He flinched, then winced, then pressed a hand atop his head as if he was trying to stop his skull from blowing off.

“Oh, Kem. I can never be mad at you. Well, except that one time with the turnip—”

“Don’t remind me! That was so embarrassing.”

“Yes, it’s true your apology was so cringing and pathetic even your mother didn’t scold you.”

Again, silence fell. The Pall lay like death, unmoving. But it wasn’t dead, was it? It had tides and currents and maybe souls alive inside it. The haunt was out there somewhere, somehow. She would never know where the end of his journey lay. But it wasn’t with her.

He said, “You’re crying again. What happened with you and the prince?”

“Nothing happened with me and the prince, Kem. He wasn’t the prince. I’m telling you this so you’ll know, but I’m asking you to never tell the others. They mustn’t know.”

He stared at her as he put the pieces together. “By the High Heavens, are you saying there really was a haunt, and it really did possess the prince?”

“Yes.”

“It was the haunt all along?”

“Yes.”

“Then what? And how?”

“He borrowed the prince’s body in order to get here. To this Pall.”

“Why?”

“He’s one of these people called the Shorn. They were part of an ancient fight against the sorcerer-kings. He went into the Pall to look for others like him, to seek out traces of sorcery so they can eradicate it again. The Pall doesn’t affect him because … I’m not sure, really. I don’t understand quite how it all fits together.”

He gazed first at the Pall and then at her. “This is a lot to take in.”

She waited, wiping her cheeks. Her heart ached. It would always ache. But Kem sat next to her, clutching her arm as if he was afraid that if he let go that she would get washed away into oblivion.

He looked at her keenly, studying her with the affection of a child who trusts the person beside them. He had always had the instinct to care about others enough to make a good guess as to how they felt.

“You fell in love with him, didn’t you? And him with you. It wouldn’t hurt so much if he hadn’t cared. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

She looked away because she couldn’t trust herself to speak.

“It explains everything.” He sighed again, as if the weight of the world had settled onto his shoulders. “All right, then. You’re chilled through, and you’ve had a shock. We’re going to go into the stables. There’s a fire and a place you can bed down for the night, or for however long until the prince wakes up. He will wake up, right?”