She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why am I here?”

“Baron Seregil has come to see how you are and discuss what happened to you,” Kordira explained.

“Happened?” Zella looked from her to Seregil. “Please, my lord, what do you mean?”

“Do you remember leaving the encampment with Princess Klia to go to Deep Harbor?”

“Yes.”

“What happened on the road? Where are Princess Klia and her escort?”

Zella looked at him with mute horror.

“They’re gone,” Seregil told her. “It appears that only you were spared. Don’t you remember telling the doctor about demons? Shadows, with no faces?”

She shook her head, clutching the edge of the coverlet with trembling fingers. “But that was just a dream.”

“No, my lady. Something happened, something very bad, and I need you to remember. When you were brought here yesterday you told Kordira that you’d seen demons.”

Zella looked up at him in horror. “No! That was a nightmare. Tell him, Doctor, please!”

“Something bad happened on the road between here and Menosi,” Seregil pressed. “Only you can tell me what that was.”

Zella burst into tears. “If it wasn’t a dream—By the Maker, how can such things be?”

“Did you see the demons take the others?” asked Seregil.

“No, my lord, in my dream—That is, what I saw—”

Kordira took her hand and gave Seregil a warning look. “You’re doing very well, Zella. Can you tell the baron what you did see in your dream?”

Zella shuddered and covered her eyes. “Black evil things with long arms and no faces. They appeared on the hill by the road.”

That certainly sounded like dra’gorgos, but how had they taken Klia while she was wearing Thero’s amulet, thought Seregil. “Can you tell me anything else? There must be something.”

“That’s all I remember, my lord. I swear by the Four!” Zella sobbed. “Please, that’s all I can tell you!”

“That’s quite enough for now, Seregil,” Kordira said firmly. “Perhaps you should speak with the man who found her?”

Seregil didn’t appreciate being ordered about in his own home, but it was clear that Zella was useless to him as she was now.

“Very well.” He rose painfully from the chair and limped from the room.

Dorin was in the corridor and offered his arm at once. “My lord, tell me what I can do for you!”

“I think I need to lie down.”

“Your things are in the purple suite.”

Seregil shook his head and crossed to the room where he and Alec had seen the ghost woman. “This will do.” It was closer to Zella.

He made it inside. “Thank you. I’ll take it from here.”

“Let me help you.”

“No. Go fetch me some tea, please. I can manage. Oh, and send up whoever it was who found her.”