“. . . It’s not that simple,” Mother was saying. “They don’t want him to marry yet, although anyone can see it would be good for him. They don’t think he’s ready. Ready!” Her mother laughed, but she didn’t sound very happy. “He’s old enough to be chasing women up and down Main Row most nights.”

“He’s a young man,” Lillia’s grandfather said. “What do you expect?”

She was pretty sure they were talking about Morgan. Apparently her brother did little these days other than bothering ladies, from what Lillia kept hearing.

“Hah! I expect that if we wait long enough, the queen will have him married to some little pussycat of her own choosing, and then I will be pushed out the door! That’s what I expect.”

“You worry too much, daughter. Your son would never consent to such a thing—and neither would I. After all, I am Lord Constable as well as his grandfather. The throne needs me. They will not go out of their way to anger us.”

“I wish it were that straightforward,” her mother said.

Lillia waited for several long, silent moments before she knocked, so that it didn’t seem as if she had been listening. One of her mother’s maids opened the door and Lillia marched in. Her mother was sitting in her chair, embroidery hoop on her lap, and Grandfather Osric was standing in front of the window, frowning as he watched something going on below. Mother didn’t look as if she’d actually started embroidering yet.

Lillia went right to her mother and curtseyed. “Good morning, Ma’am.”

Her mother looked at her and smiled, but it was a tired smile. “Good morning, darling. Aren’t you supposed to be with Countess Rhona today?”

Her grandfather turned. It was strange to see him without a hat, the top of his bare pink head exposed for everyone to see. Ever since she was a very small girl she had wanted to rub Grandfather Osric’s head and see if it felt like the rest of his wrinkly, dry skin, but she had never been allowed to do it. “He’s a duke!” everyone said, as though that had anything to do with what his head might feel like.

“Ah, there she is!” he said now. “My little princess!” But he looked weary too, and he didn’t come over to pat her head as he sometimes did.

“Good morning, Grandfather.” Lillia curtseyed again.

“You haven’t answered my question, child,” said her mother.

“Countess Rhona is unwell.” Lillia looked at her grandfather, who had turned back to the window, and whispered loudly, “She has her courses.”

Another weary smile. “Well, dear, I’m afraid I can’t have you with me today. Your grandfather and I have many things to discuss and you’d just be in the way. You’ll have to play by yourself.”

“But there’s a fair in Erchester! With a bear! A bear who dances—!”

“The countess can take you when her . . . when she’s feeling better. Honestly, Lillia, I simply cannot find the time to watch over you today, let alone take you to a street fair.”

“Can one of your ladies take me instead?”

“No. None of them watch you closely—and the servants are worse.”

Was Lillia the only one in the whole castle who could see that outside the large window the sky was a bright, encouraging blue, and that the spring sun was shining as hard as it could? She scowled, although she knew it was her mother’s least favorite expression. “There’s no one else for me to go with.”

“Then I suggest you read instead. What about that book that your grandfather gave you last time, the book about Saint Hildula? Have you finished that already? If you have, you can tell him all about it.”

Her grandfather looked up, only half-interested, but Lillia recognized a trap when she saw one. Her mother knew very well that she hadn’t read much more than the first page because it had been the dreariest thing she had ever seen, all about a good woman who had never done anything but be a nun until some Rimmersmen came and murdered her, except of course they barely talked about that interesting part at all—Lillia had skipped to the end to see—and instead the book was entirely about how very, very holy Hildula had been before that, and all the visions of Heaven she’d seen, and how much she had loved her lord Usires Aedon.

“I didn’t quite finish it yet,” Lillia admitted.

“Then go and do so. That’s a much better way to use your day than going down into the city with all its foul vapors and dirty people.” Her mother wrinkled her nose as though she could smell the filthy peasants at the fair all the way here in the Inner Keep.

Lillia saw that she had been outmaneuvered: her mother had gone immediately onto the attack while Lillia had still been hoping for a parley. “Yes, Ma’am.” Not that she was actually going to read about Saint Hildula, who must have been about the most tedious saint ever, but she knew there was no sense in continuing the conversation. Mother never changed her mind. Never.

“Run along now, darling,” her mother said. “I will see you at supper, I suppose. And say thank you to your grandfather for that book, since you like it so much. Go on, tell him.”

“Thank you for the book, Grandfather Osric.” Lillia hurried from the room before anyone asked her about the other books Osric had given her, all stories of very dutiful, very religious women. Her grandfather knew a lot about soldiers and armies, but Lillia thought he didn’t have many ideas about presents for young girls.

•   •   •

With her grandparents and Uncle Timo traveling in the north, the only person Lillia could think of who might be able to help her now was nice Lord Pasevalles, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. The grumpy old priest who worked for him said that he was in Erchester talking to some of the factors building her father’s library. But the guard captain said that Pasevalles had come back, and was now in the Chancelry with the master of the mint, talking about boring old money. Where he was didn’t matter so much to Lillia as the fact that he wasn’t anywhere she looked, and she had all but given up on the idea of getting to see the lovely bear dance when one of the Chancelry servants mentioned that the Lord Chancellor sometimes went back to the residence to check on the very ill woman who was being tended there.

Lillia hadn’t forgotten about the woman Pasevalles had brought into the castle, but Auntie Rhoner had worked hard to keep her away from the woman’s bedside until Lillia had given up trying to see her. Was that where the Lord Chancellor was now? Lillia was torn between fear of whatever disease the ill woman had and a sudden desire to see what she looked like. Was she bony and weeping, like some of the beggar women in Erchester? The princess stood, hopping from one foot to the other as she tried to decide. Everybody said she should leave it to another day, but tomorrow was St. Savennin’s Day, which meant the fair might soon be gone. That knowledge—and her curiosity, which never stayed quiet for long—finally pushed her up the stairs of the residence, past her family’s chambers and up to the third floor.

The guard who was almost certainly supposed to be on duty at the top of the stairs was instead talking to a maid; the girl was laughing so hard at something the guard had said that she had turned a rather deep shade of red. It was not very difficult for Lillia to walk past the couple without being noticed.

When she reached the hallway it became fairly obvious that the maid she had seen was supposed to be watching over the ill woman, because the door to one of the rooms was wide open and there was no one inside except for a slender female shape stretched on the bed, her body covered by a thin blanket. As she approached, Lillia saw that the woman was tied down, which made her stop just inside the doorway, suddenly frightened. The sick woman must have heard her, because her head slowly turned until she could see Lillia.

Something truly was wrong with the woman—something frightening. Lillia wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it was more than just her tangled silvery hair and her hollow cheeks. Her eyes were strange, a bright, catlike yellow, and the shape of her face seemed wrong too.