‘Sometimes I believe you.’ I looked down at the deck. ‘Mostly I don’t.’ Hope was too painful.
‘I see,’ he said harshly. ‘So you are content to wait. Because if Bee is dead, she can’t become any deader by our delay. She can’t be enduring torture such as they visited upon me.’
I replied with equally harsh words. ‘I do not choose to wait. You choose to wait — for Paragon to decide to sail.’
He gripped two handfuls of his own hair, his face contorted. ‘Cannot you understand my torment? We must sail on Paragon. We must! Even though I know she is alive and in their power.’
‘How?’ I roared at him. ‘How would it be possible? When Nettle sent her coterie through the pillar after Bee they found no sign of her. Not a footprint in the snow, nothing! Fool, they never emerged from that pillar. They perished within it.’
His blinded eyes were wide with desperation, his face even paler than it usually was. ‘No! That cannot be. Fitz, you have been delayed in a pillar, lost for days, and still you—’
‘Yes. Eventually, I emerged dazed and half-dead. If I had not been able to summon help, I could have died there. Fool, if they had emerged from that pillar, there would have been signs of it. The dead embers of a fire, a scatter of their bones, something. There was nothing. She is gone. Even if they were delayed for days, we would have seen some sign of their passage when we arrived there. Did you see any such thing?’
He gave a wild laugh. ‘I
I kept my temper. ‘Well, there was nothing except for bear-sign. So perhaps they did come through and perished there. They certainly did not journey on to Kelsingra, not by foot or by pillar. Fool, please. Let me accept that Bee is gone.’ My words were a plea. I longed to return to the numbness of utter loss and the pursuit of pure vengeance.
‘She is not!’
His stubborn denial enraged me, so I attacked. ‘It scarcely matters. Be she dead or alive, I shall doubtless be killed before I discover her, given how little you have told me of Clerres and its folk!’
His mouth dropped open in shock. Then guilt and outrage shrilled his voice. ‘I’ve done my best, Fitz! I’ve never planned an assassination before. My memories shy and leap away from me when you interrogate me. And the stupidity of the questions you ask! What does it matter if Coultrie gambles or if Symphe rises early or late?’
‘Without exact knowledge, my ability to kill them is diminished to the point of folly!’
‘Folly?’ He flung the word at me. ‘Well, what did you expect from a fool?’ He groped angrily for Amber’s costume and his voice dropped to a furious mutter. ‘I should never have come to you for help. What must be done, I should do myself!’ He pulled on her gown with reckless haste, tying laces and fastening buttons blindly and crookedly.
‘And all the difference in the world, if you had not come back to me!’ The words were reckless daggers. ‘And you needn’t disguise yourself as Amber. I’m leaving anyway.’ I stood up as he fought with a cuff. ‘And like most things done blindly and in haste, you’ve made a poor job of it. I would not go out on the deck like that, if I were you. But you seem willing to do many things I would not do, such as attempt an assassination with no information.’
I slammed from the room, my heart leaping as anger warred with regret. The things I had said! But were any of them untrue?
I leaned on the railing to stare at Divvytown and simmer my fury. The wind off the water could not cool it.
Brashen found me there. ‘Wintrow came by. He asked if you knew when Tintaglia would arrive.’
‘I don’t. Do you know when we will leave here?’
His terse response echoed mine. ‘I don’t. Wintrow has prepared for the dragon. If you can, he’d like you to let the dragon know that the pens are by the dock.’
I didn’t master my anger but I contained it. I stood up straight and pushed the Fool’s words and my angry taunt out of my mind. ‘I will try, but I am not able to promise she will hear me.’
‘I can’t ask more of you than that,’ he responded.
I closed my mouth and watched him walk away. I stared out over the water and tried to contact the dragon.
I felt no response from her. In my heart, I hoped she would not be able to find me. Whatever she wanted of it, it would not be good.
Very early on the third morning, Sorcor and Queen Etta called up from a small dory, asking permission to come aboard Paragon. A bleary-eyed Wintrow was with them. All three had the look of people who had spent a long and sleepless night. They were welcomed aboard with steaming mugs of coffee. Sorcor had had the foresight to bring a basket of fresh pastries. To my surprise, Wintrow requested that Amber and I join them.
