She looked pathetically grateful. “Water,” she managed to say. I hurried to my water cask and came back with a dripping ladle. She clasped it with both hands and drank so greedily that it ran down her chin. When it was empty, I brought her more, and she drank again. Where the water had fallen on her nightdress, the fine linen became nearly transparent. I tried not to stare. I tipped my water barrel to fill the ladle a last time. She drank it down, and then handed the ladle back to me with a small gasp.

“Thank you,” she managed to say.

“Sit still and rest. As soon as the water boils, I’ll have a healing tea for you.” All the anger I had ever felt at her had fled. I could not look at her without thinking of all the times she had been my sister’s playmate and companion.

She covered her face with her hands for a moment, and then let them drop limply into her lap. “Tea won’t help me, Nevare. You know that. I’ve only come back from the dead to beg your forgiveness. Because you said I must.” Her eyes flooded with sudden tears. “And now I have to die again.”

She sounded terrified. All pretense fled before her words.

“Carsina, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. Truly I didn’t. And I won’t let you die. Listen to me. Listen. I know you feel weak, but your fever has passed. Let me take care of you.”

“You don’t hate me?” She sounded puzzled. “After what I did to you in the street in Gettys? You forgive me for that, too?”

I am not as noble as others might be. I felt a flash of anger as I recalled that scene. A suddenly selfish thought quenched it. Just as she had accused me publicly, so could she also clear my name. If she lived, and if she felt kindly toward me. I chose my words. “You thought you had reason to fear me. You don’t. At one time, Carsina, I think you loved me. I know I loved you. You are beyond my reach now, and in many ways I am beneath your notice. But I do not think we have to hate or fear one another. Look.

The water is boiling. Let me brew you that tisane.”

“Oh, Nevare, you are too good. And I am so ashamed now of what I said and did. But I was afraid. I hated coming to Gettys, but my father said it was my last chance to make a good match for myself. He did not want to send me to stay with my cousin, for he feared for my reputation. He was so stern. He said I must not flirt or do anything that might invite a scandal, and that if I did, he would disown me. He was still angry because he had found Remwar kissing me when we both knew that Remwar had been promised to Essilee Cummors. But Remwar had said that he truly loved me and that the engagement was something his father had forced on him.