Lunch. She had completely forgotten about lunch. “That’s very kind,” she said. “Where—”

“We’s set a table in the servants’ hall since them soldiers won’t let us in the dining room.”

“Fine,” Dorrin said. “Lead the way. Selfer?”

The pie, mincemeat and vegetables in a pastry crust, was delicious. Dorrin ate it quickly, anxious to get back upstairs and check on the children. She met one of the nurserymaids on the stairs.

“He’s better still, my lord,” the maid said. “The fever’s all gone; we’ve never seen the like.”

“Is he awake?”

“No, but he’s sleeping restful, no twitching. Malin says let him sleep it out.”

“That’s good. I’m sorry the children couldn’t go out this morning, but this afternoon let them play outside.”

“In the orchard? That’s where we usually take them when it’s this cool, out of the wind.”

“No, not in the orchard today. It’s cool, but not windy—they should be fine in the front of the house.”

The children came downstairs quietly, obviously anxious with the house full of strangers and none of the familiar adults about. Dorrin watched them file out the front entrance; none were invaded that she could detect.

Once outside, their reserve gradually leached away and soon they were running around the wide graveled entrance, screeching and playing like normal children. They were normal children, Dorrin reminded herself. The nurserymaids watched, trying to keep the children into rough age groups.

After a few minutes, she went back upstairs to check on Mikeli and find out why the nursery’s protection against aggressive magery had failed. Mikeli slept peacefully, appearing normal to all her senses. The nursery’s protection, a spell controlled at the door, had been turned off; Dorrin turned it back on.

While on that level, she spent the next hour checking room after room for any evil magery and found nothing—the children’s floor seemed clear. Down one flight, where the adults had their chambers, was a different matter. After finding multiple death-dealing traps of various kinds, familiar from her time in Aarenis, and spells set to confuse, injure, or kill, in the first bedchamber she explored, she decided she’d continue to sleep somewhere else.

A soft call from the stairway to the third floor brought her back up. “He’s awake, my lord.”

Dorrin went into the nursery; Mikeli was now propped up on pillows, rubbing his eyes.

“Mikeli—how do you feel?”

“Better. Hungry … Who are you?”

“I’m Dorrin Verrakai,” Dorrin said. “The new Duke.”

“Where’s Mama?”

“She had to go on a trip,” Dorrin said. “But I’m here. If you’re hungry, let’s go see if the cooks can find you something.” She looked at the nurserymaid. “I don’t know what a child who’s been sick should eat—”

“Toast, weak sib, to see how it settles.”

“I’m hungry,” Mikeli said in a stronger voice, pushing away from the pillows. “I feel … different.”

Dorrin extended her magery a little. No hint of someone other than a five-winters child inside, a child thinner and paler than he should be, but with healthy energy surging inside him.