"Where's Waggett now?"

"Cappie was in the square too; I left him with her. He knew something was wrong. Maybe I was even crying, I don't know. It scared him. So I thought it was better…"

"Cappie will take care of him," I said. "What about you?"

He shrugged dully.

"So you and Dorr…" I couldn't finish the sentence.

"Yes. Me and Dorr."

Neither of us said anything for a while.

"How long?" I asked.

"Years," he said. "Since before she Committed." He gave a sad laugh. "It's pathetic, isn't it? An old man and a young woman."

"A young Neut."

"Stop right there, Fullin. I don't want you sneering at Neuts. Not today."

I didn't fight him. "Which of you started it?"

"No one ever starts these things," he said. "Dorr always liked talking to me about life in the South. Even as a young teenager, she probably intended to run away once she Committed: to get out of that house. By the time she was nineteen, she was coming here almost every day. We both pretended she was just picking my brains about being a merchant in Feliss City, but… then it went beyond that. Dorr was the first person in Tober Cove who actually wanted to hear the things I knew about business, and I was the only person who could speak three words to her without worrying what Hakoore would think."

"And what did Hakoore think?" I asked. "Did he know about you two?"

"He knew. She made sure he knew. Dorr loved getting under her grandfather's skin. And he wasn't as upset as she thought he'd be. It's easy to picture Hakoore as heartlessly rigid, but he lost his own daughter to madness, and when it came to his granddaughter… even as he lectured Dorr about 'godless outsiders' I think he was secretly pleased she wasn't as lonely and isolated as her mother. Close to Commitment Day, he even suggested he might allow a marriage…"

"Oh gods!" I groaned, "how brainless could he get?" I wanted to bury my face in my hands. "Accepting Dorr's relationship with you? Suggesting you get married…"

"What's wrong with that?" Zephram protested.

"Dorr didn't want to get married!" I snapped at him. "She wanted to get out! Out of the cove, away from Hakoore. Marrying you would just be another tie to keep her here. It was a threat, not a concession. Hakoore practically held a knife to her throat and forced her to raise the stakes. To Commit Neut."

"No," Zephram murmured. "Dorr did that to please me."

"To please you?" I repeated. "Don't tell me you gave Dorr the happy story about your Neut friend down south! You couldn't be that stupid… not after the trouble with Steck."

"I never talked to Dorr about Neuts," Zephram replied. "Not before she Committed. But Dorr was five when Steck… made her choice. Dorr was old enough to remember some of what happened, and young enough to have it all confused. She got the idea…"

He waved his hand as if groping for the right words.

"That you had been Steck's lover after she turned Neut?" I suggested. "That you liked Neuts?"

Zephram ran his fingers through his hair; the hair was damp, soaked with sweat. He said, "Maybe I should have talked to her about Neuts before she Committed. But I wanted to stay clear of the topic — to avoid influencing Dorr like I influenced Steck. Once or twice, Dorr even brought the subject up… and I avoided it. It seemed like the right thing."

Sometimes there is no right thing, I thought to myself. Aloud, I said, "And when she Committed Neut?"

"I stayed with her," my father replied. "Of course I did. She was the same person. And I wasn't about to abandon her when she… for my sake…"

"Okay, sure." I didn't want to hurt him by pursuing my thoughts aloud, but I wondered about Dorr. Had she really thought Zephram would prefer her as Neut? Or had she Committed Neut to horrify her grandfather, then invented a second story to tell Zephram? Maybe she was afraid Zephram would turn her away unless he thought it was his own fault.

No way to know. Dorr was dead. Poor cryptic Dorr, who spent twenty-five years trying to do something crazy enough to break herself free of her grandfather.

I suppose it wasn't coincidence she had fallen in love with a man the same age as Hakoore.

"So about Dorr and Bonnakkut," I said. "Did she really kill him?"

Zephram nodded.

"Do you know that for sure?" I asked. "Rashid thinks her confession doesn't make sense."

"He's right; her confession was a lie. But she did kill him. I was there."

"What happened?"

He told me the story with his eyes closed, as if he was seeing it all in his mind… or perhaps because he didn't want to look at me or the rest of the world for a while.

Everything had started, of course, at the gathering where Tober Cove welcomed Rashid. Zephram had sat on the grass with Waggett in his lap, both of them calm and content in the early morning sunshine. The day ahead would be so pleasant — sending me off with Mistress Gull at noon, then feasting cheerfully with the adults of the village until the children returned at nightfall. Zephram could meet a Spark Lord, spend time with Dorr…

Then Rashid's Bozzle appeared on the Council Hall steps.

The long-lost Steck had returned.

As soon as the gathering broke up, Zephram headed for his house — running away, really, though Steck would know where to find him. Since he was carrying Waggett, and since he was over sixty, Zephram only got partway home before Steck caught up with him… on that path through the woods where everything happened.

They talked. Awkwardly. About each other. About me.

Then Bonnakkut arrived, gun in hand. He had kept an eye on Steck, thinking the time might come when she strayed from the protection of Rashid's "force field." Our First Warrior hadn't seen Steck sneak out the side of the Council Hall, but he guessed where she would go: to find her old lover. (Bonnakkut was five when Steck was banished; like Dorr, he remembered. I suppose the day of Steck's exile was the high point in Bonnakkut's life: a Neut in the village and a chance to throw stones.)

If Bonnakkut had pulled the trigger as soon as he arrived, Steck would have died. Our proud First Warrior would have dragged her corpse back by the hair and proclaimed his triumph from the Council Hall steps. But fortunately for my mother, Bonnakkut couldn't resist the chance to gloat while holding Steck and Zephram at gunpoint.

Enter Dorr.

How did Dorr feel, now that Zephram's old lover had returned? Zephram couldn't tell me. "She didn't seem upset," he said. "It was almost as if she was liberated. As if she could pass me to Steck and start her own life."

I thought about Dorr as I had seen her when I went to fetch Hakoore for last rites. Dorr trying to restyle her hair. Kissing me twice out of sheer mischief. If she believed she was free of Zephram, her last tie to Tober Cove finally cut… but maybe it was just giddiness after the murder — and before the suicide she was already contemplating.

But that came later in the morning. Before the murder, Dorr was simply walking through the woods because she wanted to visit Zephram — presumably to talk with him about Steck's return. She must have heard Bonnakkut's taunts and threats while still some distance away. Quietly, she stole forward until she could see everything: the gun… my father and Steck in danger of being shot…

Dorr drew her knife and used it. Bonnakkut had his back to her; he was dead before he knew she was there.

"And then she ran off," Zephram said. "She called to Steck and me, 'Be happy together,' and ran into the woods. I thought she might be heading down-peninsula, just like that. But apparently she decided she had to invent a story; she decided she had to protect me." He shook his head. "I never understood her, Fullin. Not really. I don't know why she stayed with me, and I don't know why she left."