“I’ll disarm her,” Bitterblue said, “if it will make you more comfortable. Please, Katsa,” she said apologetically, holding out her hand.

Katsa reached into her boot and handed the child her knife, numbly. She sat in the chair that was brought to her and numbly registered the bustle of people forming a circle, the clanking of swords, the women wiping their faces and gasping, clinging to their husbands’ arms. She dropped her head into her hands. For her mind was returning, and she understood now what she had done.

IT WAS LIKE a spell that fizzled away slowly, popping one bubble at a time, and leaving their minds empty. Truly empty; they spoke stupidly, slowly, straining to reconstruct a conversation they couldn’t remember, even though every one of them had been present for it.

Ror couldn’t even give straight answers to Bitterblue’s questions, about when Leck had arrived in Lienid, what he’d said; what he’d done to convince them that Po’s castle was his. To convince Ror to leave his city and his court and come to a remote corner of his kingdom, with his wife and his sons, and amuse Leck and subjugate himself to Leck, while Leck waited for a daughter who might never arrive. What things Leck had said during that waiting time came slowly, incredulously from Ror’s lips. “I believe . . . I believe he told me that he would like to establish himself in my city. Beside my throne!”

“I believe he said something about my serving girls, something I won’t repeat,” Ror’s queen said.

“He spoke of altering our trade agreements! I’m sure of it!” Ror exclaimed. “In favor of Monsea!”

Ror stood and began to stride around the room. Katsa rose woodenly, in respect for a rising king, but the queen pulled her back down. “If we stood every time he marched around we’d always be standing,” she said. Her hand rested on Katsa’s arm a bit longer than was necessary, and her gaze on Katsa’s face. Her voice was gentle. The further the assembly moved toward unraveling Leck’s manipulations, the more kindly the Queen of Lienid seemed to look upon the lady Graceling at her side.

Ror’s fury escalated, and the fury of his sons, each shaking off his stupor and rising one by one. Shouting their outrage, arguing with each other about what had been said. “Is Po really all right?” one of them asked Katsa, one of the younger ones who paused before her chair and looked into her face. A tear dropped onto her cheek, and she left it to Bitterblue to tell their story, to tell truths about Leck that struck the assembly like arrows. That Leck had desired to hurt the child in some eerie, horrible way; that Leck had kidnapped Grandfather Tealiff; that Leck had murdered Ashen. That his men had nearly murdered Po. And now Ror’s grief matched his fury, and he knelt on the floor sobbing, for his father and his son and especially his sister; and his sons’ shouts grew even louder and more incredulous. Katsa thought dumbly that it was no wonder Po was so voluble. In Lienid everyone was, and everyone spoke at once. She wiped the tears from her face and fought against her own confusion.