The Futuretell guilden opened the door too quickly and I felt myself growing tense as I followed her down the bare little passage that led to the small chamber that served as Maryon’s audience room. Christa opened the door and stood back to let me go in before her. The chamber was simply furnished with a thick, sound-muffling rug on which two chairs faced one another over a small, exquisitely carved table. A circular room, like my bedchamber, it was built within a turret that rose above the roof of the Futuretellers hall, but neither this nor the fact that I had been here on other occasions eased me.

Christa invited me to sit down and I obeyed, trying to quell the babble of doubts and anxieties overwhelming my thoughts by concentrating my attention on my surroundings. The audience chamber was smaller than my bed chamber because the turret it occupied was higher and narrower than the one above the Farseekers hall. There were other differences, too. The windows that rose long and narrow either side of a small fireplace had insets of violet-coloured leaded glass that gave the grey light streaming in a bruised tinge, and made it hard to see outside. Indeed, there was no open window and so the sound of the rain was barely audible. Instead I could hear the pleasant crack of logs in the fire and I shied away from the thought that it had been heated in anticipation of my visit.

It was irrational, but the thought that Maryon had foreseen our meeting made me feel as if I were being manipulated. I told myself that futuretellers only saw the future; they did not make it happen. Yet a cold voice inside me pointed out that when Maryon told what she saw, she knowingly affected events. Had she not sent Jik on the journey that had ended in his terrible death, and was it not her futuretelling that had sent Dragon to the lowlands where she had vanished? If the Futuretell guildmistress had not spoken, both of them might even now be safe at Obernewtyn. Maryon would argue that she spoke only to ensure the best possible course for the future, but how could it be best for Jik to die so horribly? Was it truly possible that worse would have happened if he had never left Obernewtyn? Of course, Maryon might not have foreseen that sending Jik to the lowlands would mean his death, but I was unsure it would have made any difference to her foretelling if she had.

It was not only Maryon. I had been uneasy around those with futuretelling abilities ever since Atthis had made me promise to keep secret my quest to find Sentinel. There was no question that the futuretellers saw glimpses of my quest and maybe more than just glimpses. Dell had spoken of me leaving Obernewtyn and Maryon had made enough references to my quest over the years to make it clear that she knew far more than she said. The fact that she had only ever spoken obliquely of it suggested she understood the need for discretion, maybe better than I did. I little liked that thought, either.