"You made some bad choices, Tavi. But that doesn't mean that-"

"Choices," Tavi spat the word bitterly. "As though I ever had that many to make. It isn't like I'm going to have to worry about that again, now."

She tugged the brush at a tangle in her hair. "You're just upset. So was your uncle. This isn't anything to get worked up about, Tavi. I'm sure that when everyone's calmed down-"

The sudden surge of frustration and pain from Tavi hit her like a tangible wind. The brush tumbled from her fingers and to the floor. She caught her breath, though the intensity of the boy's emotions nearly robbed her of balance. "Tavi… are you all right?"

He whispered, "It's nothing to get worked up about."

"I don't understand why these sheep are so important to you."

"No," he said. "You wouldn't. I want to be by myself."

Isana pressed her lips together and bent carefully to recover her brush. "But I need to talk to you about what happened. There are some things-"

Anger, real, vibrant rage rushed across the room along with the other sensations pouring from him. "I am finished talking about what happened," Tavi said. "I want to be alone. Please leave."

"Tavi-"

His dim shape rolled over on the bed, turning his back to the door. Isana felt her own emotions begin to drift dangerously toward what the boy felt, his feelings beginning to bleed into hers. She drew a breath, steeling herself against them and said, "All right. But we aren't through talking. Later."

He didn't answer.

Isana retreated from the room. She had hardly shut the door when she heard the latch slide shut on the inside and lock it closed. She had to take several steps down the hall before she emerged from the deluge of the boy's emotions. She couldn't understand it: Why was Tavi so upset over what had happened¹?

More to the point, what didn't she know about the events of the day before? Could they have any bearing on the arrival of so many strangers to the Valley at once?

She shook her head and leaned against the wall for a moment. Tavi had a powerful personality, a formidable force of will that leant his passions an extra weight, somehow, and forced her to struggle more sharply to keep them separate from her own. Not that it was surprising that she should feel him more keenly than anyone else, in any case. She loved him too much, had been near him too long.

To say nothing of the other reasons.

Isana shook her head firmly. Regardless of how drained she felt from last night's crafting, there was no time to waste. She should have remembered her purpose when speaking to the boy: to learn what she could of the previous day's events that Bernard could not remember.

She turned toward her brother's room and took a deep breath. Then she paced inside, determined.

Bernard had left the lamp burning on a low flame, and the room's interior was lit by soft, golden light. Bernard lived simply: He had, ever since Cassea and the girls had died. He had removed all of her things, packing them in a pair of trunks stowed underneath his bed. He lived out of a single trunk, now, as he had in the Legions. His weapons and gear were stowed on

racks on one wall, across from the bare writing desk, all the records for the steadholt stowed neatly in its drawers.

The girl slept in Bernard's bed. She was tall, with lean features that seemed particularly drawn in the light, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes. Her skin glowed golden, almost the same shade as her hair. She was beautiful. A braid of leather circled her throat.

Isana frowned at her. Her brother had gotten down the extra blankets and piled them over the girl-though she had evidently stirred enough that her feet had slipped from beneath them. Isana stepped forward absently to cover her feet again and saw that they had been bandaged and covered in slippers of soft calfskin.

Isana stared down at the slippers for a moment. Pale white, stitched neatly, with delicate beadwork tracing a design over the tops. She recognized it at once: She had done it herself, perhaps ten years before. The slippers had been a birthday gift for Cassea. They had been in the chest beneath the bed for more than a decade.

Isana stepped back from the bed. She wanted to speak to the girl- but her brother had warned her against disturbing her. She had hoped for years that he would find someone else, after he'd lost Cassea and the girls, but he never had. Bernard had continually kept a quiet distance between himself and anyone else, and those who lived in the Valley, those who remembered his wife and daughters, had simply given him the solitude he wished.

If her brother had found it in himself again to reach out to someone else-and from his words to her and the way he had treated the girl, it seemed that he had-could she so readily act against him?

Isana stepped forward and laid her hand across the girl's forehead. Even before she had reached out through Rill, she felt the mild fever in her. She shivered and slowly extended her senses out, through the fury, and into the sleeping slave.

Bernard had not been mistaken. The girl bore several injuries, from painful cuts upon her legs to a painfully swollen ankle to a sharp, vicious cut along her upper arm. Her body had been pushed to exhaustion, and even in sleep, Isana could feel that the girl was gripped by a terrible worry and fear. She murmured softly to Rill and felt the fury course gently through the girl, mending closed the smaller cuts and easing the swelling and pain. The

effort left Isana's head light, and she drew her hand back and concentrated on remaining on her feet.

When she looked down again, the girl had opened her exhausted eyes and was staring up at her. "You," she whispered. "You're the watercrafter that healed the Steadholder."

Isana nodded and said, "You should rest. I just want to ask you one question."

The girl swallowed and nodded. She let her eyes fall closed.

"Have you come for the boy?" Isana asked. "Are you here to take him?"

"No," the girl said, and Isana felt the simple truth in her words as clearly as the tone of a silver bell. There was a purity to the way she spoke, a sense of sincerity that reassured Isana, let her shoulders unknot, if only a little.

"All right," Isana said. She adjusted the blankets over the girl, covering her feet once more. "Sleep. I'll bring you some food in a little while."

The girl did not reply, motionless on the bed, and Isana withdrew from the room, to the top of the stairs. She could hear voices, below, as the hold-folk gathered into the hall. Outside, thunder rumbled, low and ominous, from the north. The events of the night before, the Kordholders' attack on her, came rushing back in memory, and she shivered.

Then she straightened and walked down the stairs, to deal with the other strangers who had come to Bernardholt.