Liddy gripped his hand. “I don’t want to know! Understand? You did what you had to, to get through it. That’s all you did. It’s in the past. Like Valbeck. Like Styria. We’re together now. And all on the right side.” A blind spot, like May said. Wanting to believe the best. He owed her that much.

Broad wiped his weak eyes on the back of his hand. “You’re right.” Hooked his lenses back on. “You’re always right.” He forced out a teary smile. “It was that letter the two of you wrote made all the difference. That’s what saved me. That letter.”

Liddy frowned puzzled at May, and May looked back at her, and shrugged. “We didn’t write a letter. Wish we could’ve, but we’d no way to get one to you. And you know Ma, she’s not much of a writer.” She was already busy in her book again, scratching out the numbers.

A thumping knock at the door made Broad jump. He wanted to tell Liddy not to answer it. To leave them as they were, for a little longer. But she was already on the way.

“Your Highness,” she said as the door opened and Savine swept in. Zuri

was with her, watching Broad carefully with her black eyes, calm as ever, the familiar book under one arm, the familiar watch around her neck, though she had a gold one now, rather than silver. Everyone moving upwards, it seemed. Those who hadn’t taken the long drop, anyway.

Savine took Liddy by the hands like an old friend. “Whenever I see your face I am reminded afresh how very glad I am that you are here, Liddy. Almost as glad as your husband is. There is no one left in Adua who knows what to do with a hem.”

No doubt because most of ’em were paste under the slowly filling moat of the Agriont. Liddy blushed, curtsied clumsily. “We can’t wait to serve Your Highness, of course. To be in the palace, it’s, well…”

“Not what any of us were expecting. What are you about, May?”

“Some of the accounts for your mines in Angland, Lady Savine.”

“I swear you’ll own them yourself one day! Might I have a quick word with Gunnar?”

“’Course.” May took her ledger and went out. Liddy gave Broad an excited glance in the doorway. Wondering what new reward they were about to get, maybe. Then she was gone, too, pulling the door shut.

“So.” Savine raised one brow at him as she lowered herself, gracefully as ever, into one of his new leather-covered chairs. “It must be lovely to have the family back together—”

“The letter you gave me,” he said. “Before the trial.”

“Yes?”

“The one you said May wrote.”

She looked almost impatient. “Yes?”

“She didn’t.”

Savine frowned over at Zuri, who had her big book open, as though to make notes. Zuri gave the smallest shrug. “Gunnar,” said Savine, “if you think I would balk at copying someone’s handwriting to save my own life, you really don’t know me very well.”