Lillia gasped. She had never seen anyone like this. The woman only stared back, eyes not quite centered on Lillia’s, as if she were only half awake. Then the strange woman’s lips pursed, as if she would say something.

“P . . . p . . . p . . .” Nothing else came out of her, no word, only the soft popping noise. “Puh . . . puh . . .”

“Princess!” said someone behind her, startling Lillia so badly she squeaked and jumped. She turned around to find Brother Etan standing over her, his eyes wide, his face red and scary.

“I’m sorry!” she said. “I didn’t know! I’m sorry!”

“You don’t belong here, Princess,” he said, but he sounded more worried than angry. A moment later, the maid who had been out on the landing came hurrying up behind him, flustered and clearly very frightened.

“I didn’t mean to leave her! It’s only that Tobiah the guard asked me a question, and she was sleeping, so we went out of the room. . . .”

Etan was standing beside the ill woman now. He put his fingers against her neck, then moved his hand to her forehead. The woman had stopped trying to talk and instead followed Brother Etan’s hand with her wide, not-quite-human eyes. After a few moments, he turned his attention back to the maid.

“You.” His words were clipped and abrupt. “Go back to your mistress and tell her I want another maid here. She and I will talk about this later.”

“But I only—!”

He silenced her with a look. “Just go. I make no judgments, except that I want someone else here this morning.”

The maid turned, face red and eyes wet with tears, and hurried away.

“As for you, Princess Lillia,” Etan said, “I’m afraid this is not a good place for you to be, either.”

“Is that lady sick?”

“After a fashion. Who is watching you today?”

Lillia knew when she was being treated like a child. She stood straight. “No one. I don’t need someone to follow me around all the time. I’m not little.”

“That’s not . . .”

“She was trying to say something. She kept saying ‘puh, puh,’ but I don’t know what that means. Was she trying to say ‘princess’?”

“Possibly, but not likely, Highness. I doubt she knows who you are. At the moment, she doesn’t know much of anything. She has a bad fever. Now, I beg pardon, but away with you, Princess Lillia. A sickroom is no place for a healthy girl like you.”

“But I want to help!”

“The best help you can give me right now is to let me tend my patient.” He looked at Lillia’s face and his expression softened. “Perhaps you can help me another day, Princess. For right now, this woman needs rest and quiet. I’m going to leave too in just a moment.”

“Well . . .” Lillia considered. “I’ll go away if you tell me who she is. Why does she look like that? Is it ‘cause she’s ill?”

Brother Etan frowned, but Lillia could also see that she was going to get her way: She had a great deal of experience with the signs of defeated adulthood. “We don’t know for certain who she is, Princess,” the monk said, “but she is a Sitha.”

“A Zither?” Even saying it was fearful and exciting. “You mean she’s a real fairy?”

“Sitha. Yes. She was sent to our court as a messenger from her people. But someone attacked her.”

Lillia felt a sudden chill. “Really?”

“Not here inside the castle,” he said hurriedly. “A long way away. No one can hurt her here. And Lady Thelía and I are doing everything we can to make her better. So will you please let me get on with my task?”

Reluctantly, Lillia assented. “But I’ll be back,” she promised both Etan and the ill woman, who didn’t seem to hear her. “I’ll come back and help you take care of her.”

Brother Etan rolled his eyes when he didn’t think Lillia was looking, like that wouldn’t be such a good thing.

As she went back down the corridor, she was sad. Nothing in the castle would be anywhere near as interesting as the Zither-woman—suddenly even a dancing bear didn’t seem quite so fascinating. But she wasn’t going to be allowed to help make this odd guest feel better.

“Nothing ever goes right around here,” Lillia said, mostly to herself, but loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. “That is the horrible, unfair truth. Princesses don’t get to do anything good.”

As Etan was checking the Sitha-woman’s wounds, she opened her eyes wide again. She tried to sit up, but her bonds prevented it. “Puh . . .” she said. “Puh . . .”

“Don’t speak,” he told her. “You must rest.”

“Puh . . . poison!”

“Poison? What do you mean? I have given you nothing but good curatives, herbs to help your wounds . . .”

The maid sent as a replacement appeared in the doorway, but Etan waved her back into the hallway.

The Sitha-woman tried to say more, but could not. She licked her lips. He gave her water to drink. “I . . . feel it,” she said at last in a voice like the rattle of dry grass. This was the first time Etan had heard her speak since he had helped Pasevalles hold her down and tie her limbs. “It rushes through me. I do not think I can fight it off . . .”

“Do you mean your wounds were poisoned?”

“The . . . arrows.” She strained until she could turn her head enough to see his face. “Do you still have the . . . arrows?”

“By the Redeemer’s Sacred Blood, I truly don’t know. Lord Pasevalles and some soldiers brought you in. Most of the arrows were already broken off. I removed the arrowheads as best I could, but I don’t know what became of them afterward.” He couldn’t tell if she was listening—her face had gone quite empty. “Can you understand me?”

She only nodded, as though her strength had left her.

“Are you certain you have been poisoned? The wounds themselves have mostly healed. I have simples I could try if there truly is poison in your blood, but it has been days since we brought you here . . .”

She only shook her head, loosely, as though her neck might be connected to her body by something less rigid than bones. “No.” She managed to make her whispering voice forceful. “Find . . . arrows . . .” Her head sagged. Fearful, Etan climbed up onto the bed to measure her heartbeat, but was relieved to find that it seemed strong. He did not know enough about the Sitha—who did?—to be able to judge whether she was feverish or not.

•   •   •

Later, when the Sitha-woman was resting more peacefully, Brother Etan left her under the care of the second maid, a sensible young woman who calmly received the stern warnings that Etan knew might better have been given to her predecessor.

He could not find Pasevalles to tell him what the Sitha had said, but left a message with the Lord Chancellor’s clerk before retreating to the only real privacy he had, the drawing office where the plans and models were being made for the new library. The chief architect, Seth of Woodsall, was visiting the marble quarry at Whitstan in southern Erkynland, but Etan often helped him with accounts, so his occasional presence drew little attention from the other engineers and builders.

Since Etan’s own bed was in a dormitory hall in St. Sutrin’s that was shared by dozens of other monks, the drawing office was also the only place he felt safe hiding the terrible, banned book from Prince John Josua’s collection. Etan prayed daily that Lord Tiamak would come back before the chief architect returned so he could give the book to him instead of having to find another hiding spot. Tiamak’s wife, Lady Thelía, had not accompanied her husband north, but although he respected her knowledge of herbs and medicaments more even than his own, he still did not feel he knew her well enough to trust her with the Treatise on the Aetheric Whispers. She was a clever and in many ways extremely broad-minded woman, but she had once been a nun.

The irony of his own position as a consecrated monk in one of God’s holy orders did not escape him.