Kirah hastened up the steps to the inn. The smell of decay seemed to vanish here, replaced by the scent of damp ashes. The hearth had just been cleaned. So much for warming myself before the fire, Kirah sighed inwardly.

No one was inside the large taproom. Kirah waited for the innkeeper at the tall counter, where the dark, pitted wood of the bar met the back wall. Feeling a little queasy of a sudden, she lowered herself upon a stool. The muscles of her shoulders, neck, and lower back had begun to ache. It was probably a good thing that Deeander had given her the day off, she decided. She'd obviously been overdoing it at the bakery.

Growing impatient, Kirah rapped her knuckles upon the hard wooden bar. Cold, despite the perspiration between her shoulder blades, Kirah shivered her thin cape closer, as if a bird rearranging its feathers.

"Hallooo?" she called toward the kitchen door when her knuckles were sore from banging.

At length a thin, shiny-pated man in his middle years pushed through the swinging door, wiping his hands on a filthy apron, a look of suspicious surprise on his face. His inn had not seen the likes of Kirah DiThon before, either as lord's daughter or crazy woman. Llewen knew her only by reputation.

"If you're here to break fast or for noon lunch, I'm afraid all we have is a few of yesterday's greasy turnips," Llewen confessed. "There's no meat to be found in the town."

"I'm not here to eat," said Kirah. "I'm looking for someone who probably stayed here recently and is expected to return any day. He's tall, with long, dark, wavy hair. He was wearing a dark brown robe."

The innkeeper raised his eyebrows at the word "he." Everyone in town believed the story of crazy Kirah waiting for the return of a lover who didn't exist. "What's his name?" Llewen asked.

Kirah saw the disapproving curiosity in the man's watery eyes. "Either you've seen the man I've described or you haven't. Which is it?"

"Haven't," he said, shaking his head. "Nobody's come to Thonvil or stayed at the inn since word of the sickness spread."

"But that's not possi-" Kirah began, then stopped. Lyim was a mage; perhaps he had magiced himself up a place to stay. "Thank you," she said weakly, turning to leave. She felt hot and limp. "Have you a cup of water, please? I'm not feeling quite right."

The man looked at her in alarm and stepped back from the bar warily.

She saw his fear through bleary eyes. "Don't worry, it's not the plague," she muttered, though the world began to spin crazily. "I can't be getting the plague, you see…" Kirah didn't finish the sentence, because she had slouched, unconscious, to the floor.

" " * * "

Guerrand did one last run-through in his mind about the state of security at Bastion. He had given a hastily jotted list of instructions to Dagamier. Ezius had replaced her in the scrying sphere after removing Lyim's body from the courtyard and taking it to the white wing to prepare it for burial. She'd taken the piece of parchment reluctantly, and only after he insisted. Though she might have run things well enough before Guerrand arrived, he was responsible for Bastion now, even during his absence.

Satisfied that he had done all he could to ensure smooth running of things during his leave, Guerrand used the scroll justarius had sent for the purpose of teleporting Bram, Zagarus, and himself back to Thonvil. The moment the words inscribed on the scroll left his lips, Guerrand felt a brief disorientation, like he was a scrap of paper in the draft of a chimney, flaming and floating, weightless. But it was only for a moment, and then his eyes were readjusting to daylight on the main street of Thonvil. He, Bram, and Zagarus stood before the open door of the bakery.

Turning, Guerrand accidently stepped on one of Zagarus's webbed feet.

The bird squawked angrily. Watch where you're going, oaf.

"What's eating you?" Guerrand asked him silently. "1 thought you'd be happy to leave Bastion for a trip back to Thonvil. You're always complaining about living there."

Yeah, well, I don't want to get too used to sky and earth again, since we'll be returning to that shadow box we call home too soon, the bird huffed. The look in his beady dark eyes abruptly softened. Guerrand could see that Zag was merely covering his own trepidation with bluster.

Uncomfortable with his master's scrutiny, Zagarus told Guerrand that he was going to the cove to see if anyone from the old days was still alive.

Guerrand watched the old gull lumber into the air and flap stiffly toward the sea. He turned in a circle, peering around with eyes that could not fathom distance or endure the sun after so long at Bastion. Before Rand could get more than a whiff of decay and an impression of Thonvil's general squalor, Bram took his hand and dragged him up the open flight of stairs next to the door embellished with a sign carved in the likeness of a steaming loaf.

"Kirah!" Bram cried, banging his fist on the door to his aunt's room. "Come on, Kirah, it's Bram. I'm back with Guerrand as I promised."

"Maybe she's not home," Guerrand suggested.

"Maybe," Bram muttered. To his surprise, the door creaked open a crack. Bram pressed his eye to it, then gave that up and gave the door a hard shove with his booted toe.

The door swung back on rusty hinges. The choking stench of sweat and vomit and rotting flesh rolled out in a cloud. Bram tore into the room ahead of Guerrand. "We're too late!" he cried.

Blood pounded at Guerrand's temples as he followed Bram into the cold, fireless room. He found his nephew on his knees at the side of a small rope bed. Unceremoniously dumped upon the dirty feather tick was someone he barely recognized.

"Bram?" she whispered, blinking in disbelief. Kirah's eyes had always looked like the sort created to house mysteries, but now they seemed no more than the soft, unseeing eyes of a cow at graze. Her once-blond hair was ash-colored and damp about her emaciated face. It looked to have been braided, but fuzzy hanks had been rubbed out of the plait in back. Her clothing was worse than a beggar woman's and beginning to rip at the sleeves.

"Yes, it's me, Kirah," Bram said, choking back a sob. "When did you get sick?"

"I… don't know," she said haltingly. "The last thing I remember I was at the Red Goose Inn, asking for some water. I was so cold." She shivered, remembering. "I must have had the flu because I feel much better now."

Bram looked over his shoulder. The two men exchanged worried looks.

Guerrand stepped forward into his sister's view. "Hello, Kirah." Guerrand hoped his expression held the right shade of sympathy touched by the diffidence due an estranged member of one's family.

She started, then weakly pushed herself up onto her elbows. "It is you. Well, well," she said caustically. "Frankly, I'm surprised you found the time for us, but I guess history does repeat itself. Once again, you've made it back too late to help most of Thonvil. And, once again, your old friend, Lyim, squeezed us into his schedule."

"Did you swallow the concoction he gave you?" Guerrand asked anxiously.

"Of course," she said. 'Two days ago."

A cry escaped Bram's lips, a curse Guerrand's.

"Does that disappoint you, Guerrand?" asked Kirah, giving him a canny look. "That he gave me the cure to this disease you've caused?"

In the middle of her question, Guerrand had begun to shake his head in disbelief, gaining both speed and power, until his whole body shook. "Is that what Lyim told you? That I caused this plague?"

"I saw his hand," she said. "I've heard the snakes hiss your name."

A muscle twitched in Guerrand's jaw. "What would make you think I'd want to cause anyone to suffer such hideous deaths, let alone my family and the villagers with whom I was raised?" he demanded.