“Poor child,” the woman said. She tried to pull the girl away from Katsa, embracing her and murmuring to her comfortingly; but Bitterblue began to scream and slapped at the woman, and clung to Katsa like a crazed, frightened thing. Katsa took the child in her arms and shushed her, absently. She looked over Bitterblue’s head at the woman who was somehow Bitterblue’s aunt. The woman’s face jarred into her mind. Her forehead, her nose were familiar. Not the color of her eyes, but the shape of them. Katsa glanced at the woman’s hands and understood. This was Po’s mother.

“She’s hysterical,” Po’s mother said to Katsa.

“Yes,” Katsa said. She held the child close. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Where’s my son?” the woman asked, her eyes going wide with worry. “Do you know where my son is?”

“Indeed,” Leck said in his booming voice. He tilted his head, and his single eye watched Katsa. “You’re missing one of your party. I hope he’s alive?”

“Yes,” Katsa said—and then wondered, vaguely, if she’d meant to pretend he was dead. Hadn’t she pretended once before that Po was dead? But why would she have done that?

Leck’s eye snapped. “Is he really? Such wonderful news. Perhaps we can help him. Where is he?”

Bitterblue cried out. “Don’t tell him, Katsa. Don’t tell him where Po is, don’t tell him, don’t tell him—”

Katsa shushed the girl. “It’s all right, child.”

“Please don’t tell him.”

“I won’t,” Katsa said. “I won’t.” She bent her face into Bitterblue’s hat and decided it was right not to tell this man where Po was, not when it upset the child so.

“Very well,” Leck said. “I see how things are.”

He was silent for a moment. He seemed to be thinking. His fingers fiddled at the hilt of a knife in his belt. His eyes slid to Bitterblue and lingered; and Katsa found herself pulling the child closer to her own body, and covering the child with her arms.

“My daughter isn’t herself,” Leck said. “She’s confused, she’s ill, her mind is disturbed; and she thinks that I would hurt her. I’ve been telling Prince Po’s family about my daughter’s illness.” He swept his hand around the room. “I’ve been telling them about how she ran away from home after her mother’s accident. About how you and Prince Po found her, Lady Katsa, and how you’ve been keeping her safe for me.”

Katsa followed his gesture around the room. More familiar faces, one of them a man older than Leck, a king. Po’s father. His features strong and proud, but a vagueness to his eyes. A vagueness to the eyes of everyone in this room, to these younger men who must be Po’s brothers, and these women who must be their wives. Or was it a vagueness in her own mind that stopped her from seeing their faces clearly? “Yes,” she said, to whatever comment Leck had just made. Something about Bitterblue’s safety. “Yes. I’ve kept her safe.”