“So an islander murdered him, not a ghost?”

“I heard it was that lover of his. Rumor is that she stabbed him in a jealous fit, then killed herself. How else do you explain the room being locked from the inside?”

“That’s common knowledge, is it?”

“The guard who finally broke the door down blabbed it. Crazy stories, most of it—guts hanging from the ceiling and such.”

“More stories to scare children?”

Azrin shrugged. “They locked him up in the madhouse.”

“Do you know the man?”

“Hardly,” Azrin sniffed. “I may be down on my luck, but I’m still a noble. The man was one of the guardsmen Toneus brought with him. A captain, I think.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“Not at all. I’m just saying things have changed on the island, and they haven’t, if you take my meaning.”

“Thanks for that.”

They finished off the last of the tart and Micum paid for the meal.

“Say, could you recommend a good healer?” Micum rubbed his thigh. “The voyage played havoc with an old scar of mine, and the drysian with Klia wasn’t much use.” It wasn’t completely untrue.

“Doctor Kordira is the one to see,” Azrin told him. “She’s a proper doctor, not one of those mystical hand wavers you have in Skala.” Azrin gave him a wink. “She’s a pretty thing, too, but mind your manners. It’s said she knows as much about poisons as she does healing.”

“More tales to scare children?” Micum said with a laugh.

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t push my luck if I were you.”

“Much obliged, friend.” He shook hands with Azrin at the door. “I hope to see you again soon. Could you direct me to the good doctor?”

“Of course. Go back the way we came, go left on Leaf Lane, and you’ll see the sign.”

It was midafternoon now. Micum soon found the physician’s home—a narrow, three-story row house with a receiving room on the street level.

The room smelled of herbs and roots, and baskets of them lined one wall, together with bolts of linen and baskets of vegetable lint. The instruments of her trade lay on shelves on another wall, many of them rather alarming.

A pretty young woman came out from behind a tapestry at the back of the room. “Are you in need, sir?”

“I was hoping to speak with you about my leg, Doctor Kordira.”

The woman laughed. “Oh, I’m not the doctor, sir. She has a visitor at the moment, but if you’d like to wait, I can make you comfortable here.”

She set a chair for him by the front window. “Give me your name and I’ll bring word to her upstairs.”

Micum told her and she moved another tapestry aside and disappeared up the steep stairway behind it. A moment later she returned with word that the visitor was a friend of his, and that he could go up and join them.

His leg ached as he slowly climbed the steep, narrow stairs. At the top he went through an open door and down a short corridor to a comfortable sitting room where he discovered Thero and a beautiful Plenimaran woman at tea. The wizard wore his formal Orëska robes and his curly black hair bound back in a severe queue. Nonetheless, he seemed perfectly at ease with his hostess.