“Thanks, Maijarra,” said Aloê, and strode past her. When Denynê had entered also, Maijarra shut the double doors and barred them from without.

The two summoners were standing in discussion next to the broken Witness Stone. Denynê’s orange-brown eyes were wide with interest: few outside the Graith had seen the Witness Stone, but she must have heard something of the terrible events during the last Station from her peers in the Skein of Healing. For all Aloê knew, Denynê had been among those called on to treat the spell-freed vocates. Aloê didn’t remember her, but there was much from that day that she didn’t remember, and some things she wished she could forget.

Bleys seemed to be desperately urging some desperate course; Lernaion’s dark, somber face was etched with skepticism. Bleys broke off at Aloê’s approach and turned on her in fury. “Well, here were are at your command, madam. I hope you find us prompt upon the hour and that we will not be rebuked for discussing some trivial business of our own instead of waiting in silence for your—”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Aloê interrupted airily. In fact, she was as angry as Bleys was, or pretended to be. But she would not let him know that he had gotten to her. “What were you discussing?”

Bleys’ mouth snapped twice like an angry dog at the end of his chain.

“Tell her,” Lernaion directed.

Bleys’ bald head and bat-wing ears grew red as a sunset. He pressed his lips together, as if to imprison words within. Slowly, his color cooled to something not much more ominous than his usual pale pink. Sweat glimmered on his scalp as it cooled.

“Vocate,” he said quietly, “we are trying to make right what your husband made so wrong.” He gestured curtly at the Stone.

Morlock’s sword had shattered the Witness Stone into seven pieces. With astonishment, Aloê saw that they were now four. Somehow, three of the parts had been made to cohere—so closely that they seemed never to have been struck apart.

“Amazing!” she said in honest admiration. “Champion Bleys!”

The ancient summoner was somewhat mollified. “Thank you,” he said. “But the next step is somewhat . . . well, we are at a parting of the ways. We may have to choose between preserving the wisdom already implicit in the Stone or remaking it.” Then he said irritably, “Is that enough for you? Must you know still more?”

To needle him, Aloê said, “Perhaps you should wait for my husband’s return. He is the master of all makers; so the dwarven masters say.”

Bleys grew redder than before and seemed to swell up with angry words, but before he could say them Lernaion interposed, “The process is more like healing. When we heal a wounded mind, or a wounded brain, the process often involves forgetting. The Stone is not a brain or a mind, but it was made to work in harmony with them, and seems to function, or fail to function, in similar ways. Which would you choose, Guardian?”

“Heal the Stone,” Aloê said without hesitation.

“Yes,” Lernaion said. “I agree.”

“The knowledge of the past that would be irretrievably lost—” Bleys began.

Lernaion raised a dark hand and silenced him. “My friend,” he said gently, “perhaps you are too concerned with the past. It is for us to ensure that the Wardlands has a future.”

“I’m too old for this job,” Bleys said with a good humor that Aloê found surprising. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“We are both old,” Lernaion said, smiling.

“No one is as old as I am. No one in the world. So it seemed to me when I dragged myself out of bed this morning, anyway. Very well, Lernaion: I’ll heal the Stone, no matter what the cost. We’ll have need of it; you’re right about that.”

The Summoner of the City, not the oldest but the most senior of all the Guardians in the Graith, smiled with dark lips and turned unsmiling dark eyes to Aloê. “And now to your business.”

“The murder of Earno,” she reminded him. “Your peer.”

“Yes,” he conceded. “It is our business as well.”

“Not everything has been explained,” Aloê said, “and some may have to wait until you, Bleys, have healed the Witness Stone. But the murderer is Naevros syr Tol.”

“You surprise me,” Lernaion said gravely. He did not look surprised, but you couldn’t go by that: his dark, narrow face kept its secrets well. Bleys said nothing at all.

Aloê described the uneven course of the investigation, including the murder of Oluma, the way she had come to suspect Naevros, the rescue of Denynê from Naevros’ house, and then she displayed the original of Earno’s last letter with its bloody finger marks, the stolen spell-anchors.

The summoners heard her out without asking questions. They looked at the evidence with evident interest but did not touch or handle it.

The doors of the dome chamber were unbarred and Naevros syr Tol entered. Thain Maijarra peered into the room after him, frank curiosity in her bright brown eyes, but she closed the doors and barred them anyway.

Aloê did not bother to repeat her account for Naevros. She did not meet his eye or acknowledge his presence in any way. Neither did he speak.

“Well met, Vocate Naevros,” Bleys said finally. “The Graith’s vengeancer here claims that you are our murderer.”

Naevros still did not say anything. He seemed to be looking at Aloê but she would not meet his eye.

“Well, Vengeancer!” said Bleys. “I can lighten your mind by showing you that your suspicions are false. It’s too bad that you didn’t ask a few questions before you made this startling suggestion. Naevros was abroad in the Northhold before, during, and after the murder of our peer. He was seen by countless persons.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Aloê said. “I saw him there myself, shortly before the slain summoner left the North. But nonetheless, I think Naevros had left the North some time before.”

“You contradict yourself.”

“I do not. The Naevros in the North, the Naevros you say was commonly seen, was a simulacrum. It passed by me without a glance. But you can see how the genuine article cannot refrain from gawping at me.”

From the corner of her eye she saw, and with her insight she felt, Naevros recoil in pain from her words.

“A woman’s argument,” Bleys said dismissively.

“Yes.”

“It’s not proof, Vocate.”

She shook her hand, still holding the letter and the bags of anchors; they rattled like dice in a gambler’s cup. “This is proof. The kidnapping of Denynê is proof. The murder of Oluma is proof.”

“We do not know that Naevros killed your other second—”

“I saw him!” Denynê shouted, her orange face tinted dark with fury. “He was standing over her body with a bloody blade in one hand and the bag of anchors in another! He chased me down and knocked me out, and when I awoke—I—I—I—”

Denynê’s eyes became unfocused and Aloê guessed she was returning to those dreadful hours when she was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, waiting for death. She touched the binder’s arm with her free hand, and Denynê broke off, sobbing.

“Well,” Bleys said bleakly, “I don’t believe it. Not yet. Why should Naevros kill Oluma but not Denynê?”

“Oluma was his accomplice. He got to her somehow, just as he got to that woman who is the Arbiter of the Peace in Big Rock. Denynê, however, was true to me. He could not be sure what she knew, and he might have seen some value in questioning her to find out what she knew.”

Lernaion looked away from Aloê and glared at Naevros. His normally impassive face betrayed his anger and contempt. “Vocate Naevros, you shame us all. This was ill done.”

“I will make it right,” Naevros said quietly.

“Do so.”

Denynê lurched against Aloê and began to cough up blood. Aloê cried out without words and grabbed the binder before she fell to the floor. Aloê looked into Denynê’s tawny eyes, gaping wide with surprise and fear, and saw that it was too late. Denynê was dying . . . died . . . was dead.