He could see the skylight from his first point of emergence—which he’d found by following signs of roof repair, a stack of tiles on a stairway. It was just over there, north of where he stood. He headed that way, but between his part of the roof and the other was a gap down to a stone-flagged passage between the main palace and the Bells’ grange-hall. South of him was the bell tower in which the magical bells hung. For the first time, he wondered if their magic had any effect other than the bells ringing by themselves. A sweet sound came to him, faint but distinct in the bright air … not as loud as the bells but … was it the bells or elves?

Voices rose from below, and he leaned cautiously over the low parapet. A row of knight-candidates in training, voices echoing off the stone, moved from the grange-hall toward the palace, all talking at once. A face turned up to the sky; Camwyn jerked back. If he’d been seen … he slithered backward across the roof before standing and making for his exit. He would have to find a better way, but at least he now had an idea where the gaps between buildings were.

That night he ate alone in his own quarters, thinking about the regalia and his hand and the voices in his head. The thing about his … whatever it was; he would not call it magery … was that it wanted to be used, just as the crown and regalia wanted to be free and with Dorrin. It was like his body when he was restless and tired of sitting still in a meeting. His body wanted to move; it was natural for it to move … the moving itself wasn’t ever bad, but he—anyone—could do bad things while moving. So if this—whatever it was—was natural like sight or movement, then the desire to use it was natural too. And surely it could be governed by his will in the same way as his movement.

But—by the Code of Gird—it was all wrong, except healing, and no one had that magery anymore.

Unless he did. Or Dorrin did. Paladins had healing magery. Marshals also.

The invitation to breakfast the next morning with his brother was not entirely welcome. He needed more time.

“Camwyn,” his brother said as he wiped his mouth at the end of the meal, “what were you doing up on the roof?”

Camwyn’s tongue clove to the roof of his mouth for a moment. He’d been seen? By whom? One of the knight-candidates, probably. What had they said? He’d been so sure— Then he was able to speak. “Exploring,” he said, which was true enough. “I wanted to see if it made any more sense from on top than on the maps.”

“Um. But you had no guard with you, did you? What if you’d fallen?”