“Thick is Skilled. Strongly Skilled. He nearly dropped me in my tracks when I accidentally startled him here. If I had not been keeping up my walls to ward my mind from Dutiful, I think he would have blasted away every thought in my head. ‘Go away,’ he told me, and ‘Don’t see me.’ And ‘Don’t hurt me.’ And Chade, you know, I think he’s done that before. To me, even. Once, in the stableyard, I saw some of the boys teasing him. And I heard, almost as if someone said it aloud, ‘Don’t see me.’ And then the stable boys were all going about their business and after that, I don’t recall that I did see him there. Anymore, I mean.”

Chade slowly sank down into my chair. He reached out to take one of my hands in his as if that would make my words more comprehensible. Or perhaps he sought to feel if fever had taken me. “Thick has the Skill magic,” he said carefully. “That’s what you’re telling me.”

“Yes. It’s raw and untrained, but it burns in him like a bonfire. I’ve never encountered anything like it before.” I shut my eyes, put my palms flat to my temples, and tried to push my skull back together. “I feel like I’ve taken a beating.”

A moment later, Chade said gruffly, “Here. Try this.”

I took the cold wet cloth he offered me and placed it across my eyes. I knew better than to ask him for anything stronger. The stubborn old man had made up his mind that my pain drugs would interfere with my ability to teach Dutiful to Skill. No good to long for the relief that elfbark could bring. If there were any left in Buckkeep Castle, he’d hidden it well.

“What am I going to do about this?” he muttered, and I lifted a corner of the cloth to peer at him.

“About what?”

“Thick and his Skill.”

“Do? What can you do? The half-wit has it.”

He resumed his seat. “From what I’ve translated of the old Skill scrolls, that makes him something of a threat to us. He’s a wild talent, untaught and undisciplined. His Skilling can inadvertently disrupt Dutiful just as he is trying to learn. Angered, he can use his Skill against people; apparently, he has already done so. Worse, you say he is strong. Stronger than you?”

I lifted one hand in a futile gesture. “I have no way of knowing. My talent has always been erratic, Chade. And I know no way of measuring it. But I have not felt so besieged since all of Galen’s coterie turned their collective strength on me.”

“Mmh.” He leaned back in his chair and considered the ceiling. “The most prudent course might simply be to put him down. Kindly, of course. It is not his fault he is a threat to us. Less radical would be to begin dosing him with elfbark to dampen or destroy his talent. But as your reckless abuse of that herb over the last decade has not completely scoured the Skill ability from you, I have less faith in its efficacy than the writers of the Skill scrolls did. Yet I tend toward a third path. More dangerous, perhaps. I wonder if that is not why it appeals to me, because the possibilities are as great as the hazard.”