“Yes, those Rooftoppers.” Merolanna watched him keenly. “You really do not know?”

“On my honor, Merolanna, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Look at this, then, and tell me what you think.” She pulled a sheet of parchment from out of the bodice of her dress and handed it to him. He stared at it blankly for a moment, then reached up—not without some discomfort—to take down a candle from the shelf on the wall behind him so he could read.

“It’s…a letter from Olin,” he said at last.

“It was the last letter from Olin, as you should know—the one that Kendrick received just before he was murdered. This is a page from it.”

“The missing page? Truly? Where did you find it?”

“So you know about it. Tell us.” Merolanna seemed a different woman now, more like the spymaster Brone used to be than the doddering old woman she called herself.

“The entire letter was missing after Kendrick’s murder,” he said. “Someone put it among my papers some days later, but a page was missing.” He scanned the parchment with growing excitement. “I think this is the page. Where did you find it?”

“Ah, now that is a story indeed. Perhaps you had better have another drink, Brone,” Merolanna said. “Or maybe some water to clear your head would be better. Understanding this is not going to be easy, and this is only the beginning.”

“So the Rooftoppers…are real?”

“We saw them with our own eyes. If it had been only me you might be able to blame it on my age, but Utta was there.”

“Everything she says is true, Lord Brone.”

“But this is fantastic. How could they be here in the castle all these years and we never knew…?”

“Because they didn’t want us to know. And it is a big castle, after all, Brone. But here is the question. How am I going to find that piece of the moon, or whatever it is? Sister Utta thinks it is Chaven the little woman was talking about, but where is he? Do you know?”

Brone looked around the small, cluttered room. There was no sign of the guards returning, but he lowered his voice anyway. “I do not. But I suspect he is alive. It would be easy enough for the Tollys to trump up some charge against him if all they wanted was an execution. I still have a few…sources around the castle, and I hear Hendon’s men are still searching for him.”

“Well, tell your sources to find him. As swiftly as possible. And it would not hurt to inquire into this moon-stone or whatever it is, either.”

“But I don’t understand—why did these little people ask you? And you said they wanted to bargain with you. How? What did they offer?”

“Ah.” Merolanna smiled, and it was almost fond this time. “Once a courtier, always a courtier, I see. Do you not believe they might have come to me because they recognized me as a person of kindness and good will?”