“Bread and soup and cheese,” Dorrin said. “I left it too late for the cook to put on a roast. Tomorrow, Falk’s grace, we’ll have real food. And I need to see about supplies for the cohort and the militia, too.”

“I don’t know about the house pantries,” Selfer said, “But the granary has plenty of grain and no sign of rodents. Sacks of dried beans, as well. I think one door is for a root cellar but you said not to open any doors without your checking them.”

“Tomorrow I’ll go with you,” Dorrin said, “though if the cooks can enter a door, it should be well enough. I did hear from the head cook that Haron’s wife’s chamber has a hidden vault with a box of herbs—or poisons.”

“What are you going to do about that boy Restin?”

“That man, I believe,” Dorrin said. “And if it is, I must kill him.”

Selfer looked horrified. “Kill a child?” Then he shook his head. “But—if he’s not really a child—”

“Exactly,” Dorrin said. “I don’t want to believe they’ve done anything so vile as kill a child’s soul to give a man a fresh body. But the family rolls—the page I can see with mage-sight—makes it clear they were transferring Verrakai to other bodies. An adult mind in a child’s body, with full adult mage powers, would be incredibly dangerous.”

“How do we know it was just once?” Selfer said, scowling. “Is there anything you know of that would prevent someone taking body after body, living … how long?”

“I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “I thought of the same thing. I’m sure if it were possible, someone would try it.” Bitterness rose in her throat, nauseating. How could anyone engender children just to use them so? “But whether that is possible … I don’t know, and I don’t know how to find out.”

“I suppose,” Selfer mused, “it’s no worse to do it to your own family than to strangers. At least it’s not hurting outsiders.”

Rage blinded Dorrin for a moment; she fought it down, thought her way through what he meant. “I thought it was worse,” she said finally. “Family loyalty … but I see what you mean. It cannot be right to bear children just to destroy their futures … but the family so vile deserves to lose its own, not impose that loss on others. Though they have, at least some of the time. One of them is a merchant in Valdaire.”

“Anyone we’ve dealt with?”

“I’m not sure,” Dorrin said. “All it says here is merchant—not the merchant’s name. And a moneychanger in Vérella.”

“Vérella! That’s not good at all. And no name?”

“No. But if we look for the moneychanger the family used there, I would expect to find him.”

“Only men?”

“No. But mostly.” Dorrin sighed. Exhaustion weighed her down. Her own, or imposed by that boy upstairs? “This is a long, deep plot,” she said. “I never realized that as a child. That they valued cruelty and power, yes—but not this way.”