"Yes ma'am," he said immediately, then he left the trio and walked over to the table.

"Tarrin, you look…different," Tiella said. "Not bad, just different."

Tarrin's change was the last thing on his mind. "Dolanna wants to talk to us, now," he told them. "Come on."

Walten looked at the food on his plate and sighed, then he stood up.

"Tiella, Walten," Dolanna said immediately when they joined her, "I want you to go to your rooms with Tarrin and gather up your belongings. Do not leave each other. Visit each room in turn. When you have everything, go to the landing of the stairwell on the fourth level and await us. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," Walten said, and Tiella nodded.

"Arren, please have servants take up enough food for seven people," Dolanna went on as Tarrin left with his companions. "Include plenty of meat."

"Tarrin, what's going on?" Tiella asked after they left the hall. Tarrin noted that both of them stayed rather close to him, but not too close. They were trying to be as casual about his change as they could, but Tarrin could smell the tension in both of them. They were afraid of him. Probably with good reason, he concluded with a slight sigh. He was afraid of himself.

"We saw something upstairs, called a Wraith," he told them. "Dolanna thinks it may be watching us, so we're going to all stay in the same place tonight, so she can keep watch over us, I think."

"Wraith?" Walten said. "Jak told me a story about those. They're supposed to be living shadows, and their touch is like the cold of the grave."

"We didn't get close enough to touch it," Tarrin said as they started up the stairs. "Dolanna thinks it may have something to do with-with the one that attacked me," he said after a second of inability to say it. He still couldn't.

They went to Tiella's room first, and with the help of the two young men, they were on their way to Walten's room in minutes. Walten's room was even faster. They went up to the same corridor where Tarrin had seen the Wraith, and he couldn't help but make sure it was gone as they rushed into his room and he collected up everything of his that he could find. But most of his belongings were missing, especially his staff and his bow. He didn't recall seeing them earlier, either. They left his room quickly and went to the stair landing that Dolanna had said to go to, and there they waited for many tense moments.

Tiella looked at Tarrin covertly after they stopped, then she blushed when he looked at her. "I'm sorry, Tarrin, I can't help it," she said shyly.

"I guess I can't blame you," he said gruffly. "I'd stare too."

"What does it feel like?" Walten asked.

"It's hard to explain," he replied. "More like I'd had on blinders and my ears covered and my nose pinched shut all my life. The tail is still pretty weird to me, but I'm getting used to it." He looked back at the member, which was swishing to and fro with a slow rhythm. Did you go into the city?" he asked.

"No," Tiella replied. "After you were hurt, Dolanna wanted us to stay close. Torrian isn't that big, anyway. She said that we're going through Marta's Ford, Ultern, and Jerinhold. Then we get to Suld itself," she said eagerly.

"I thought you were still nervous about leaving Aldreth," Walten said accusingly.

"I want to see the cities," she told him.

"I just want to get out of Aldreth," Walten grunted.

Dolanna and Faalken came up the stairs seconds later, with several servants behind them. To his relief, Tarrin saw his packs and his weapons in the hands of three of them, and he could smell roasted meat under the domes of the platters that the serving women carried. "Do you have everything?" Dolanna asked. "If not, then it will be left behind."

"We got everything, Dolanna," Tiella replied.

"Good. Follow us."

They were led to a small apartment, with three rooms. There was a smallish sitting room into which the door opened, and there were two bedrooms attached to it. They put down their packs as the serving staff carried the other things into the room, and Arren appeared at the door. "Dolanna," he called.

"Arren," she said, "if you would, post guards at the door, but warn them that they will not, under any circumstances, open the door. It could mean their lives."

"I'll warn them," he said grimly.

"Young ones, listen carefully," Dolanna said as she closed the door after the last servant. "I want you to stand in the middle of this room with Faalken. Do not say a word, and to not move until I tell you that it is alright."

Faalken ushered them into the middle of the sitting room, standing beside a plush upholstered chair that was flanking a sofa. When they were there, Dolanna turned around and bowed her head. Tarrin could feel what was happening. There was again that sensation of drawing in, into Dolanna, and for a second he could almost see something around him move. She stayed still for several moments, until the outside walls, ceiling, and floor suddenly seemed to shimmer. But just for a moment. Dolanna sighed audibly and slumped a bit, then turned around and faced them. "Do not open the door, for any reason, unless I tell you that it is alright," she warned. "Do not get too close to the windows. Do not even get close enough to touch the window sill." She put a hand to her brow. "Now then, I am going to rest a while. There is food over there, and I have some books in the smaller pack if you would like to read."

Tarrin and Faalken sat down at the small table in the corner and began eating dinner as Walten and Tiella used the stones board that was on it to play a game. "What did she do?" Tarrin asked Faalken.

"She laid a ward on these rooms," he replied. "It's very exhausting."

"What is a ward?"

"It's like a barrier," he told him. "I don't know how she made this one, but I've seen ones that stop magic, ones that keep people from crossing them, even ones that stopped stone from passing over a boundary. They can be made lots of different ways. You'll have to ask her for specifics, though."

He nodded, resolving to do just that.

After eating, Faalken stood up and looked at the three. "We'll be getting an early start, so I suggest we go to bed now. Tiella, go sleep in Dolanna's chamber. Walten, you and Tarrin sleep in the other room. I'll sleep in here."

They separated quickly, wordlessly. The next room was a small bedchamber, with the bed, a small armoire, and three small tables. There was only one bed.

"You sleep on the bed," Tarrin told him. He knew that Walten would not want to sleep in the same bed with him. To be honest, he didn't want to either. Not until he trusted himself. "I'll sleep over there. Let me go get my bedroll."

Tarrin recovered his bedroll, and Walten was already in bed by the time he got back. "Go ahead and put out the light," Tarrin told him. "I think I can manage."

"Alright. Night, Tarrin."

"Night."

As soon as the lamp was out, Tarrin got the most blatant sign of his change, for after a moment of grayed vision, the entire room bloomed into light as his eyes adapted to the darkness. Just the light of the Skybands through the window, patchy from clouds, was enough to paint the room to his eyes in bright shades of black, white, and gray. He realized that he couldn't see color with such little light, but the fact that he could make out every detail of the room made up for that. He put out the bedroll in the corner, near the window, and sat down upon it, feeling his tail come to rest against the floor, and stared out at the room, wondering at how sharp and clear his vision was, musing at seeing only in black and white. Just like a cat, he could see in just about any light except total darkness.

In the room, alone, in the dark, Tarrin felt the Cat inside his mind, and for the first time all day, for the first time since waking up, he felt fear. They had kept him busy most of the day, keeping his mind off of it. But there was nothing but time now, time waiting for the dawn, time for nothing but cold reality to come down on him. It was in there, staring back at him, and he could feel its power. The power of a caged animal. The song in his mind grew more powerful now that he was listening to it, and it took active concentration not to succumb to it, to do as it urged him to do. He had no one to talk to, nothing to do in order to distract himself from it, and that made it prominent in his mind. And that proximity to something that seemed so strange to him began to make him afraid.