It was she who finally broke the embrace. She gave a final shuddering sigh, and then stepped apart from me. Her hand rose to smear the wetness on her cheeks. "Oh, Fitz," she said, simply, sadly. And that was all. I stood still, feeling the chill apartness where for a time we had been together. A sudden pang of loss assailed me. And then a shiver of fear as I realized its source. The girl on the dragon had shared our embrace, her Wit-misery briefly consoled by our closeness. Now, as we drew apart, the far, chill wailing of the stone rose up again, louder and stronger. I tried to leap lightly down from the dais, but as I landed I staggered and nearly fell. Somehow that joining had drawn strength from me. It was frightening, but I masked my uneasiness as I silently accompanied Kettricken back to the camp.

I was just in time to relieve Kettle on watch. She and Kettricken went to sleep, promising to send the Fool out to stand watch with me. The wolf gave me an apologetic glance and then followed Kettricken into the tent. I assured him I approved. A moment later the Fool emerged, rubbing his eyes with his left hand and carrying his right lightly curled against his chest. He took a seat on a stone across from me as I looked over the meat to see which pieces needed turning. For a time he watched me silently. Then he stooped, and with his right hand, picked up a piece of firewood. I knew I should rebuke him, but instead I watched, as curious as he. After a moment, he tucked the wood into the fire and straightened. "Quiet and lovely," he told me. "Some forty years of growing, winter and summer, storm and fair weather. And before that, it was borne as a nut by another tree. And so the thread goes back, over and over. — I do not think I need fear much from natural things, only those that have been wrought by man. Then the threads go raveling out. But trees, I think, will be pleasant to touch."

"Kettle said you should touch no live things," I reminded him like a tattling child.

"Kettle has not to live with this. I do. I must discover the limits it places on me. The sooner I find what I can and cannot do with my right hand, the better." He grinned wickedly, and made a suggestive gesture toward himself.

I shook my head at him, but could not keep from laughing.

He joined his laughter with my own. "Ah, Fitz," he said quietly a moment later. "You do not know how much it means to me that I can still make you laugh. If I can stir you to laughter, I can laugh myself."

"It surprises me that you can still jest at all," I replied.

"When you can either laugh or cry, you might as well laugh," he replied. Abruptly he asked, "I heard you leave the tent earlier. Then, while you were gone… I could feel something of what happened. Where did you go? There was much I did not understand."

I was silent, thinking. "The Skill-bond between us may be growing stronger instead of weaker. I do not think that is a good thing."

"There is no elfbark left. I had the last of it two days ago. Good or bad, it is as it is. Now explain to me what happened."

I saw little point in refusing. So I attempted to explain. He interrupted with a number of questions, few of which I could answer. When he decided he understood it as well as words could convey it, he quirked a smile at me. "Let us go see this girt on a dragon," he suggested.

"Why?" I asked warily.

He lifted his right hand and waggled his silver fingertips at me as he lifted one eyebrow.

"No," I said firmly.

"Afraid?" he needled me.

"We are on watch here," I told him severely.

"Then you will go with me tomorrow," he suggested.

"It is not wise, Fool. Who knows what effect it might have on you?"

"Not I. And that is exactly why I wish to do it. Besides. What call has a Fool to be wise?"

"No."

"Then I shall have to go alone," he said with a mock sigh. I refused to rise to the bait. After a moment, he asked me, "What is it you know about Kettle that I do not?"

I looked at him uncomfortably. "About as much as I know about you that she does not."

"Ah. That was well spoken. Those words could have been stolen from me," he conceded. "Do you wonder why the coterie had not tried to attack us again?" he asked next.

"Is this your night to ask unfortunate questions?" I demanded.

"Of late, I have no other kinds."

"At the very least, I dare to hope that Carrod's death has weakened them. It must be a great shock to lose a member of your coterie. Almost as bad as losing a Wit-beast companion."

"And what do you fear?" the Fool pressed.

It was a question I had been pushing away from myself. "What do I fear? The worst, of course. What I fear is that they are somehow marshaling greater strength against us, to offset Verity's power. Or perhaps they are setting a trap for us. I fear they are turning their Skill to seeking out Molly." I added the last with great reluctance. It seemed the greatest bad luck even to think about it, let alone speak it aloud.

"Cannot you Skill a warning to her somehow?"

As if it had never occurred to me. "Not without betraying her. I have never been able to reach Burrich with the Skill. Sometimes, I am able to see them, but I cannot make them aware of me. I fear that even making the effort might be enough to expose her to the coterie. He may know of her, but not know where she is. You told me that not even Chade himself knew where she was. And Regal has many places to send his troops and attention. Buck is far from Farrow, and the Red-Ships have kept it in turmoil. Surely he would not send troops into that for the sake of finding one girl."

"One girl and a Farseer child," the Fool reminded me gravely. "Fitz, I do not speak to grieve you, but only to warn you. I have contained his anger at you. That night, when they held me…" He swallowed and his eyes went distant. "I have tried so hard to forget it. If I touch those memories at all, they seethe and burn within me like a poison I cannot be rid of. I have felt Regal's very being inside my own. Hatred for you squirms through him like maggots through rotting meat." He shook his head, sickened at recalling it. "The man is mad. He ascribes to you every evil ambition he can imagine. Your Wit he regards with loathing, and terror. He cannot conceive that what you do, you do for Verity. In his mind, you have devoted your life to injuring him since you came to Buckkeep. He believes that both Verity and you have come to these Mountains not to wake the Elderlings to defend Buck, but to find some Skill-treasure or power to use against him. He believes he has no choice but to act first, to find whatever it is you seek and turn it against you. To that, he bends all his resources and determination."

I listened to the Fool in a sort of frozen horror. His eyes had taken on the stare of a man who recalls torture. "Why have you not spoken of this to me before?" I asked him gently when he paused to catch his breath. The skin of his arms was standing up in gooseflesh.

He looked away from me. "It is not a thing I enjoy recalling." He was trembling very lightly. "They were in my mind like evil, idle children, smashing what they could not grasp. I could keep nothing back from them. But they were not interested in me at all. They regarded me as less than a dog. Angry, in that moment of finding I was not you. They nearly destroyed me because I was not you. Then they considered how they might use me against you." He coughed. "If that Skill-wave had not come…"

I felt like Chade himself as I said quietly, "Now I will turn that back upon them. They could not hold you in thrall like that without revealing much of themselves to you. As much as you can, I ask you to reach back to that time, and tell me all you can recall."

"You would not ask that, if you knew what you were asking."

I thought I did know, but I refrained from saying it. Instead, I let silence bid him think it through. Dawn was graying the sky, and I had just returned from walking a circuit of our camp when next he spoke.