“Why didn’t you know I would strike you,” she said, “in Murgon’s courtyard?”

“I did know,” he said, “but only in the last instant, and I didn’t react quickly enough. Until that first strike, I didn’t realize your speed. I’d never encountered the like of it before.”

The mortar was cracking in the frame of the window. She pulled out a small chunk and rolled it between her fingers. “Does your Grace make mistakes? Or are you always right?”

He breathed; it almost sounded like a laugh. “It’s not always exact. And it’s always changing. I’m still growing into it. My sense of the physical is pretty reliable, as long as I’m not in an enormous crowd. I know where people are and what they’re doing. But what they feel toward me—there’s never been a time when I thought someone was lying and they weren’t. Or a time when I thought someone intended to hit me and they didn’t. But there are times when I’m not sure—when I have a sense of something but I’m not sure. Other people’s feelings can be very . . . complicated, and difficult to understand.”

She hadn’t thought of that, that a person might be difficult to understand, even to a mind reader.

“I’m more sure of things now than I used to be,” he said. “When I was a child I was rarely sure. These enormous waves of energy and feeling and thought were always crashing into me, and most of the time I was drowning in them. For one thing, it’s taken me a long time to learn to distinguish between thoughts that matter and thoughts that don’t. Thoughts that are just thoughts, fleeting, and thoughts that carry some kind of relevant intent. I’ve gotten much better at that, but my Grace still gives me things I’ve no idea what to do with.”

It sounded ridiculous to her, thoroughly ridiculous. And she had thought her own Grace overwhelming. Alongside his, it seemed quite straightforward.

“It’s hard to get a handle on it sometimes,” he said, “my Grace.”

She turned sideways for a moment. “Did you say that because I thought it?”

“No. I said it because I thought it.”

She turned back to the window. “I thought it, too,” she said. “Or something like it.”

“Well,” he said. “I imagine it’s a feeling you would understand.”

She sighed again. There were things about this she could understand, though she didn’t want to. “How close do you have to be to someone, physically, for your Grace to sense them?”

“It differs. And it’s changed over time.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it’s someone I know well,” he said, “my range is broad. For strangers, I need to be closer. I knew when you neared the castle today; I knew when you burst into the courtyard and leaped out of your saddle, and I felt your anger strong and clear as you flew up to Raffin’s rooms. My range for you is . . . broader than most.”