I turned back to Kettle. It was an effort to look only through my eyes. I still gripped her hand. "Kestrel?" I said quietly. She lifted her gaze to mine. I looked at her and tried to see her as she had once been. I do not think she even knew then of that tiny hair of Skill between us. In the moment of her shock at the Fool touching me, I had pressed past her guard. It was too fine a line to be called a thread. But I now knew what choked it. "All this guilt and shame and remorse you carry, Kestrel. Don't you see? That is what they burned you with. And you have added to it, all these years. The wall is of your own making. Take it down. Forgive yourself. Come out."

I caught at the Fool's wrist and held him beside me. Somewhere I felt Nighteyes as well. They were back within their own minds, but I could reach them easily. I drew strength from them, carefully, slowly. I drew their strength and love and turned it against Kettle, trying to force it into her through that tiny chink in her armor.

Tears began to trickle down her seamed cheeks. "I can't. That is the hardest part. I can't. They burned me to punish me. But it was not enough. It would never be enough. I can never forgive myself."

Skill was starting to seep from her as she reached to me, trying to make me understand. She reached, to clasp my hand between both of hers. Her pain flowed through that clasp to me. "Who could forgive you then?" I found myself asking.

"Gull. My sister Gull!" The name was torn from her, and I sensed she had refused to think of it, let alone utter it, for years. Her sister, not just her coterie-mate, but her sister. And she had killed her in a fury when she had found her with Stanchion. The leader of the coterie?

"Yes," she whispered, though no words were needed between us now. I was past the burn wall. Strong, handsome Stanchion. Making love to him, body and Skill, an experience of oneness like no other. But then she had come upon them, him and Gull, together, and she had…"

"He should have known better," I cried out indignantly. "You were sisters and members of his own coterie. How could he have done that to you? How could he?"

"Gull!" she cried out loud, and for an instant I saw her. She was behind a second wall. Both of them were. Kestrel and Gull. Two little girls, running barefoot down a sandy shore, just out of reach of the icy waves licking up the sand. Two little girls, as like as apple pips, their father's joy, twins, racing to meet the little boat coming in to shore, hurrying to see what Papa had caught in his nets today. I smelled the salt wind, the iodine of the tangled, squidgy kelp as they dashed through it squealing. Two little girls, Gull and Kestrel, locked and hidden behind a wall inside her. But I could see them even if she could not.

I see her, I know her. And she knew you, through and through. Lightning and thunder, your mother called you, for while your temper flashed and was gone, Gull could carry a grudge for weeks. But not against you, Kestrel. Never against you, and not for years. She loved you, more than either of you loved Stanchion. As you loved her. And she would have forgiven you. She would never have wished this on you.

I… don't know.

Yes, you do. Look at her. Look at you. Forgive yourself. And let the part of her within you live again. Let yourself live again.

She is within me?

Most certainly. I see her, I feel her. It must be so.

What do you feel? Cautiously.

Only love. See for yourself. I took her deep inside her mind, to the places and memories she had denied to herself. It was not the burn walls her coterie had imposed on her that had hurt her most. It was the ones she had put up between herself and the memory of what she had lost in a moment of fury. Two girls, older now, wading out to seize the line their father threw to them, and helping to pull his laden boat up onto the beach. Two Buck girls, still as alike as apple pips, wanting to be the first ones to tell their Papa they had been chosen for Skilltraining.

Papa said we were one soul in two bodies.

Open, then, and let her out. Let both of you out to live.

I fell silent, waiting. Kestrel was in a part of her memories she had denied for longer than other folk lived. A place of fresh wind and girlish laughter, and a sister so like yourself you scarcely needed to speak to one another. The Skill had been between them from the moment they were born.

I see what I must do now. I felt her overwhelming surge of joy and determination. I must let her out, I must put her into the dragon. She will live forever in the dragon, just as we planned it. The two of us, together again.

Kettle stood up, letting go of my hands so suddenly that I cried out at the shock. I found myself back in my body. I felt I had fallen there from a very great distance. The Fool and Nighteyes were still near me, but no longer a part of a circle. I could scarcely feel them for all else I felt. Skill. Racing through me like a riptide. Skill. Emanating from Kettle like heat from a smith's furnace. She glowed with it. She wrung her hands, smiled at the straightened fingers.

"You should go and rest now, Fitz," she told me gently. "Go on. Go to sleep."

A gentle suggestion. She did not know her own Skillstrength. I lay back and knew no more.

When I awoke, it was full dark. The weight and warmth of the wolf's body were comfortable against me. The Fool had tucked a blanket around me and was sitting by me, staring raptly into the fire. When I stirred, he clutched at my shoulder with a sharp intake of breath.

"What?" I demanded. I could make no sense of anything I heard or saw. Fires had been kindled up on the stone dais beside the dragon. I heard the clash of metal against stone, and voices lifted in conversation. In the tent behind me, I heard Starling trying notes on her harp.

"The last time I saw you sleep like that, we had just taken an arrow out of your back and I thought you were dying of infection."

"I must have been very tired," I smiled at him, able to trust he understood. "Are not you wearied? I took strength from you and Nighteyes."

"Tired? No. I feel healed." He did not hesitate, but added, "I think it is as much that the false coterie has fled my body, as knowing that you do not hate me. And the wolf. Now, he is a wonder. Almost, I can still sense him." A very strange smile touched his face. I felt him groping out for Nighteyes. He had not the strength to truly use the Skill or the Wit on his own. But it was unnerving to feel him try. Nighteyes let his tail rise and fall in one slow wag.

I'm sleepy.

Rest then, my brother. I set my hand to the thick fur of his shoulder. He was life and strength and friendship I could trust. He gave one more slow wag to his tail and lowered his head again. I looked back to the Fool and gave a nod toward Verity's dragon.

"What goes on, up there?"

"Madness. And joy. I think. Save for Kettricken. I think her heart eats itself hollow with jealousy, but she will not leave."

"What goes on up there?" I repeated patiently.

"You know more of it than I do," he retorted. "You did something to Kettle. I could understand part of it, but not all. Then you fell asleep. And Kettle went up there and did something to Verity. I know not what, but Kettricken said it left them both weeping and shaking. Then Verity did something to Kettle. And they both began to laugh and to shout and to cry out it would work. I stayed long enough to watch both of them start attacking the stone around the dragon with chisels and mallets and swords and anything else that was to hand. While Kettricken sits silent as a shadow and watches them mournfully. They will not let her help. Then I came down here and found you unconscious. Or asleep. Whichever you prefer. And I have sat here a long time, watching over you and making tea or taking meat to anyone who yells at me for some. And now you are awake."