Without meaning to, she shifted, and at her noise, the boy-man spun around. Seeing Rae, he started. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. The switch in his hand trembled.

Rae, still on the ground, tried to find her voice.

“I said, what are you doing here?” He glowered. “Are you from the kitchens?”

Rae’s eyes darted over the wall, but she could not see where or how she might have entered. “I’m sorry.” She tried to rise, to move farther away. “I’m not sure how I came here. It was dark. I’m looking for the palace.”

The boy-man snorted. He put his attention back on the pond. “Supplicant, are you?”

“Supplicant?” Rae did not know this word.

“Here to beg for grain for your village?” Pale, sour, he thwacked at the water.

“N-no…” Rae, standing, backed a few paces away. “I’m here to speak to the king.”

Another thwack. “Is it clemency you’re here for, then? Is your father, say”—half turning, he flicked his eyes over her clothes—“some kind of thief?”

“No! He’s no thief!” Face burning, Rae shook her head indignantly. She did not see that the boy-man, having noticed her standing, having noticed her clothes, was now staring ever more intently; she did not see he had even taken several strides toward her. “He’s a good man! A shepherd! If you could just tell me where I might find the palace, I can—”

“You. You’re a child,” the boy-man said wonderingly. He stepped closer, squinting. “How old are you?”

Rae flinched under his gaze. A terrifying eagerness—curds rounding in whey—bubbled beneath his skin. She drew back.

“You can’t be more than… twelve? Thirteen at the most,” the boy-man continued. “And you’re here for the king?”

The turbulent curds grew thicker, more turbulent. Rae, backing away, bumped into the wall, but before she could look for another path of escape, the boy-man’s expression shifted. Eagerness was replaced with fear. Wan and trembling, he shrank from Rae.

“You’re the one,” he whispered. “The one she prophesied. The one to bring my end. She said you’d come on your own… and you have, just as she said. But where is the other?” He glanced nervously about. “Where is the second one?”

Puzzled, frightened, Rae demurred. “Other? End? I… there’s no one with me… I’m just here to speak to the king.”

“You’re alone? The other’s not here? Ah.” Relief and eagerness swept over his face again. “Guards!” the boy-man yelled. “Guards!”

No one came.

“Guards!” he shouted more desperately. His voice echoed around the walls. “Sleeping fools,” he hissed. He held out his stick. “Stay,” he commanded in a voice too unsteady for commands. “Stay there.” Backing away, stick still threatening, he crept along the wall until he reached a door. Eyes fastened on Rae, he pounded on the wood: “Fish-keep!”

Rae, casting about for an exit, began to edge away.

A hunched and bleary-eyed figure opened the door. Seeing the boy-man, he bowed. “My—”

“Stop her!” the boy-man cried, pointing at Rae. “Fish-keep, stop her!”