What Phryne couldn’t quite understand was why Isoeld thought that making her grandmother a prisoner would be worth the effort. Word of a seizure of this sort was bound to leak out—through those old men who were the old lady’s consorts, in all likelihood—leading to rampant speculation. Mistral could hardly pose a threat to the Queen. She hadn’t been all that fond of Oparion in the first place; his killing would affect her less than most. If he hadn’t married her daughter, they probably wouldn’t have had any relationship at all. So to lock her away out of fear of what she might do, an old woman living by herself on the outskirts of the city, what sort of sense did that make?

Holding her head in her hands, bent forward so that the pain seemed to lessen somewhat, Phryne pondered the question. Did Isoeld really think anyone would believe that wild story about her grandmother encouraging her to kill her father? It was patently ridiculous. Isoeld must have known that Phryne would never agree to take the blame for her father’s death simply because of threats made to her grandmother. Doing any deliberate harm to someone of Mistral Belloruus’s stature posed great risk in a tight-knit Elven community where everyone knew the history of the royal families.

No, something else was going on here. But what?

Phryne didn’t know. She couldn’t think straight. She wanted to lie down and go to sleep, but she knew that sleeping after a beating like the one she had taken was not wise. Concussions could kill you in your sleep. She needed to stay awake and wait for things to settle down. She thought about crawling over to the door to ask for water, but she had every expectation of being refused, and she didn’t think she could bear that just now.

So instead, she stayed where she was, breathing slowly and deeply, searching for slight shifts of position that might help lessen the pain and slow the spinning.

She was still engaged in that endeavor when she heard the snick of the door lock. She raised her head high enough to watch the door open and a pair of young women enter the room carrying cloths and basins of water. They came over to where Phryne was sitting and knelt beside her. Saying nothing, working in silence, they cleaned her wounds and daubed at her bruises, using the cold water in the basin to bring down the swelling and warm water in the other to wash away dirt and blood. Phryne let them work on her, grateful for even this little bit of help. She didn’t know these Elves and appreciated that in all probability they were under strict instructions not to make any attempt to converse with her. But at least someone was making an effort to keep her in one piece.