And this was what she stewed over for some time after the boy left; and this stewing was why it took her so long to attend to the condition of the children he'd been talking to. The children in the courtyard who'd believed what he'd said. Their minds were blank, and bubbling with fog.

Fire could not fathom this fog. But she was certain she'd found its source.

By the time she realised she mustn't let him go, the sun was setting, the stallion was bought, and the boy was already gone from the court.

That same night brought information that distracted everyone from the matter of Cutter's boy.

It was late evening and Fire was in the stables when she sensed Archer returning from the city to the palace. It was not a thing she would have sensed so forcefully, not searching for it particularly; except that he was eager to talk to her, and open as an infant, and also slightly drunk.

Fire had only just begun to brush Small, who was standing with eyes closed from the bliss of it and drooling onto his stall door. And she wasn't anxious to see Archer if he was both eager and drunk. She sent him a message. We'll talk when you're sober.

Some hours later with her regular guard of six, Fire followed the maze from her rooms to Archer's. But then outside his door she was perplexed, for she sensed that her Mila, who was off-duty, was inside Archer's chamber.

Fire's thoughts groped for an explanation, any explanation other than the obvious. But Mila's mind was open, as even strong minds tended to be when they were experiencing what Mila was experiencing just now on the other side of this door; and Fire remembered how sweet and pretty her guard was, and how many opportunities Archer had had to notice her.

Fire stood staring at Archer's door, silent and shaking. She was quite certain he had never done anything to make her this angry before.

She turned on her heel and marched down the hallway. She found the stairs and marched up them, and up, and up, until she burst onto the roof, where she set to marching back and forth. It was cold and damp, and she had no coat, and it smelled like coming snow. Fire didn't notice, didn't care. Her baffled guard stood out of her way so she wouldn't trample them.

After some time the thing happened she'd been waiting for: Mila fell asleep. And none too soon, for it was late now, and Brigan was climbing wearily to the roofs. She mustn't meet Brigan tonight. She would not be able to stop herself from telling him everything, and Archer might deserve to have his laundry aired, but Mila did not.

She marched down by a stairway that Brigan was not taking up. She traced the maze again to Archer's rooms and stood outside his door. Archer, she thought to him. Get out here, now.

He emerged quickly, if barefoot and confused and a bit hastily thrown together; and Fire for the first time exercised her privilege of being alone with him, sending her guards to either end of the long corridor. She could not quite force herself to appear calm, and when she spoke, her voice was scathing. "Must you prey on my guard?"

The puzzlement left his face and he spoke hotly. "I'm not a predator, you know. Women come to me quite willingly. And why should you care what I do?"

"It hurts people. You're careless with people, Archer. Mila, why Mila? She's fifteen years old!"

"She's sleeping now, happy as a kitten in a patch of sun. You're stirring up trouble over nothing."

Fire took a breath, and spoke low. "And in a week's time, when you grow tired of her, Archer, because someone else has captured your fancy; when she becomes despondent or depressed, or pathetic, or furious, because you've snatched the thing away that makes her so happy – I suppose then she'll be stirring up trouble over nothing?"

"You talk as if she's in love with me."

He was maddening; she would like to kick him. "They always fall in love with you, Archer, always. Once they've known the warmth of you, they always fall in love with you, and you never do with them, and when you drop them it breaks their hearts."

He bit the words off. "A curious accusation, coming from you."

She understood him, but she would not let him turn this into that. "We're talking about my friends, Archer. I beg you – if you must have the entire palace in your bed, leave the women who are my friends out of it."

"And I don't see why this should matter to you now, when it never did before."

"I never had friends before!"

"You keep using that word," he said bitterly. "She's not your friend, she's your guard. Would your friend do what she's done, knowing your history with me?"

"She knows little about it, except that it is history. And you forget I'm in a position to know how she regards me."

"But there must be plenty she hides from you – as she's been hiding her meetings with me all this time. A person may have many feelings about you that you don't know."

She watched him, crestfallen. He was so physical in his arguments. He loomed and gestured, his face went dark or burned with light. His eyes blazed. And he was just as physical with his love and his joy, and this was why they all fell in love with him, for in a world that was dismal he was alive and passionate, and his attentions, while they lasted, were intoxicating.

And she hadn't missed the meaning in his words: this thing with Mila had been going on for some time. She turned away from him, held a hand up against him. She couldn't fight with the appeal of Lord Archer to a fifteen-year-old soldier girl from the impoverished southern mountains. And she couldn't quite forgive herself for not realising this might happen, for not paying closer attention in her mind to Archer's whereabouts and his company.

She dropped her hand, turned back, and spoke with weariness. "Of course she has feelings about me I don't know. But whatever those feelings are, they don't negate the feeling she does show me, or the friendship in her behaviour that goes beyond the loyalty of a guard. You will not turn my anger away from you and onto her."

Archer seemed to deflate then. He slumped against his door and stared at his bare toes in the manner of a man accepting that he has lost. "I wish you would come home," he said weakly; and for a panicked moment Fire thought he was going to cry.

But then he seemed to take hold of himself. He looked up at her quietly. "So you have friends now. And a protective heart."

She matched his quietness. "I've always had a protective heart. Only now I have more people inside it. They've joined you there, Archer – never replaced you."

He thought about that for a moment, staring at his feet. "You needn't worry about Clara, anyway," he said. "She ended it almost the moment it began. I believe it was out of loyalty to you."

Fire deliberately chose to think of this as good news. She would focus on it ending, whatever it had been, and ending by Clara's choice – rather than on the small matter of it having begun.

There was a short, sad pause. He said, "I'll end things with Mila."

"The sooner you do, the sooner it'll be behind her. And you've lost your questioning-room privileges with this thing, Archer. I'll not have you there plaguing her with your presence."

He glanced up sharply then, and stood straight. "A relieving change of topic. You remind me of the reason I wanted to talk to you. Do you know where I was today?"

Fire couldn't turn away from the subject so easily. She rubbed both temples. I've no idea, and I'm exhausted, so whatever it is, have out with it quickly.

"I was visiting the house of a retired captain who was an ally of my father's," Archer said. "By the name of Hart. A rich man, and a great friend to the crown. His young wife sent the invitation. Hart himself was not home."