“I don’t know what I did and I don’t know how to undo it,” Dorrin said. When she looked at her hand, it looked like hers, but with a faint outline of another overlaid on it. She concentrated and suddenly that outline disappeared. “Am I … back?”

They nodded. “I hope that doesn’t happen by mistake,” Dorrin said. “I still don’t know how I did it. And I don’t want to.” She wrapped the crown again, then the other items, and placed them back in the padded sack. They called to her; she bespoke them in her mind, telling them they would be safe.

“You want us to take these things?” Duke Mahieran said.

“I do. I thought perhaps the prince could wear them, that they would recognize someone of true royal blood—I was willing to think our family had stolen them long ago, in Gird’s time—but I see now that might be dangerous to him. Still, if they are in your treasury and you know it, you can be sure they are not in my possession. That I am not plotting to put that crown on my own head—even if it does talk to me.”

The prince nodded, then looked at Duke Mahieran and High Marshal Seklis before turning again to Dorrin. “It is not yet the day of my coronation, and for matters of state I must still consult the Regency Council. But here are two members of that Council. I propose, for your own safety, to take your oath of fealty here and now, before them. You will give it again with the other peers, but your oath now will lend weight to your protestations that you intend no treason. Are you willing?”

“Of course, Lord Prince,” Dorrin said.

“That is well said, my lord prince,” Seklis said. “We three have reason to believe the Duke honest, but others will not.”

And would an oath make her honest? Had not her uncle forsworn himself a dozen times over?

“Are these chairs safe?” the prince asked.

“Yes,” Dorrin said. She pulled one around, sat in it, and stood again.

“I would have taken your word,” the prince said. He sat; Duke Mahieran and High Marshal Seklis moved to either side of him. Dorrin knelt before the prince, and phrase by phrase repeated the oath of fealty.

“Rise,” the prince said when it was done; he stood and once more they clasped hands.

“So how do we convey these things in a way that continues to show your loyalty?” the prince said. “I cannot think that sneaking them into the palace in a sack is the best way to do it.”

“Perhaps not, but soonest is best,” Duke Mahieran said. “Our visit here tonight will not have gone unremarked … and if we come away with a mysterious sack, that story will be all over the city by midmorning tomorrow.” He turned to Dorrin. “Is there anything like a chest or casket here that you could put these in?”