“Tell me,” Leck’s voice boomed. “How did you leave Monsea? Did you cross the mountains?”

“Yes,” Katsa said.

Leck threw back his head and laughed. “I thought you must have, when we lost track of you. I very nearly decided to sit back and wait. I knew you’d surface somewhere, eventually. But when I made inquiries, I learned that you weren’t welcome at your own court, Lady Katsa. And it made me crazy, absolutely crazy, to sit around doing nothing while my dear child was—” His eye rested again on Bitterblue and he rubbed his hand over his mouth. “While my girl was apart from me. I decided to take a chance. I ordered my people to continue the search, of course, across the other kingdoms; but I decided to try Lienid myself.”

Katsa shook her head, but the fog in her mind wouldn’t clear. “You needn’t have worried,” she said. “I’ve kept her safe.”

“Yes,” he said. “And now you’ve brought her to me, straight to my doorstep, to my castle here on Lienid’s western shore.”

“Your castle,” Katsa said dully. She had thought this was Po’s castle. Or had she thought it was her own castle? No, that was absurd; she was a lady of the Middluns, and she had no castle. She must have misunderstood something someone said, somewhere.

“Now it’s time for you to give my child back to me,” Leck said.

“Yes,” Katsa said, but it worried her to relinquish care of the girl, who had stopped struggling but was collapsed now against Katsa muttering nonsense to herself and whimpering. Repeating the words Leck said over and over, in whispered bewilderment, as if she were testing how they sounded in her own voice.

“Yes,” Katsa said again. “I will—but not until she’s feeling better.”

“No,” Leck said. “Bring her to me now. I know how to make her feel better.”

Katsa truly did not like this man. The way he ordered her around—and the way he looked at Bitterblue, with something in his gaze Katsa had seen before but couldn’t quite place. Bitterblue was Katsa’s responsibility. Katsa raised her chin. “No. She’ll stay with me until she’s feeling better.”

Leck laughed. He looked around the room. “The Lady Katsa is nothing if not contrary,” he said. “But I don’t suppose any of us should blame her for being protective. Well, no matter. I’ll enjoy my daughter’s company”—his eye flicked to the girl again—“later.”

“And now will you tell me of my son?” the woman beside Katsa asked. “Why isn’t he here? He isn’t injured, is he?”

“Yes,” Leck said. “Comfort an anxious mother, Lady Katsa. Tell us all about Prince Po. Is he nearby?”

Katsa turned to the woman, flustered, trying to work out too many puzzles at once. Certainly there were some things it was safe to say about Po; but weren’t some topics meant to be kept quiet? The categories were blurring. Perhaps it was best to say nothing at all. “I don’t wish to talk of Po,” she said.