He smiled again. “Walk with me awhile.”

“I have patients to visit. And Lady Flidais to see.”

“Indulge me a little.” He cupped my elbow as if to guide me to the path; I could not help flinching, and his hand dropped away. “You are strung tight,” he observed.

“I don’t take kindly to folk putting their hands on me without asking first.” I made myself take a steadying breath. “I’d like to say a year in that place of Mathuin’s didn’t leave a mark on me, but I’d be lying.”

“Then let us sit here side by side, not touching, and talk awhile. Not about our agreement. Not about the past; at least, not the painful past.”

I sat down again, and he settled beside me, a careful arm’s length away. His cloak made a pool of liquid darkness on the stones.

“You have done well,” he said quietly.

“I thought you said we wouldn’t talk about the agreement.”

“Ah. You came close to breaking it, when you fled south on the strength of a foolish lie. That was the day when I realized your guard dog does indeed have his uses.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that name for Grim. He’s a man like any other man. If Prince Oran can treat him with respect, so can you.”

“You measure me by the yardstick of a human prince.”

“Oran is a good man. It irks me to admit that, but it’s the truth. And I have no other yardstick to use.”

“When I say, You have done well, I mean in the matter of solving Prince Oran’s puzzle. Your solution pleased me. It was bold, risky, clever, ingenious. Everything that I would have expected of you, Blackthorn.”

“I would say thank you, but I am wary of compliments. They so often come with requests attached.”

There was a silence, as if he could not think how to answer this. Then he said, “You do not believe I have asked enough of you already?” His voice was oddly constrained.

“I believe you please yourself. I think that may be typical of the fey. But what would I know?”

“More than some of your kind.”

“Because I was once a wise woman? A dealer not only in potions and cures, but in spells and charms?” I glanced sideways at him, and caught an odd expression on his face. For a moment he looked . . . softer. A little less fey; a little closer to human. Something stirred in my mind, a fragment of memory, gone before I could grasp it.

“You never ceased to be a wise woman, Blackthorn,” Conmael said. “You simply lost your way for a while. As for the spells and charms, they may not come as readily to your fingertips as they once did, but that is only a matter of practice. On the night when you helped Lady Flidais return to her own form, did you not hold back the rain in order to assemble those you needed here at the pool? That was no easy matter.”