“And Epiny believes it’s Speck magic that is undermining morale at Gettys.”

Spink didn’t flinch at my blunt assertion. “That’s right,” he said levelly. “She does.”

I leaned back in my big chair. It creaked slightly as it gave to my weight. “Tell me what she says,” I requested softly. I knew I wasn’t going to like it. I knew I already believed Epiny.

“She’s very sensitive. You know that. The night before we reached Gettys, when we were traveling here, she had her first nightmare. She woke wailing, but couldn’t say what had scared her. Her dream was full of macabre images with no sense to them. Jaws with rotting teeth. Babies covered with mud, sitting alone in a swamp, endlessly crying. A dog with a broken back dragging itself in circles. She couldn’t go back to sleep that night, and the next day she was nervous and distraught. I thought she was exhausted from travel. When we reached Gettys, I thought our problems were over. Epiny could get some rest, have hot food, and sleep in a real bed. We were both dismayed by the quarters we were assigned. They were dirty. No, not just dirty, filthy, as if whoever lived there before us had never cleaned at all. Everything was in bad repair, and I had to leave her to it, for Colonel Haren put me to my new duties immediately. She was left to cope while I was put to inventorying a warehouse full of dusty supplies. The men they gave me were surly and lazy and incompetent.” He practically spat out the last words and rose abruptly from his chair by the fire. “But I don’t think they were always that way. I think it’s the haze that overhangs Gettys. I believe it’s the Speck magic, Nevare. Ask yourself how you’ve felt about your life since you came here. Do you feel drained of hope and ambition? Does all of it seem pointless and drab? When was the last time you awoke in the morning and actually wanted to get out of bed?”

He’d come closer to me as he asked each question, as if the answers might prove something. I gestured at my swollen body. “If you were trapped inside this, would you feel hope or ambition, or look forward to hauling it out of bed each day?” A sudden thought came to me. “You haven’t even asked what happened to me. You don’t seem shocked to see me this way.”

He tilted his head and smiled sourly. “Did you forget that Epiny and Yaril have exchanged letters? If there is anything you told your sister, be sure it has been shared.” He shook his head. “And I’m sorry about all of it, Nevare. Losing your mother. Carsina’s faithlessness. And what the Tree Woman’s magic has done to you. Unlike you, I don’t regard any of that tale with any skepticism. I’ve seen the power of Speck magic too close.” His voice had become very dark.

“What do you mean?” I asked softly.

“Epiny tried to take her life a couple of weeks after we arrived here.”

“What?”

“She tried to hang herself in the middle of our bedroom. If I hadn’t forgotten my penknife and come back to get it, she would have succeeded. I was barely in time, Nevare. I cut her down and pried the rope out of its groove around her neck. I wasn’t gentle; I didn’t have time to be. But I think the shaking around actually brought her back to the world of the living.

“I was so angry with her, so furious that she could even think of leaving me that way. She said she didn’t even recall it as something she decided to do. She only remembers odd bits of it, going to the stables to get the rope, and then standing on a chair to get it over the rafter. And tying the knot. She told me she particularly remembered tying the knot because she had the most peculiar sensation of doing something she hadn’t done before, but knew how to do.”

Ice was creeping through my heart. My mind raced and I asked the only question that came to me. “How do you dare to leave her alone? Couldn’t she be overcome again, at any time?”

Pride and trepidation warred in his expression. “She told me, ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! I won’t let the magic creep over me like that again. Never.’ And she battles it. As do I. As does every officer and soldier in Gettys who’s worth anything. You can tell which ones fight daily to go on being who they once were, and which ones have given up and sunk down to the lowest level.”

When he said that, I wondered which he thought I was. But he did not pause nor look at me accusingly. He continued, “We do all we can to shore each other up, Epiny and I. Your sister’s letters were a great source of strength to her, until they stopped coming. So now you can see that the loss of that correspondence and your father’s threat to tell Lord Burvelle of her waywardness were heavier blows than you might have imagined. Oh!” He darted back to his chair and thrust his hand into the pocket of his heavy cloak he’d slung over the back of it.

“Your sister’s letters. I brought them with me. I came here thinking you a heartless wretch to leave her in such cruel suspense. I thought if you read how she has suffered, wondering what has become of you, that you would be moved to write to her. Now, knowing that your letters have no better chance of reaching her than ours do, perhaps it is cruel of me to let you read these. Still, I think it is your right to know what goes on at Widevale in your absence.”

He tugged a substantial packet of letters, bound together with a ribbon, from his pocket. I recognized Yaril’s sprawling handwriting with a sharp pang. When I’d seen that penmanship on letters sent to me at the academy, it had always sent a thrill through me, for I knew she would have found a way to smuggle me a note from Carsina. Now it was my own little sister whom I missed with sudden and heartbreaking strength. I reached for them.

Spink handed them to me, but with a warning. “I cannot let you keep them long. Epiny will surely miss them.”

I lifted my eyes to his. “Then you haven’t told my cousin that I’m here.”

“I wanted to offer you the chance to do that yourself.”

I shook my head. “I cannot, Spink. I’ve told you why.”

“And if you’ve listened to me, then you know why it is more important that she does know you are alive and well. We three, we can be a strength for each other, as we were before. Please, Nevare. I’ll let you think about it, but not for long. I’ve held your secret from Epiny, and already that shames and disturbs me. We do not keep secrets from one another, nor deceive each other. Don’t put me in that position. It’s a shameful thing for one friend to do to another.”

“Spink, I can’t truly be anything to you, or Epiny. I’m an enlisted man and a fat gravedigger. We cannot socialize with one another. You know that. And you know full well that Epiny will not recognize that, and it will make difficulties for both of us. Do you wish to be mocked as the gravedigger’s cousin? To have people sneer at your wife because of our relationship? How can we be a strength for one another when I can only be a source of shame to you?” I softened my tone at the look on his face. “I am humbled and grateful that you’d want to continue being my friend under the circumstances. And I am doubly grateful that you have offered to share Yaril’s letters with me. As things stand, they are likely to be the last news from home that I’ll have for a long time. If you don’t mind, I will keep them, just for a night or so, to read them. I’ll find a way to quietly return them to you.”

Sparks of anger lit in his eyes. “That’s the dulling magic of this place talking, not the Nevare I knew.”

“Spink. Please. Just let me borrow my sister’s letters.”

He appeared to relent. “Do you think you can get them back to me with no one the wiser?”

I thought. “If we decide on a place and meet by night, it should be possible.”

He grinned. “So it should be equally possible for us to meet in such a way for friendship, as well as the passing of letters between us.”

He was incorrigible. I had to smile, but I did not share his optimism. “So it might seem, for a time. But sooner or later, we’d be noticed. And then it would all come unraveled. We are not talking about a pretence that must be kept for weeks or even months, Spink. We are talking about years. For as long as we both belong to the same regiment. To my death, most likely.”