I drew off my mitten and bared my arm. I set my hand upon the flow of the water, feeling its icy kiss against my bare palm. Senses straining, I tried to detect whether there was Skill beneath that surface; I felt nothing. But perhaps if I plunged in my arm and hand, they would come up gleaming with strength. I dared myself to reach in to discover for myself.

That was as far as my courage went. I was no Verity. I knew the strength of his Skilling, and I had seen how his immersion in the magic had tried his will. I was no match for it. He had marched alone up the Skill road while I… My mind darted back to that puzzle. When had I left the Skill road and my companions? Perhaps I never had. Perhaps all this was a dream. I reached up and patted cold water on my face. I felt no different. I set my nails to my face and scratched the skin until it hurt. It proved nothing to me but only made me wonder if I could dream pain. I had found no answers in this strange dead city, only more questions.

With great resolve I turned my steps back the way I had come. Visibility was poor and the clinging snow was rapidly filling my footprints. With reluctance I set my fingers to the stone of a wall. It was easier to trace my way back that way, for the living city had had more landmarks than the cold cinders of it did. Yet as I hurried through the snowy streets, I wondered when all these folk had been here. Did I view the events of a night a hundred years ago? Had I come here another night would I view the same events played out or see a different night from the city's history? Or did these shades of folk perceive themselves as living now, was I an odd cold shadow that crept through their lives? I forced myself to stop wondering about things I had no answer to. I had to trace my way back the way I had come.

Either I came to the end of places I could remember or I took a wrong turning. The result was the same. I found myself wandering up a road I was sure was unfamiliar. I trailed my fingers down the fronts of a row of shops, all locked up tight for the night. I passed two lovers locked in an embrace in a doorway. A ghost dog padded past me without giving me so much as a curious sniff.

Despite the milder weather, I was getting cold. And tired. I glanced up at the sky. It would soon be morning. By daylight, I could perhaps climb up one of the buildings and get the lay of the land. Perhaps when I awoke, I would recall how I came here. Foolishly, I cast about for some overhanging eve or shed where I might shelter before it occurred to me that there was no reason not to go inside one of the buildings. Even so, I felt queer as I chose a door and walked through it. While I touched a wall, I saw a dim interior. Tables and shelves were laden with fine pottery and glassware. A cat slept by a banked hearth. When I lifted my hand from the wall, all was cold and pitch-black. So I trailed my fingers along the wall, nearly stumbling over the crumbling remains of one of the tables. I stooped, and gathered together the bits by touch and took them to the hearth. By great perseverance, I made a true fire of them where the ghost fire burned.

When it was going well and I stood over it to warm myself, its flickering light showed me a different view of the room. Bare walls and debris-strewn floor. There was no trace of the fine crockery and glassware, though there were a few more bits of wood from long-fallen shelves. I thanked my luck that they had been made of good oak, for surely they would have rotted to splinters long ago if they had not. I decided to lay my cloak on the floor to save me from the stone's chill and trust my fire to keep me warm enough. I lay down and closed my eyes and tried not to think of ghost cats or what phantom folk slept in their beds on the floor above me.

I tried to set my Skill walls before I slept, but it was rather like drying one's feet while standing in a river. The closer I came to sleep, the harder it was to recall where those boundaries lay. How much of my world was me and how much was the folk I cared about? I dreamed first of Kettricken, Starling, Kettle, and the Fool wandering about with torches while Nighteyes ran back and forth, back and forth whining. It was not a comfortable dream and I turned away from it and drifted deeper into myself. Or so I supposed.

I found the familiar hut. I knew the simple room, the rough table, the tidy hearth, the narrow bed so neatly made. Molly sat in her nightrobe by the hearth, rocking Nettle and singing softly a song about stars and starfish. I could recall no lullabies and was as charmed by it as Nettle. The baby's wide eyes were on Molly's face as her mother sang. She gripped one of Molly's forefingers in her small fist. Molly sang the song over and over and over, but I found no boredom there. It was a scene I could watch for a month, for a year, and never know tedium. But the babe's eyelids slid shut; once, to open quickly. They closed more slowly a second time, and stayed closed. Her tiny pursed mouth moved as if she suckled in her sleep. Her black hair had begun to curl. Molly lowered her face to brush her lips across Nettle's forehead.

Molly rose wearily and carried the baby to her bed. She pulled open the blanket, nestled the child in, and then went back to the table to blow out the single candle there. By the light from the hearth, I watched her ease into bed beside the child and draw the blankets up over them both. She closed her eyes and sighed and did not stir again. I watched over her leaden sleep, recognizing it as the sleep of exhaustion. I knew sudden shame. This hard, bare life was not anything I ever envisioned for her, let alone our child. Were it not for Burrich, life would be even harder for them. I fled from seeing them this way, promising myself, Things will get better, somehow I will make things better for them. When I return.

"I expected that by the time I returned, things would be better. But this is too good to trust, in a way."

It was Chade's voice. He leaned over a table in a darkened room, studying a scroll. A branch of candles lit his face and the unrolled map before him. He looked tired but in good spirits. His gray hair was disheveled. His white shirt was half open and loose of his breeches so it hung about his hips like a skirt. The old man was lean and muscular where before he was skinny. He took a long draw from a steaming mug and shook his head over something. "Regal seems to gain no ground in his war against the Mountains. In every attack against the border towns, the Usurper's troops feint and then withdraw. There is no concerted effort to seize territory they have ravaged, no massing of troops to force their way to Jhaampe. What is his game?"

"Come here and I'll show you."

Chade looked up from his scroll, half amused and half annoyed. "I've a serious question to ponder. I'll not find the answer to this in your bed."

The woman threw back the bedding and rose, to pad softly over to the table. She moved like a stalking cat. Her nakedness was not vulnerability, but armor. Her long brown hair had pulled loose of its warrior tail to reach past her shoulders. She was not young, and long ago a sword had left its tracks down her ribs. She was still breathtaking in a formidable, female way. She bent over the map beside him and pointed to something. "Look here. And here. And here. Were you Regal, why would you attack all these places at once, with forces too small to hold any of them?"

When Chade did not answer, she moved her finger to tap another spot on the map. "None of those attacks came as any great surprise. Mountain troops that had been gathered here were diverted to these two villages. Another second force from this location went to the third village. Now, see where the Mountain troops were not?"

"There's nothing along there worth having."

"Nothing," she agreed. "But once there was a trade route that went through the lesser pass, here, and thence into the heart of the Mountains. It bypasses Jhaampe, and is little used any more for that reason. Most traders want a route that will allow them to sell and trade in Jhaampe as well as the lesser towns."