Mags had read about command voice, but this was the first time he had heard anyone using it. He found himself ready to tell the Bard anything she wanted to hear, and probably plenty of things she didn’t, and he wasn’t the one who had been directly addressed.

Lena looked stubborn for a just a little bit more—after all, she was a Bard herself, and raised in a Bard’s household—but a moment later her shoulders sagged and her face dropped. “His parents wanted him to get married the next time he came home. They’d already betrothed him to a girl. He knew her, her family was from nearby, and he really didn’t care about her, but they weren’t in the least interested in hearing his objections. There was a big row about it. He slept at a neighbor’s house for most of the holiday.”

Whatever the adults had been expecting to hear, this wasn’t it. Praston opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, shut it again. Finally, he managed to say something on the third try. “You can’t be wedded without your consent, you know,” he said weakly.

Lena shrugged. “Have you ever tried to go against what your parents want?” she asked bitterly. “Even when it’s something you hate?”

Praston shook his head, and looked at the others in the room. Caelen shrugged. “I can see where the boy would be embarrassed about it, and I can see that it would upset him, but no, I cannot see him courting death over it. Not unless he had a previous romantic attachment—?”

He looked at Lena, who shook her head, and Mags, who grimaced. “Never seemed t’ care much fer girls,” Mags offered. “Never said nothin’ t’ me.”

“All right, then, that’s one thing we don’t need to worry about. So unless he’s down in Haven, which you, Salenys, will send your men to check on, we have to assume he’s still here, on the grounds, and for some reason he cannot or will not respond to us.” Mags blinked; Caelen had just taken over the search, and Praston was figuratively stepping back and letting him. “Lita, what can your people do?”

“Question witnesses,” she said immediately. “And the Trainees can go put on their cloaks and search. I’ll send out some of the teachers to do the questioning, starting with the three that are in his rooms. The rest, I delegate to you.”

Caelen nodded. “Master Howarth, I leave the Palace to your people. The rest of us can make a real search of the buildings and grounds. I’ll get that organized. Right now it is sounding as if Bear was injured or became suddenly ill and is lying in an out-of-the-way place, unconscious. The sooner we find him, the better.”