"Your Highness -"

He didn't look up, just gripped the edge of the bed with white knuckles, his breath ragged. "I'm tired, Celyn. Leave me." And, at last, I heard the royalty in his voice. There was no disobeying that.

As I slipped toward the hidden door, he spoke again. "And tell your friends I said h.e.l.lo."

I paused, my hand on the edge of the door and took a deep breath. "Are you a prisoner here, or a guest?"

He finally did look up, then. "Sometimes I'm not sure."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

A few nights later Meri, Phandre, and I sat together around the fire, our feet on the Kurkyat tuffet, just like that first night a month ago. Phandre was ranting on about some injustice Lyll had done her - forcing her to pot honey or seating her in the wrong place at dinner, or some other atrocity - but Meri and I were lost in our own thoughts. I hadn't gone to see the prince again, telling myself it was just too dangerous now. It was too easy to be unguarded in his presence. It had been a stupid thing, visiting him, and it was past time for me to start thinking, before somebody really got hurt. I told myself I didn't care what he was doing, down there in the dark and cold, all alone.

As my thoughts circled the bottom of my cup, Meri's door burst open, and Yselle flew in, yammering a storm of frantic Corles. She crossed the room, curtsied to Meri, and hauled me to my feet.

"Yselle!" Meri broke in and separated us, then tried to listen to what the housekeeper was saying. She said a few words in Corles, then turned to me with a look of confusion. "I don't know, but she says she wants you. My mother wants you."

I stared at them both. "For what?" I said, my voice a lot shakier than I liked.

Meri shook her head. "I'm not sure. Maybe I should come along." She reached for her robe, but Yselle forestalled her in a fierce snap of Corles.

"No, it's all right," I said. "I'm sure it's nothing."

But I wasn't sure. This was how it happened - someone bursting into your bedroom in the middle of the night and dragging you off with no explanation, so your family never saw you again. Had Wierolf given me up to Lady Lyll? Would Yselle throw me into some secret chamber here at Bryn Shaer, to rot in the dark and cold until the world forgot about me? How long would that take? Not that long.

The worried expression on Meri's face did little to rea.s.sure me. I gave her a faltering wave and followed Yselle into the corridor. She continued to speak to me in swift, rattling Corles that washed over me like a chill, and I trailed along in her wake, my dread building with every step.

Lady Lyll was rummaging about in the stillroom. I paused in the doorway. "Your Ladyship, I -"

She turned, and a look of - what? Relief? - pa.s.sed across her face. "Oh, good, Celyn, you're here. Come with me, please." She dismissed Yselle with a nod and steered me into the stillroom. Once inside, she thrust a basket into my arms, crammed full of bandages and bottles. The trapdoor was standing open, and I couldn't help staring at it.

"There's an easier way, but this is quicker," Lady Lyll said. "How are you with ladders?"

"Ladders, milady?" I said stupidly, as Lyll reached behind the workbench and drew out a short, simple frame ladder - the obvious bit that the trapdoor pa.s.sage had been missing all along. "Uh, pa.s.sable, I suppose."

"Good. Follow me."

I just stood there, completely undone by surprise. Lyllace was halfway down the ladder, but she looked back up at me. "There's a - situation," she said. "I don't have time to explain properly, but I need someone with a cool head and a steady hand."

Immediately I was overwhelmed with worry for the prince, but I stopped myself from questioning Lady Lyll; I would find out what happened soon enough. Down in the pa.s.sage, she lit a lamp and led the way down the stairs and through the narrow corridor. I saw the box of light from the prince's open door well before we actually crossed his threshold.

He was back on the bed, stretched out awkwardly, weakly pressing a ball of rags to his abdomen. It was soaked red, a red pool spread below him on the sheets. I balked at the door and could move no farther.

"Celyn!" Lady Lyll barked, and I sprang forward. The prince's eyes fluttered, but I didn't think he saw me. As Lyll knelt beside Wierolf and gingerly lifted his hand and the rags away, it was all too obvious what had happened.

The barely healed wound - the one that had nearly killed him scant weeks ago, the one he'd been straining overmuch by practicing his fighting moves - had broken open, and was bleeding freely. All over. Everywhere. It looked fresh, like someone had stuck a knife straight into him again.

If I hadn't stood there like an idiot and let him kick at my head . . . "Is - is he going to die?"

"Die?" Lady Lyll looked up sharply. "Of course not! What do you think we're doing here? Quickly, now - give me a hand."

Her words were like a good st.u.r.dy slap across the face. I dropped down beside her and wordlessly began to empty out the supplies she'd need.

"Have you st.i.tched a wound before?"

"No." I had, but nothing like this. My needlework was no comparison to Lady Lyll's. Certainly not good enough for royalty.

"Then watch me."

For the next half hour, we mopped up blood, pressed torn flesh back together, and looked for healthy skin to set the st.i.tches in. Lyll's hand was steady and swift - her st.i.tches here were every bit as exact as the ones she set with gold on linen. Wierolf's eyes blinked open once or twice, and once I even thought he recognized me, but mostly he lay still, panting and pale.

"What happened to him?"

"I - I don't know," Lady Lyll said, tying off the last st.i.tch. I pointed the tips of the scissors and snipped close to Wierolf's skin. Apparently she hadn't worked out any sort of explanation yet.

"Who is he?" I pressed. If Lady Lyll trusted me this much, would she come all the way?

"He's - Yselle's nephew," she said, only the ghost of hesitation in her voice.

"Yselle's nephew," I repeated.

"He's a fugitive. He - got in trouble with the bailiff at his village, and she hid him down here without telling anyone. Celyn, I know I can count on your discretion."

I could teach Lyll a thing or two about lying, but I let it go. I handed her the next thing she asked for, a bottle of vinegar from the basket.

She carefully cleaned the freshly sewn wound, wiping away every trace of blood from the prince's body. I held him as she bandaged him, his body heavy and hot against mine. My face was pressed in close to his clammy neck, and - something was wrong here. "Milady -"

"Yes, what?"

I said it without thinking, and I had to wait until we had gently shifted Wierolf onto the ice-cold floor so we could change out his bedding. Where was it? "He needs -" And there I was, crawling around on the prince's b.l.o.o.d.y, unmade bed, digging beneath the soiled mat tress for - "What are you doing? What are you looking for?"

"This." I found it, the chain snapped, caught in a crevice between the bed and the wall. If a spark of magic hadn't leaped at my fingers as they brushed the edge of the pendant, I wouldn't have seen it at all. I held it out to Lyll. The symbol I'd never been able to make out looked clear and crisp tonight: a seven-pointed star. Of course.

Lady Lyll looked at me for a long moment before she took the charm, threaded it onto a length of silk, and put it back around Wierolf's neck. "I normally don't like things like this," she said. "But I suspect this man is an idiot who will never let a wound heal properly without a little . . . help." And she tucked the pendant itself neatly inside a wrap of linen, close against his ravaged flesh.

Finally when all three of us were beyond exhausted, and Wierolf was sleeping peacefully in a clean bed, Lyll sank against the bare stone wall with a sigh. "Thank you, Celyn. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help."

I glanced at the prince again. His breath came in shallow, ragged bursts, but his color was better. I wanted Lyll to tell me something true about him, and wondered how much she knew I had guessed.

"Shouldn't someone stay with him?"

Lady Lyll frowned, and I could see the worries warring behind her eyes. What might the prince say when he woke up? Would he have the good sense to keep silent, or would his drugged mind spill secrets she'd worked for weeks to protect? It was odd, seeing this stalwart woman ner vous and faltering.

"You'll be missed," I said firmly. "Tell me what to look for, and I'll stay."

Finally she agreed. "Very well. He should be fine now, but watch for more bleeding, of course. If he turns paler, or if he doesn't seem more alert after a few hours, send for me. You can find your way back to the stillroom?"

"In the dark, milady."

Lady Lyll still hesitated.

A dark thought crept its way into my mind and would not stop squirming. Was it just a breaking-open of the old wound? That had been an awful lot of blood for someone supposedly healing. Maybe someone else at Bryn Shaer had found out about the prince's presence here, and decided to finish what the would-be a.s.sa.s.sins had started. But who?

"Forgive me, milady, but -"

"What is it, Celyn?"

I gestured vaguely toward the patient's new bandages. "That - it looked like an old wound?"

An odd look crossed her face, but she nodded briefly.

"How can you be sure? That it's not a new injury, I mean."

She watched me a moment. "Well, for one thing," she said, "there is no way he could have survived a new injury. Are you sure you'll be all right down here by yourself? I could stay -"

"Milady, I'll be fine. He'll be fine." Besides, I really wanted to be the first one to see him when he woke up - so I could give him the smack upside the head he deserved.

Lyll finally agreed and headed for the chamber door, looking heavy and weighed down by the supplies she carried.

"Milady?"

She turned back.

"Why did you send for me? You could have st.i.tched that up yourself. I wasn't really that much help."

She looked at me evenly, and I could not read the expression in her brown eyes. "Because," she said simply, "he asked for you."

Wierolf slept fitfully through the night; Lady Lyll had dosed him with enough poppy to keep a horse immobile, and I was nearly that tired. I managed to fall asleep propped up against the stone wall, my head pressed forward into my chest.

When I woke, confused about the time, I was freezing and achy and disoriented, and at first I didn't remember where I was. It was dark and cold, and for a strangled moment I thought myself back in the wine cellar in Gerse. I jumped to my feet - "Easy, easy." A soft voice came out of the darkness. "You're with me."

"Wierolf?" I found his name somewhere, but it sounded scratchy and strange in my voice. I had never said it aloud before.

"The candle's gone out. There's another one on the shelf behind the bed. You know where, right?" His voice was surprisingly strong. "Were you here last night?" the prince asked, as I rose and got the candle lit. "I don't remember."

"What do you remember?" His bandage looked fine - just the slightest bit of pink dampening the linen. His forehead was cooler than he had any right to be.

"Um, I was doing a little stretching -"

"A little stretching? It was that d.a.m.ned Raven, wasn't it?" I said. "You know you're not ready to -"

"And there was lot of blood," he finished. "I couldn't stop it, and it seemed like hours before anyone came. I was afraid to call out, and I thought you'd come back, but -" He sighed heavily. "I guess I shouldn't have expected you to."

"Well, you nearly bled to death this time," I said. "You have no idea how lucky you are that Lady Lyll found you when she did."

He looked solemn. "I do. Can you - can you tell me where you thought you were, a moment ago, when you awoke? You sounded scared."

I shrugged faintly. "Home. Gerse."

"At the Celystra?"

"Why would you say that?"

His voice was gentle. "You were - mumbling a little in your sleep. I couldn't really make out any words."

Liar. But I was grateful. "Just so you know, apparently you're Yselle's nephew."

He blinked. "Yselle?"

"Your Corles nurse. You got in a fight with your bailiff."

"I see. Did I win?"

"Not from what I can tell."

"I'll have to learn to - control my temper," he said, wincing as he tried to shift position. "I hate this."

I edged him over slightly on his pillows. "I know."

"I'm accustomed to being useless," he said. "Not helpless."

"n.o.body likes a whiny prince."

"You'd be surprised," he said. "That tone of voice is usually quite effective on women."

"Ew." I waved him off, but at least he was almost smiling again.

"So, Celyn not-just-a-maid, are you ever going to explain to me who taught the Celystra girl to fight? Was it this mysterious brother of yours?"

I sank down beside him. "He's not mysterious," I said. "And no."

"So it wasn't your brother?"

"No, it wasn't my brother," I snapped. "What?"

"You know my story," he said softly. "Tell me yours."

I shrugged. "Nothing to tell. I left the Celystra, he didn't. End of story."

"And the Nemair took you in, and you left Gerse with them."