"Oh, perfect," Wynn grumbled, quickly grabbing Shade's scruff.

No doubt the domin had heard about her new companion and came to put an end to such nonsense. But High-Tower barely glanced at Shade. His brow wrinkled, and he seemed agitated.

"What?" she asked.

"Nikolas is awake and…" High-Tower didn't finish, and his frown turned to a frustrated glower. "Captain Rodian has arrived… but Nikolas is asking for you."

Chapter 15

Rodian followed a brown-robed apprentice through the guild. As they reached the hospice ward, he spotted High-Tower and Wynn hurrying down the corridor behind him. High-Tower only nodded in greeting, but Rodian barely noticed. He was staring at the tall, leggy wolf beside Wynn.

It looked exactly like the one from the fiasco outside the Upright Quill.

"Back to your studies," High-Tower told Rodian's escort, and the apprentice scurried off.

Rodian turned his attention to Wynn. "You are a never-ending source of complications."

"I'll explain later," she said quickly. "I'm here to see Nikolas first."

Wynn pushed through the door before he could object, and the wolf stayed at her side.

Rodian followed. Indeed, Wynn would do a great amount of explaining at the earliest opportunity.

High-Tower was last to enter the long room with four narrow beds. A small table stood pushed against the back wall, with shelves above filled with glass vessels of herbs, powders, and other concoctions. Nikolas was in the first bed, and an aged man with bony features and a brown robe leaned over him. But the attendant straightened when he saw the visitors.

His astonished gaze fixed on the wolf, but at a shake of High-Tower's head, the other sage said nothing.

"Captain," Wynn said politely, "this is Domin Bitworth. He has been caring for Nikolas."

Rodian merely nodded and looked down at the young man lying on the cot, conscious at last.

Nikolas's hair was slightly laced with gray strands, but some color had returned to his face. He looked thin and haggard. Wynn settled on the bed's edge.

"I'm glad to see you awake."

The wolf paced over beside her, sniffing the blanket. To Rodian's surprise, no one stopped it. But Nikolas's eyes widened in fright. He weakly pulled up his legs beneath the blankets, shrinking back against the short headboard.

"It's all right," Wynn assured him, placing a hand on his arm. "This is Shade. She's a majay-hì, not a wolf."

Rodian didn't know what she was talking about, but he noted Domin Bitworth's stunned side glance at High-Tower. Typically, the dwarf just scowled and sighed.

Nikolas remained in retreat, but panic faded from his sickly expression.

With that, Wynn placed her hands beside the wolf's face and gazed into its eyes. The animal froze and then turned its head toward Nikolas.

Terror returned to Nikolas's expression as he noticed everyone in the room, particularly Rodian.

"They won't tell me anything," he said to Wynn. "Where are Miriam and Dâgmund?"

Color drained from Wynn's face as she glanced at High-Tower and Bitworth. High-Tower swallowed with difficulty, and Wynn finally looked to Rodian.

"I'm sorry," Rodian said to Nikolas. "I couldn't reach them in time."

Nikolas stared up, expressionless. He doubled over, sickened again, as if whatever had taken his strength in the alley assaulted him once more.

Rodian felt responsible.

No matter what the premins and domins had done—or not done—it was his duty, as captain of the Shyldfälches, to keep the citizens of the king's city from harm. And he could have, if the sages had informed him that they'd sent out another folio.

"The captain brought you to us as quickly as he could," Wynn added.

"Enough," Bitworth warned, stepping closer.

The wolf shifted away from him toward the bed's head with a growl.

"He has only just awakened, and you'll wear him out," Bitworth warned.

"Yes, yes," High-Tower intervened, and looked down at Nikolas. "Are you up to talking a little? The captain needs to know what you remember from that night."

Nikolas was still shaken by the loss of his companions. His brown eyes shifted so erratically that Rodian couldn't tell what the young man was looking at or for. Domin Bitworth gently waved High-Tower aside and stepped around the bed. He helped Nikolas take a sip of water from a mug.

"Anything might help," Rodian urged, feeling harsh for doing this so abruptly, but the sooner the better.

"Tall… big… so black," Nikolas whispered, and his haunted eyes looked only at Wynn. "A cowled robe… and a cloak that… moved… climbing the walls. It chased us into the alley… then Miriam started screaming… like Sherie."

"Sherie?" Wynn whispered.

Nikolas didn't seem to hear her. He trembled, staring blankly at nothing. Suddenly the frail apprentice cowered and pressed his hands over his ears, trying to block out a sound no one else could hear.

"Who is Sherie?" Rodian asked quietly.

Wynn shook her head slowly, still watching Nikolas in wary puzzlement. When Rodian looked to High-Tower, the domin shook his head as well. Bitworth knelt beside the bed.

"Nikolas," he whispered, "try to focus on the alley, nothing else."

The young man's eyes wandered. "I tried to keep her in front of me as we ran away, but it… he… was everywhere… in front… behind… everywhere in the forest."

Bitworth sighed. "He is slipping again. Some other memory keeps intruding."

Rodian only half understood. Ignoring mention of a forest, he kept his voice calm but firm.

"Nikolas, you weren't far from the scribe shop when I found you. When did you first notice the black-robed figure following you? Did it say anything?"

Nikolas blinked, awareness perhaps sharpening again. "We were walking, and it was just there in front of us, in the street… not moving, not a sound. We turned back, and it was there again, but closer. It reached for Miriam. Dâgmund jerked me back and shoved me into the alley… I ran… and heard Sherie scream."

Again, some other name in the place of Miriam's.

"It got so cold… between the trees," Nikolas whispered. "And the black… it grabbed Sherie, and she stopped screaming. Karl tried to reach her… but his father grabbed the folio. That hand… fingers all wrapped in black cloth… it went straight through her and closed on the folio."

Rodian exhaled in exhaustion. Unknown names kept bouncing around in Nikolas's head in place of Miriam and Dâgmund, along with someone's father cast as the black figure.

Bitworth rose and stepped to the bed's foot.

"I've heard pieces of this before," the healer whispered, "when Nikolas rambled in his sleep. It happens sometimes when the mind suffers a severe trauma. Some other overwhelming past event can become mixed with the more recent one. Until Nikolas regains his will and full awareness, he cannot separate the cause of one trauma from another of the past."

Rodian rubbed his forehead. The splinter of a headache felt like it would cleave his skull in half. Wynn looked at Nikolas in sympathy, with her hand on the wolf's head, and Rodian stepped back.

He needed information to catch a murderer—or murderers—and all he'd gotten was more senseless confusion. Sykion and High-Tower wouldn't face up to what was happening, or they tried to get around him in their own scheming. Bitworth's assessment of Nikolas was no help.

And now Wynn brought a wild animal into the guild, and no one seemed to object.

Rodian pulled his hand down his face. May the Blessed Trinity of Sentience preserve him, for he was standing in a madhouse.

He couldn't go to the royals with more nonsense, but when he looked down, Wynn was glaring at him. The anger in her face sparked his own resentment.