“Just a little farther,” said Kayyin kindly, taking her arm again. “She waits right there—can you see her? She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

Utta let herself be led forward to the empty center of the room, which contained only one unprepossessing chair and two figures, one sitting, one standing. The one standing behind the chair was female, dressed in plain robes, but her eyes gleamed like fogged mirrors.

The woman in the chair was less obviously unusual, except for her size. She appeared to be as tall as a good-sized man, although achingly thin, but the spikiness of her dark, unreflecting armor made it hard to gauge anything to a certainty. She had the single most unfeeling face Utta had ever seen, one that made the famously stern statue of Kernios in Market Square seem like a child’s favorite uncle. Her high, slitted eyes and her wide, pale-lipped mouth might have been carved from stone. Utta felt her legs begin to tremble again. What had the odd man called her—Death’s kinswoman? Merciful Zoria and all the gods of heaven, she looks like Death iself!

Merolanna too seemed to have lost her courage: they both had to be urged forward by Kayyin, each step heavier than the last, until at last they both slumped to their knees a few paces from the foot of the throne.

“This is Duchess Merolanna Eddon, a member of the royal family of Southmarch,” Kayyin said as if he were the herald at a court ball. If he truly had lived in the castle once, Utta decided, it was not surprising that he knew Merolanna’s name. But then he added, “And this is Utta Fornsdodir, a Zorian sister. They wish an audience with you, Lady Yasammez.”

The woman in black armor looked slowly from Merolanna to Utta, her stare like the touch of an icy finger. A moment later she turned away as if the women were no more substantial than air. “Your japes bring me no pleasure, Kayyin.” Her voice was as chill as her gaze; she spoke with a strange, archaic lilt. “Take them away.” She spread her long white fingers, said something in a low mutter, then spoke aloud again in a language Utta and Merolanna could understand. “Kill them.”

“Hold a moment!” Merolanna’s voice trembled, but the duchess clambered up onto her feet even as Utta began to pray, certain that her last moments were upon her. “I have come to you not as an enemy, but as a mother—a mother wronged. I come to you seeking a boon and you would kill me?”

Yasammez stared at her, a black, unreadable stare. “But I am no mother,” the fairy woman said. “Not anymore. What seek you?”

“My child. My son. I am told he was taken by the Twilight…by the Qar. Your people. I wish to know what happened to him.” She gained strength as she spoke. Utta could not help admiring her: whatever her other foibles, Merolanna was no coward.

“Do you hear?” said Kayyin suddenly. “She is appealing to you as one woman to another. As one parent to another.” There was something oddly barbed in his tone. “Surely you will not harden your heart to her—will you, Mother?”