Brone raised an eyebrow.

“You’re right. They told me they would give me news of my child.”

Avin Brone’s eyes went wide as cartwheels. “Your…your…?”

“Child. Yes, that’s right. Don’t worry about Utta—she’s been told the whole dreadful story.”

He looked at her with a face gone pale. “You told her…?”

“You’re not speaking very well, today, Brone. I fear the drink is doing you damage. Yes, I told her of my adultery with my long-dead lover.” She turned to Utta. “Brone already knows, you see. I have few confidantes in the castle, but he has long been one of them. He was the one who arranged for the child to be fostered.” She turned back to Brone. “I told Barrick and Briony, also.”

“You what?”

“Told them, the poor dears. They had a right to know. You see, on the day of Kendrick’s funeral, I saw the child. My child.”

Brone could only shake his head again. “Surely, Merolanna, one of us is going mad.”

“It isn’t me. I thought for a time it must be, but I think I know better now. Tell me, then—what are you going to do?”

“Do? About what?”

“All of this. About finding Chaven and discovering why the fairies took my little boy.” She saw the look on Avin Brone’s face. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” She quickly related the words of Queen Upsteeplebat and the oracular Ears. “Now, what are you going to do?”

Brone seemed dazed. “I…I can inquire quietly again after Chaven’s whereabouts, I suppose, but the trail has probably long gone cold.”

“You can do more than that. You can help Utta and myself make our way to the camp of those fairy-people, those…what are they called? Qar? We’ve always called them the Twilight Folk, I don’t know why everyone has to change. In any case, I want to go to them. After all, they are only on the other side of the bay.”

Now it was Utta’s turn to be astonished. “Your Grace, what are you saying? Go out to the Qar? They are murderous creatures—they have killed hundreds of your people.”

The duchess flapped her hands in dismissal of Utta’s concern. “Yes, I’m sure they are terrible, but if they won’t tell me where my son is then I don’t much care what they do with me. I want answers. Why steal my child? Why put me through year upon year of torture, only to send him back as young as the day he was taken? I saw him, you know, at Kendrick’s funeral. I thought I’d truly gone mad. And why should this happen now? It has something to do with all this other nonsense, mark my words.”

“You’re…you’re really certain you saw him?” Utta asked.

“He was my child.” Merolanna’s face had gone chilly, hard. “Would you fail to recognize your revered Zoria if she appeared in your chapel? I saw him—my poor, dear little boy.” She turned back to Brone. “Well?”