Ingrey left Ijada’s forest that afternoon clinging dizzily to his saddle, his horse towed by one of Biast’s late-arriving guardsmen. He spent most of the following week flat on his back in Ijada’s stepparents’ house in Badgerbridge. But as soon as he could stand up without blacking out, he and Ijada were married—or married again—in the house’s parlor, and then he had her fair company by night as well as day in his convalescent chamber. Some things one didn’t need to get out of bed to accomplish.

Prince Biast and his retinue had hurried back to Easthome and the prince’s duties there; news of his election as hallow king arrived the day after the wedding. Prince Jokol and Ottovin lingered just long enough to enliven the wedding party, and to amaze the town of Badgerbridge, then took horse on the southern road to return to their ship.

Hallana, too, with her loyal servants, returned immediately to her children at Suttleaf, but Learned Oswin waited with Learned Lewko to escort Ijada, still technically under arrest, back to Easthome. Even with their support, the wheels of the Temple and King’s Bench ground slowly, and it was some days thereafter before the inquest returned its final verdict of self-defense. Oswin adroitly put the pleas for dispensation for Ijada’s and Princess Fara’s spirit animals together in one document, with identical arguments; whatever arm wrestling went on behind the scenes that made Learned Lewko smile wryly, the dual dispensation was forthcoming shortly after the verdict.

Fara settled swiftly into a very private widowhood, under her brother’s protection. If her spirit horse rendered her less a prize for some new political marriage, she seemed more grimly pleased than regretful. Her sick headaches did not recur.

Just exactly how Lewko and Oswin between them produced a divine for Prince Jokol, Ingrey never found out, but he and Ijada did come down to the docks to bid the island prince and his comrades farewell. The young divine looked nervous and clung to the ship’s rail as though he expected to get seasick going downriver, but seemed very brave and determined. Fafa the ice bear, in a move of swift wit on someone’s part, was gifted to King Biast as an ordination present, and took up residence on a nearby farm, with his own pond to swim in.

Withal, snow was flying by the time Ingrey and Ijada rode out of Easthome free, on the southeastern road toward the Lure Valley, with Learned Lewko’s expert company. Ingrey spurred them all onward despite the cold. That he was too late about this business was all too probable—but that he might be just too late seemed unendurable. They came to the confluence of the Lure and the Birchbeck on the winter solstice, the Father’s Day, an accident of timing that gave Ingrey’s heart hope despite his reason and the learned saint’s advice.

“I fear it is a fool’s errand, cousin,” opined Islin Kin Wolfcliff, castlemaster of Birchgrove. “In all the ten years I have lived here, I’ve never seen or heard tell of ghosts in this citadel. But you are certainly welcome to make yourself free of the place to hunt them.” Islin eyed Ingrey and his two companions uneasily, and yawned behind his hand. “When you tire of casting about in the dark and cold, warm feather beds await you. Mine calls to me; pray excuse me.”

“Of course,” said Ingrey, with a polite nod. Islin returned the courtesy and took himself out of the great hall.

Ingrey glanced around. A couple of good beeswax candles in silvered sconces cast a warm honeyed flicker over the chamber; a fire burning low in the stone fireplace drove back some of the chill. Beyond the window slits, only midnight darkness lurked, though the gurgle of the fast-flowing Birchbeck, not yet frozen over though its banks were rimed with ice, came up faintly through them. The room was much the same as on the fateful day he and his father had received their wolf sacrifices here, and yet… not. It is smaller and more rustic than I remembered. How can a stone-walled room grow smaller?

Ijada said in a worried voice, “Your cousin seemed very reserved all through dinner. Do you think our spirit animals disturb him?”

Ingrey’s lips twitched up in a brief, unfelt smile. “Perhaps a little. But I think mostly he’s wondering if I mean to use my new influence at court to take back his patrimony.” Islin was only a little older than Ingrey, and had inherited his seat from Ingrey’s uncle some three years past.

“Would you wish to?” Ijada asked curiously.

Ingrey’s brows bent. “No. Too many bad memories haunt this place; they overtop my good ones and sink them. I would rather leave them all behind. Save for one.”

Ijada nodded to Lewko. “So, saint. What does your holy sight reveal? Is Islin right? Are there no ghosts here?”

Lewko, who had been doing his accustomed imitation of a simple, humble, and nearly invisible ordinary divine since they’d arrived that afternoon, shook his head and smiled. “In an edifice this old, large, and long occupied, it would be more a wonder if there were not a few. What do your shaman senses tell you, Ingrey?”

Ingrey lifted his head, closed his eyes, and sniffed. “From time to time, it seems I smell an odd little dankness in the air. But at this time of year, that’s no surprise.” He opened his eyes again. “Ijada?”

“I am too untutored to be certain, I’m afraid. Learned?”

Lewko shrugged. “If the god will touch me tonight, any ghosts nearby will be attracted to the aura. Not by any spell of mine, you understand; it just happens. I will pray for my second sight to be shared. The gods are in your debt, Ingrey, Ijada; if only you can receive, I think They will give. Compose yourselves to quietude, and we shall see.” Lewko signed himself, closed his eyes, and clasped his hands loosely before him. He seemed to settle into himself; his lips moved, barely, on his silent prayer.

Ingrey did his best to quell all desire, will, and fear in his own mind; he wondered if just being very, very tired would be enough, instead.

At length Lewko opened his eyes again, stepped forward, and wordlessly kissed first Ijada, then Ingrey on their foreheads. His lips were cool, but Ingrey felt a strange welcome warmth flush through him. He blinked.

“Oh!” said Ijada, looking with interest around the chamber. “Learned, is that one?” She pointed; Ingrey saw a faint pale blob floating past, circling in toward Lewko, scarcely more substantial than a puff of breath in frosty moonlight.

“Aye,” said Lewko, following her gaze. “There is nothing to fear, mind you, though much to pity. That soul is long sundered, fading and powerless.”

To imply that Ijada, who had shared the terror and triumph at Bloodfield, might fear a ghost seemed absurd to Ingrey. His own fears lay on another level. “Learned, could it be my father?”

“Do you sense his wolf, as you sensed the spirit animals within the others?”

“No,” Ingrey admitted.

“Then it is some other, long lost. Dying beyond death.” Lewko signed the Five at it, and it drifted back into the walls.

“Why would the god lend us this sight, if there was nothing to see?” said Ingrey. “It makes no sense. There must be more.”

Lewko looked around the now-empty chamber. “Let us make a little patrol around the castle, then, and see what turns up. But Ingrey—don’t hope too hard. The ghosts of Bloodfield had great spells and all the life of that dire ground to sustain them beyond their time. Lord Ingalef, I fear, had none of that.”

“He had his wolf,” said Ingrey stubbornly. “It might have made some difference.” At his tone, Ijada’s hand found his, and squeezed; they left the chamber arm in arm, and took the opposite direction in the corridor from Lewko, the better to quarter the castle while this gift of second sight lasted.