“I don’t see how she could help having nightmares,” Po said. “She’s so young, and she has so much she’s trying to make sense of: a murdered mother, a father who was a madman.”

“Do you think he was mad?”

Po hesitated. “I truly don’t know. Certainly he was cruel, and perverse. But it’s hard to tell where he ended and his Grace began, do you know what I mean? And I suppose we’ll never know now where he came from. Or what it is he really wanted.” He breathed in and out slowly. “At least people’s feelings for him are shifting. Have you felt it? He won’t be remembered kindly.”

“That will be a help to Bitterblue.”

“You know, she wonders if I’m a mind reader. She wonders it, Katsa, and still she trusts me and doesn’t press me to spill my secrets. It’s extraordinary.”

Katsa listened to the quiet that came over the cave when Po stopped speaking. “Yes,” she said simply. “Bitterblue is not like other people.”

“At the coronation Skye accused me of refusing to marry you,” Po said; and now she heard a smile in his voice. “He was quite indignant about it.”

Katsa sighed. “Oll came to me with the same point. He thinks it’s dangerous for us to leave each other so much freedom and make these vague plans to travel together in the future, doing Council work, with no promises. I told him I’m not going to marry you and hang on to you like a barnacle, just to keep you to myself and stop you loving anyone else.”

“It’s all right, you know. Other people don’t have to understand.”

“I worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll muddle through. And there are those who do understand. Raffin does, and Bann.”

“Yes,” Katsa said. “I suppose they do.”

Po shivered, and she reached for him to warm him. A feeling swelled, suddenly, at the edges of her heart. She whispered. “You’re determined to go to Lienid right away?”

He took a moment before answering. He couldn’t quite manage to keep his voice light. “My mother will cry when I tell her about my sight. To be honest, I dread that as much as anything else.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, Katsa, I’ll be all right. I want to face this thing and be done with it. And I don’t want you to change your plans.”

Katsa was en route back to Bitterblue City to give fighting lessons to girls. It was a thing she’d decided she wanted to do, in all seven kingdoms, and after the coronation Bitterblue had begged her to start in Monsea. Po had encouraged it, rather insistently, for it gave Katsa an excuse to keep an eye on Bitterblue’s welfare for just a little while longer.

“I’ll be in Monsea a few months at least,” Katsa said. “But I promise the next lessons I give will be in Lienid.”

“So I’ll hope to see you by autumn’s end. I’ll pretend to myself it’s not a long time.”