Ammas loved his bedroom at Shattercrown. The view here was so much nicer than the dingy streets of Gallowsport and the dirty gray waters of Hangman's Harbor. Here he could see the Azure Sea, as dreamily blue as its name. Every morning he awoke to glorious sunrises. Uncle Gratham and Aunt Hyrsith insisted on maintaining the best guest quarters here for Senrich and his family, and Ammas suspected either his aunt or his uncle or both were responsible for the new toys and -- when he was older -- fascinating books he found tucked into the strangest places here.

But this wasn't so pleasant a visit; he had just finished his first year of study at Sailor's Crown and he was due to be sent off to a short apprenticeship. Only a week before he was set to meet his new master he had come down with a terrible fever; something he had eaten, Uncle Gratham thought. He felt guilty; his mother rarely got to visit Losris Nadak, and here she was sponging his forehead off as he lay stricken in bed instead of enjoying the hiking paths and mountain vistas and wondrous views of the sea.

He opened his eyes, blinking. No room in Shattercrown was this dark, and the sunrise outside his window was no seaborne beauty. And he never remembered his mother being this young, or her hair being anywhere near so dark. Come to think of it, he could never recollect his mother wearing any perfume at all, certainly not the strangely pleasant forest scent that drifted toward his nostrils now.

After a moment, those wisps of half-memories began to dissolve, replaced by a colder reality. The anxious face at his bedside belonged not to his mother, but to the Princess Carala Deyn.

"Thank the gods," she breathed. "You're awake."

"I am," he said, agreeably if thickly. "Did everyone make it out? Where is Casimir?"

Carala tilted her head toward a corner of the room, which Ammas slowly realized he had never seen before. Somewhere in the abandoned monastery, he supposed. In the corner Casimir was curled up on a bedroll, fast asleep. The cursewright's hat rested on his head. "He insisted on wearing it," Carala said apologetically.

But Ammas was smiling softly. "It can't hurt him, at least. There are worse things for him to be meddling with." Slowly he began to sit up, before realizing two things. First, the hand that Carala had clawed when nearly in her wolfshape was well-bandaged. Second, under the thin blankets he was, amazingly, unclad. Raising an eyebrow he peered at Carala, who blushed. There was a pile of black fabric in her lap he recognized as his own robes. A bundle sat at the foot of the narrow bed, which he guessed held the work clothing he wore beneath the robes. "I suppose this makes us even," he said archly, drawing the blankets up a little higher.

Carala was as red as he'd yet seen her. "Everyone's clothes stank of sulfur." She pointed to her own robes, which he saw now were a different shade of blue than the ones she had found at the Lioness. Presumably Barthim had helped her pick out a few changes of clothes for the journey. "Sulfur and other things. We thought it might be dangerous not to launder them. And yours were torn from those things. I thought I might mend them."

Ammas stared at her blankly. Her blush deepened even further but she did not drop her eyes. "No one's darned my clothing other than me in years," he said at last with a smile. "I just hope Barthim was here to guard my propriety."

"You've nothing I haven't seen before, Master Cursewright," Amazingly she laughed. He wondered if she had ever laughed at any memory connected to Tacen, however tenuously. The laughter faded after a moment. "Are you ill? No one knew what happened to you. Casimir was frantic."

He sighed and laid back, rubbing his hands over his eyes. The spirit salve had faded of its own accord, as it tended to do over time. "When I must, I can summon up certain entities for aid. But it's very draining, and I've had to do it twice in a short time. And I had to call a great many of them under the city." Ammas rose to his elbows, mindful of the blanket, and peered out the window. Beyond its unglazed arch he could make out the grove of trees they had seen upon exiting the crypt and the low, humped waves of the Chalk Hills. "How much time has passed?"

"Less than a day. Denisius's timepiece said it was around eight when we broke through. When I came up here it was five in the morning. We've been taking turns watching you. Casimir never left."

"Up here?"

"The others are down below in an old stable. This was the first cell we found with a bed in it. Barthim carried you. He was beside himself."

"That I'd have to see to believe."

Carala smiled again. "It was quite a sight."

"Who bandaged my hand?"

"Vos started it, I finished. I thought it was something more than just he should know. And -- and I felt guilty."

Carala was blushing again, but this time it had nothing to do with Ammas's state of undress. Vos had looked askance at her as he had doctored the marks on the cursewright's hand, murmuring to her, "I never realized skeleton fingers left marks that looked so much like wolf claws."

"If all you have to offer is sly remarks, then be silent. He helped me control myself," she had retorted, glaring angrily at Denisius's servant.

"He did. I am very grateful to him." Vos's face had been totally unreadable. But whatever his feelings toward her and her condition might have been, he showed her how to bandage Ammas's hand without complaint, patiently showing her how to clean and bind the wounds.

Ammas frowned at her. "You've nothing to feel guilty about. You've shown a tremendous amount of self-control."

"It does not feel that way, Ammas."

"When I was a boy in Gallowsport, I would befriend the stray cats that liked to wander outside our house." Carala cocked her head to one side, a half-amused smile on her lips. Ammas returned it, leaning on one elbow. "My mother fed them, no matter how much my father complained about it. One in particular -- the runt of his litter, I'm sure, a little black-and-white fellow -- took to me, and until I left for my schooling he was usually at my heel. It rains a lot in Gallowsport, and one morning I heard cries in the courtyard: a cat, my little friend, stuck in a rain barrel. I suppose he had climbed up to take a drink and had fallen in. I was able to fish him out, but he was so terrified he clawed my forearms to ribbons. There was no malice in him at all. He was the gentlest animal I ever knew. But in his terror . . . well, I think you can imagine. You -- and the wolf inside you -- confronted a far greater terror than a barrel of rainwater."

"So I'm but a stray cat terrified of water?" Still she smiled, ruefully now.

"I didn't quite mean that. Though it may be better than the alternative."

Carala nodded, her hands restlessly seining through the rumpled black fabric in her lap. "Ammas, when we were down there -- when I had begun to change -- "

"I was treating you as my client," he said shortly. But he couldn't quite meet her eyes.

With a shy smile she passed the robes to Ammas. "Then I thank you for your aid. With luck we will not need it again."

"With luck," Ammas agreed, still not quite looking at her. Privately he doubted they would find an effective cure before the white moon forced the issue. That was something, he supposed, they would deal with when it became necessary. For all he knew, Othma Sulivar had rows upon rows of brews that would purge the wolf from Carala's spirit. "How are the others?"

"Restless. None of us were sure what we might do if -- if you did not recover. Vos thinks he knows the way to Autumnsgrove, but he's sure it's nothing more than a ruin. He thinks it might be dangerous without someone from one of the old fellowships."

Ammas, who knew entirely too much about Othma Sulivar's feelings toward the House of Deyn or any noble house allied to the Malachite Throne, only nodded.

"Other than that, all right, I suppose. A bit on edge from what we saw under Munazyr." Carala shook her head. "Denisius took sick a little while ago. He fought so bravely, too."

"It could be delayed shock. I don't know how much battle Lord Marhollow has seen." Ammas frowned. "Took sick how?"

"His stomach, mostly. He insists it's just nerves. I think he did not want me to see it."

Ammas stared at her. When he spoke, there was an edge to his voice that made the hairs on the back of Carala's neck stand to. "Does he have blisters?"

"He did have some burns on his hand -- "

Heedless of his undress, Ammas sprang up from the bed, only at the last moment thinking to wrap the blanket around his waist. "Wake Casimir," he said, "and wait for me outside. I need to examine Denisius immediately."

"Why?" Carala demanded, alarmed. "What's the matter with him?"

"Possibly nothing." Ammas rushed past her and knelt at Casimir's side, shaking the boy's shoulder lightly with his bandaged hand. "Up, lad. Come on. Go with Carala to Lord Marhollow. I'll be with you in just a few minutes."

Casimir blinked, rubbing his eyes as he sat up, Ammas's hat jingling. The cursewright swept the hat from his apprentice's head with a wry smile. "Thank you for keeping this safe for me."

"You're welcome," grinned Casimir. "I didn't know you were awake, Ammas. Are you well?"

"Better than some. If Barthim is sleeping, wake him up. Tell him it's his turn to brew the tea, and do not take no for an answer. Go on." Ammas stood up, looking completely absurd in his blanket and with his hat in one hand. "Carala, if you'd give me a little privacy?"

"Come, milady," Casimir said, taking Carala's hand. "Let's see if there's still some fruit for the morning waybread."

She followed willingly enough, but threw Ammas a worried look before the door closed behind her. Ammas sighed and let the blanket drop to the floor, rummaging through the bundle at the foot of the old monk's bed, relieved to find that the various pouches and cases tied to his belt had not been meddled with.