cythera, that I am not proud of. I took away a man’s freedom. It’s the greatest sin I know.”

“You mean Ommen Tarness?” she asked. “He was a simpleton. And anyway—you saved his life. Had he appeared before the procession in his natural state, Vry would have had him killed afterward.”

“I know,” Malden said. That wasn’t the point, though. In the last moments before the crown was returned, Ommen had said something that struck Malden to the core. He was getting smarter, he claimed. The imbecility was wearing off. He had not been born mindless—only the crown stole his wits, and without it he was becoming himself again. And he had stopped that process before it could properly begin.