“‘Haunt’ is your term, Deputy Courier. You haven’t told me your name.”

“His Exalted Highness Prince Gevulin would never deign to know the name of a humble courier like me, so it would be odd of you to know it. It wouldn’t even occur to him to take any notice of me at all—” A dog barked nearby, answered by a second. “—and that will cause problems if you and I need to speak again. Which we will.”

He picked up the rest of his clothing. “Keep going.”

As he pulled on his uniform, she gave him the swiftest rundown she could of what had transpired, a choppy mass of information that skipped around as new things occurred to her. The prince’s unexpected arrival at Orledder Halt. An apparent feud with Prince Astaylin that had expanded to create a conflict with Lord Duenn. The names of his retinue. Fulmo being a gagast which, curiously, he already knew, though she couldn’t tell him how the gagast had come to serve the prince. That the empire was divided into provinces, which the imperial roads stitched together and which the rising lakes and seas of Pall cut apart. The avalanche blocking the Northern Road, which everyone knew about, yet which had been concealed from the prince. The need for a detour.

“And our path ahead?”

“I’ll speak of it as we go. Our route and the countryside are things I can talk about openly in the prince’s hearing without suspicion. We’ll be walking for many days. I’ll keep the pace fast, which gives you an excuse to focus on the march, not on conversation. As much as you can, say nothing. Let your wardens do their jobs. I don’t think they suspect because I don’t think they know that haunts exist and can take possession of a body.”

“If they did suspect?”

“Make sure they don’t. The penalty for sorcery is the same as the action taken to destroy Spore.”

“Fire. Death by burning.”

“How do you know that?” Was he a lost sorcerer? She still did not think it safe to ask, but the sleeping village made her uneasy.

“I’m a good listener, especially when I enjoy the person doing the talking.” He smiled and, as if reflexively, extended an arm. For an instant, she thought he was going to take her hand into his, but then he frowned and pulled his hand back. His lips moved in a soundless comment she could not decipher. He walked to the altar on the eastern wall and, quite sacrilegiously, jumped up onto the offering plinth, making ready to clamber over the top of the wall and drop down in the archon’s compound beyond.