“While I speak of the Tower of Summer, let me tell you one other thing, and this is meant for your eyes alone. If you read this letter to Briony and Barrick, DO NOT read this part to them.

If a day should come when you know beyond doubt that I am dead, there is something you must see. It is in the Summer Tower, in my library desk—a book, bound in plain dark cloth, with nothing written on its cover or binding. It is locked and the key may be found in a hidden cubby hole in the side of the desk, under the carved head of the Eddon wolf. But I beg of you, even order you so much as I am still your father and lord, do not touch it unless a time comes when you know as undeniable truth that I will not come back to you.

“That is all about that, or almost all. If you must share anything in that book with someone else, brave son, spare your brother and sister, and trust no one else but Shaso, who alone among my advisers has nothing to gain from treachery and everything to lose. For him, the fall of me or my heirs will mean exile, poverty, and perhaps even death, so I think he can be taken into your confidence, but only if you can see no way to shoulder the burden alone.

“Enough of this unhappy subject. I trust that I will still come back to you hale and well—Ludis wants bright gold in his hands, or at worst a living bride, but not a dead king. In the hours and days until then, please see that the castle is made safe. There are still too many places where we are vulnerable, and the slack methods of peacetime quickly become lasting regrets. Tell Brone also that the tunnels beneath the castle have not been surveyed in a hundred years, while the Funderlings have been burrowing like moles, and that there are so many holes in so many Southmarch basements that…”

“And there it ends,” said Utta. “Except that there is a curious addendum written in the side margin, in quite a different fist.”

“I could not make that out—read it to me,” demanded Merolanna.

The Zorian sister squinted for a moment, trying to make sense of it. It was in an archaic-looking script, much smaller and more clumsily done than the king’s writing, twisted so that it would fit into the letter’s narrow margins, but the ink seemed quite fresh and new.

“If ye desire to knowe more, we wold speake with you. Say only, YES, and we will heare ye, howsowever.”

Utta looked up at the duchess, perplexed. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Nor do I. Any of it. But if someone is listening, I will say it. Yes!” She almost shouted the word. “There. How is that for madness? I am talking to ghosts. It will not be the first time this cursed year.”