Richard came awake with a start. Warm midday light filled the room, and the wonderful, tangy aroma of spice soup filled his lungs. He was in his room at Zedd’s house. He looked up at the familiar knots in the wood walls, and the faces he always made them into in his mind stared back. The door to the front room stood shut. A chair waited next to the bed, empty. He sat up, pushing the covers down, and saw that he still wore his dirty clothes. He felt for the tooth under his shirt and sighed in relief when he found it still there, safe. A short stick held the window open a few inches, letting in fresh air and the sound of Kahlan’s laughter. Zedd must be telling stories, he thought. Richard looked at his left hand. It was wrapped but no longer sore when he flexed his fingers. His head didn’t hurt anymore, either. In fact, he felt wonderful. Hungry, but wonderful. He amended that to dirty, in filthy clothes, and hungry, but wonderful.

A tub of bathwater, soap, and clean towels sat in the center of the small room. A clean outfit of his forest garb was folded and stacked neatly on the chair. The bathwater looked deliciously inviting. He dipped his hand in and found the water warm. Zedd must have known when he would wake. Knowing Zedd as well as he did, that didn’t surprise him.

Richard undressed and slipped into the welcoming water. The soap smelled almost as good to him as the soup. He liked to stay in the tub for a good long soak, but he felt too wide awake for soaking, and was eager to be outside with the other two. Unwrapping the hand, he was surprised to find how much it had healed overnight.

When he came out, Kahlan and Zedd were sitting at the table waiting for him. Kahlan’s dress was freshly washed, he noticed, and she looked bathed, too. Her hair was clean and glistened in the sunlight. Green eyes sparkled up at him. A big bowl of soup waited for him next to her at the table, along with cheese and fresh bread.

“I wouldn’t have expected to have slept until noon,” he said, swinging his leg over the bench. They both laughed. Richard eyed them suspiciously.

Kahlan straightened her face. “This is the second noon you have slept to, Richard.”

“Yes,” Zedd added, “you slept right through the first. How do you feel? How is your hand?”

“I’m fine. Thank you, Zedd, for helping me. Thank you both.” He opened and closed his fingers to show them the improvement. “The hand feels much better, except it itches.”

“My mother always said that if it itched, that meant it was getting better.”

Richard grinned at her. “Mine too.” He fished a piece of potato and a mushroom into his spoon and tasted it. “It’s as good as mine,” he said to her earnestly.

She sat crosswise on the bench, facing toward him, her elbow resting on the table with the side of her jaw nestled in the heel of her hand. She gave him a knowing smile. “Zedd tells it differently.”

Richard cast a reproachful eye at Zedd, who looked up at the sky in an exaggerated manner. “Does he now? I will have to remind him of that the next time he is begging me to make it for him.”

“Frankly,” she said in a low voice, but not low enough that Zedd couldn’t hear, “from what I’ve seen, I think he would eat dirt if someone else dished it up for him.”

Richard laughed. “I see you’ve gotten to know him well.”

“I tell you, Richard,” the old man said, pointing a bony finger, not about to let them get the best of him, “she could make dirt taste good. You would do well to take lessons from her.”

Richard broke off a piece of bread and dunked it in the soup. He knew the joking was a release for the tension he sensed, a way to pass the time while they both waited for him to finish. Kahlan had given Richard her word that she would wait for him to ask Zedd’s help—it was apparent that she had kept her word. And Zedd’s way was to play ignorant and innocent, and wait for you to ask something first so he could better judge what you already knew. This day, Richard could not allow any of his games. This day, things were different.

“There is one thing I don’t trust about her, though.” Zedd’s tone was dark, menacing.

Richard froze in mid-chew. He swallowed and waited, not daring to look at either of them, while the other paused.

“She doesn’t like cheese! I don’t think I could ever trust anyone who doesn’t like cheese. It’s not natural.”

Richard relaxed. Zedd was just twiddling with his mind, as he always called it. His old friend seemed to have a knack for catching him off guard, and he delighted in it. Richard stole a glance at Zedd to see him sitting there with an innocent smile on his face. Richard smiled, too, in spite of himself. While he relished the bowl of soup, Zedd nibbled on a piece of cheese to make his point. Kahlan nibbled on a piece of bread to make hers. The bread tasted delicious. Kahlan was pleased when he pointed it out.

As Richard neared the end of his meal he decided it was time to change the tone of things back to business. “The next quad? Has there been any sign?”

“No. I was worried, but Zedd did a cloud reading for me and said it appeared they must have run into trouble of some kind, since they were nowhere to be found.”

He gave Zedd a sideways glance. “Is that true?”

“True as toasted toads.” Zedd had used the expression since Richard was young, to win him over with humor and let him know he could always trust the old man to be truthful with him above all else. Richard wondered what sort of trouble a quad could “run into.”

For better or worse, he had succeeded in changing the mood at the table. He felt Kahlan’s impatience for him to get on with it, and he sensed impatience irk Zedd, too. Kahlan turned back to the table and put both hands in her lap, waiting. Richard feared that if he didn’t handle things properly, she would do whatever it was she was here to do, and he would have no control over it.

Richard finished his meal and pushed the bowl away with his thumbs, at the same time meeting Zedd’s eyes. His friend’s humor was gone, but otherwise he showed nothing of what he was thinking. He simply waited. It was Richard’s turn now, and once he began there could be no going back.

“Zedd, my friend, we need your help to stop Darken Rahl.”

“I know. You want me to find the wizard for you.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I have already found him.” Richard felt Kahlan’s questioning eyes on him, but he continued to fix his gaze on Zedd. “You are the great wizard.”

Kahlan began to rise from the bench. Without taking his eyes from Zedd, Richard reached under the table and clutched her forearm, forcing her to sit back down. Still Zedd showed no emotion. His voice came even and soft.

“And what makes you think this, Richard?”

Richard took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he put his hands on the table, intertwining his fingers. He watched his hands as he spoke. “When Kahlan first told me about the history of the three lands, she said the council had taken actions that made the death of the wizard’s wife and daughter at the hands of a quad stand for nothing, and as punishment the wizard did the worst thing possible to them: he left them to suffer the consequences of their own actions.

“That sounded like the very thing you would do, but I couldn’t be sure then—I had to find a way to know. When you first saw Kahlan, and were angry that she had come here from the Midlands, I told you she had been attacked by a quad. I watched your eyes. They told me I was right. Only someone who had suffered a loss like yours would have had that look in his eyes. And, you changed your attitude toward her after I told you completely. Only someone who had known the terror personally would have that kind of empathy. But still I didn’t trust my instinct. I waited.”

He looked up at Zedd and held the other’s gaze while he spoke. “Your biggest mistake was when you told Kahlan she was safe here. You would not lie, especially about something like that. And you know what a quad is. How could an old man make it safe here, against a quad, without magic? He couldn’t, but one old wizard could. The next quad is nowhere to be found, you said so yourself—they ran into some trouble. I think they ran into some wizard trouble. You were as good as your word. You always are.”