The temple didn't feel right without Ammas there. Carala had never set foot in this old ruin in her life; had in fact never been to Munazyr before this week at all, and yet she could feel the cursewright's absence the way a ceremony feels fundamentally wrong without its guest of honor -- a funeral with no corpse; a wedding with no groom. Barthim felt the same way, but he had said nothing to confirm Carala's thoughts, having spent most of the last two hours staring morosely into the brazier, occasionally feeding it with wood Ammas kept stored in his bedroom chapel. The night had grown quite chilly, but no one seemed to want to rely on each other for warmth rather than the flames.

They all sat a-circle around the fire, Vos a little apart from the rest on a footstool he had appropriated from one of the chapels. Barthim had scowled at this, not wanting them to touch any of Ammas's things, but Vos complained of a stiff back from sitting on the floor. Barthim relented grudgingly. There were still guards milling around the Prideful Lioness as well as the street out front, and it could not be clearer the bouncer was incensed that he hadn't yet been able to retrieve Casimir. Whether Laurette intended to try to press the boy back into her service the Beast didn't know, but he was determined to make the woman suffer if she tried. Whether that meant a mass resignation of his men or something a little more direct, he hadn't decided.

Only Denisius and Carala had spoken extensively, and even with pleasure, both of them marveling at each other's tales of the last six weeks. Denisius was alarmed at how thin the princess had gotten, though he supposed he ought not have been surprised, given the terrible nature of the road she'd taken by herself. More importantly, though, he was delighted to see how normal she looked. What he'd expected, he hadn't known. Perhaps some sort of wild wolf-woman, or a bloodthirsty creature whose eyes were always those of a wolf and whose teeth were fangs, maybe even a sultry temptress who would throw herself at him -- a female version of the werewolf Tacen who had so bewitched her in the first place. Instead the girl who had been overjoyed to see him was almost exactly the same one he remembered from that handful of arranged meetings for their courtship, not to mention the more numerous times they had encountered each other in the years before that. Carala did, however, look very somber, and how much of it was due to her condition and her journey, and how much was due to the terrible incident that had occurred earlier tonight, he had no idea.

"Gallowsport," she said now, hugging her knees to her chest. She had washed off the makeup as best she could -- the well in Ammas's garden wasn't well-suited for scrubbing cosmetics -- and she had wrapped herself in a blanket both for warmth and modesty. But Denisius couldn't quite get the image of her as she had appeared earlier tonight out of his head. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the bruises slowly surfacing on both sides of her face. After Poul had explained to them what had occurred in the Prideful Lioness, Vos had muttered to Denisius that in some commands he'd known, Cayle would have been lucky to escape with his fingers.

"It's not even that this Captain Thalia necessarily gives a damn about her city's whores," he'd confided to Denisius as they'd watched the guards haul one huge draped body and one small reeking basket out of the temple. "She might. I'd even say it's likely. But more important than that, she wants the city to think she does, and this idiot nearly wrecked that for her. Might as well tattoo MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF ME across his forehead."

Denisius smiled a little nervously and inched closer to Carala. The two of them were closer than Barthim or Vos were to anybody, but their distance still wasn't exactly intimate. For his own part, Denisius wasn't sure how much Carala really wanted him to touch her. He hadn't, after all, Ammas's training in how one might treat a werewolf. "What about Gallowsport?" he said. She had asked little about their excursion there, having spoken far more than she had listened.

After receiving the news of her mother, she hadn't been much interested in tidings from the capital, though she had been relieved to hear Sarai was safe. The things that had happened while she was in wolfshape, however, she had elided completely. Denisius hadn't noticed. Vos looked troubled but said little, though he did ask several times about the dates she was abroad. Never had he asked about the phases of the moons, but Carala could sense that lurking in his questions, and was grateful he didn't press the issue further.

"Why did you go there first? Whoever was helping Tacen certainly would not have wanted to provide a cure for me." Carala smiled a little as she saw Denisius edging toward her, but did not respond in kind. In the back of her mind she heard Ammas's scholarly if sympathetic discourse on the nature of werewolves and how their blood might be passed on, and she wasn't sure how to tell Denisius she wasn't fit to be his or any man's wife as long at the blood was in her. Either way, it made it difficult to be near him, knowing that he might slip an arm around her, or that in the dark of night as they waited for Ammas they might remember what was promised to them both and forget what she had become.

"I could explain our reasoning, if it's all right with your highness, and you, milord." Vos scraped his footstool a little closer to the fire. His face was pale and drawn, and Carala felt a pang of guilt every time she saw the marks Tacen had left on his face, not to mention what he had done to Denisius's other manservant. Maybe Barthim would scar as badly, but with his wild collection of tattoos it would probably be difficult to tell.

"I don't mind," Denisius said cheerfully. "I was happy to let you make the decisions, Vos. I suppose I've spent too much time in Coldspring Hall to know what I'm doing in the real world."

"Call it delegating, milord. It makes it sound more impressive."

"Very well," Denisius laughed. "I delegate to you the duty to tell the princess what took us to Gallowsport."

Vos smiled thinly, bowing his head. "No offense to members of your household, highness, but Lord Marhollow and I both suspect the Grand Chancellor knows more of these events than he's let on. His . . . contradiction of your father regarding cursewrights in Gallowsport made us wonder if there might be something to find there."

"That does sound like Varallo Thray," Carala said drily. "And Vos?" She blushed deeply. How he would take what she was thinking, she really didn't know. He didn't strike her as the sort to offer undue niceties to the nobility, no matter how high. "I must thank you for letting Deni handle things the way he did that night in the Maathinhold. No one could blame you -- if you -- if you had -- "

Vos shook his head. His expression was unreadable. "You lived. We found you. You're seeking a cure. That's all that matters, your highness. No more need be said about it."

Carala nodded, lowering her gaze, feeling a slight sting of tears. Discussing things that had happened while she had been in a wolfish shape had been bad enough with Ammas. Discussing them with men who had actually seen her that way; with a man whose first instinct had been to kill her, was far worse. And knowing her husband-to-be had seen her unclad body in wolfish fur before he saw her in their marriage bed raised a torrent of feelings that was difficult to describe. "Well, whatever you might have found there, I think it has worked out as well as possible. Ammas knows his trade, I think."

Denisius's smile was almost daffy. It broke Carala's heart a little, because she knew exactly what he was about to say, and she dreaded what his and Vos's reactions would be. "He can cure you, then?"

Carala shook her head. "He tried. He says it's a strain he doesn't know how to treat."

"Oh." Denisius's face crumpled. He didn't draw further away from her, though, nor did Vos, and she supposed that was something. "Well, no offense to this Mourthia, but are we sure he's what he claims to be? I mean, yes, the Munazyri seem convinced, but -- "

Barthim the Beast growled ominously. But it was Vos who answered.

"Ammas Mourthia had a reputation as a supremely skilled cursewright long before the dissolution, since he wasn't much more than a boy, in fact." Vos reached into his tunic and tugged out a fresh cigar, offering one to Denisius, who declined. "Werewolves were usually killed rather than cured -- no offense, highness -- but treating the sickness was well within their abilities. I doubt his abilities have declined in the last twenty years. If they had, he'd not have set up a business here. That Captain Thalia respects him. I doubt she'd respect a fraud. If Mourthia says the princess is infected with an unusual strain of the sickness, I'd lean toward believing him." Carala and Denisius exchanged an unhappy glance as Vos creaked over to the fire to light his cigar. Barthim stared silently into the flames. "Besides," Vos muttered as a wreath of pungent smoke drifted from his cigar, "it's not just the word of a fallen cursewright that makes me think such a thing."

"What do you mean?" Denisius frowned at him.

"A pack of werewolves following the princess, or laying in wait for her? I've not heard of such a thing outside of old songs and tavern fire tales. 'The Bride and the Moon,' my mother used to sing it to me when I was a boy. It's a fairy tale. And yet here it is, right before us."

After a moment Carala cleared her throat. "I would rather not be called 'princess,' or 'highness,' if it's all the same to you. I don't feel it suits me. And maybe it would be best not to let others hear such things, if these -- " She swallowed, not wanting to say these things like me. "If these creatures are really searching for me."

"Carala it is, then," Vos chuckled. "But you don't mind if I call milord 'milord?'"

"As if she could stop you," Denisius murmured.

Far back from the fire, the main doors of the temple squealed open. Vos drew his blade, and Denisius followed suit. Ammas had said not to expect him before morning, and whether this was a wolf who had snuck past the guardsman or another guard in the mold of Sergeant Cayle, no one knew.