"Have you given any further thought to what you will do if I cannot cure you?"

Carla frowned, looking down at her hands. "Some. I do not think I would choose to . . . to end myself, if that's what you are asking."

"Would you come to Munazyr with me, then?"

"Perhaps. The idea is more attractive than I supposed it would be."

"Is it," Ammas said, his voice peculiarly neutral. "And do you feel that -- attractiveness is wholly your own reaction to the notion?"

Carala looked at him curiously. "I am not sure what you mean by that." Ammas frowned.

"There is something I must confess to you, Carala, and I fear you will not be pleased with me." His fingers toyed with the hilt of his dagger, drawing it from its sheath and turning it over in his hands. Those gray eyes roamed from the blade to the bench and back again, but seemed incapable of looking at Carala. "It's not my inclination to tell you this, which I suppose is a failing. But Casimir was quite insistent I tell you, and -- he was convincing. And wholly in the right."

"Casimir is often both, I've noticed," Carala said with a warm smile. But her heart was beating too fast. If Ammas felt the need to confess something, it could not be good.

Another long silence fell. Somewhere in this empty house Carala could hear a thin trickle of water, and the pattering feet of mice. Ammas stared forlornly at the bench as he spoke, none too quickly. "Othma Sulivar had certain advice for me regarding you. That curing you might not be the best option. That I might -- bond you to me, as a sort of servant."

Carala stared at him. "You spoke to me once of ancient cursewrights, and how some of them partnered with were-creatures."

"Among other entities, but yes."

"And is this what that would have been?"

"It is."

Still she stared at him, unable to comprehend why Ammas would do something like this, or what it might really mean. At last she made an effort at explaining it, at least to herself. "She suggested this to you as a, a what, an alternative if you could not find the cure?"

"No," Ammas said softly. "She found it preferable to curing you at all, preferable to me risking myself for your cure."

To that she had no answer.

"There was more," Ammas said with the air of someone caught in the worst wrongdoing and having no choice but to admit to it. "She felt it would be an appropriate punishment for the things your father did to our brethren. To her grandson. To -- to my family."

"But I had nothing to do with that," she said in a small voice.

Ammas nodded. "I know this. She knows it. Othma didn't care. It seems I do."

Carala stared at him a long while, trying to grasp what such a bond would have done to her. "Is this something you could have forced on me?"

"Not forced it on you, no. But tricked you into it? Yes, that was in my power."

"Did you -- what steps did you take to create this bond?" She was having a hard time keeping her voice steady.

"I said no incantations, laid no enchantments," Ammas replied, studying his hands. "There are some I would have had to perform. All I did was let you roam when you changed that night in Vilais. That is something I might not otherwise have done, although it is an acceptable form of treatment if no cure is available. But it is a dangerous thing to do."

Carala, who remembered with crystal clarity how she had felt about her nighttime adventures, and particularly how she had felt about Ammas that night, simply sat bewildered. "Why -- why do you tell me this?"

"Because it was forbidden, and I will not keep it from you any longer. Because Casimir was right. The seer-magistrates, men and women like my father, decided it was abhorrent, that it was nothing but a form of slavery. It had mostly been used in situations like yours -- victims of ritual wolves who had no hope for a cure but who were worth saving, people condemned to the wolf's blood whose loved ones did not wish to see them destroyed." Ammas set his dagger aside, rubbing his eyes wearily. "And because Othma advised me if one did such a thing out of spite or hatred, it would not work. That sooner or later you would divine my true feelings and turn on me. And I have no assurance that I wouldn't be feeling those things. Your father -- the things he did -- "

"I know," Carala said, her voice choked and harsh. "There is no need to dredge them up again." She remembered how, for days after Vos's tale, she wondered if it had been an invention; if the fate of Senrich and Renelle Mourthia was nothing but a legend dreamed up by the soldiery. But she knew well enough that Ammas could not bear speaking of what had happened to his parents, and so she supposed if nothing else they must have suffered a worse fate than the rest of the arcane brethren.

Ammas nodded, at last looking at her. "I have come to . . . respect you far more than I ever thought I would. I do not know if I can cure you, I do not know if we will find this ritual wolf. A bond such as Othma suggested would be the surest way of keeping you safe, and I would much rather see it than see you throw yourself into a river. But I will not attempt it without your knowledge, or deny you if you choose -- that other path, rather than choose servitude to me."

Carala considered all he had said for a long while. "Is it really slavery?" she asked at last.

"I do not know," Ammas said with complete honesty. "I don't think anyone really understands the nature of those bonds anymore. It is similar to the bond I have with the Dead, or which Othma has with airy spirits, but those are not sentient creatures -- they are not people. The old stories suggest nobler arrangements than slavery. But as my father was fond of pointing out, no fellowship was more romanticized than the cursewrights."

Ammas shook his head, his bitter laugh echoing off the cobwebbed rafters. "Othma also said it would be necessary to kill Denisius, to impress the she-wolf inside you. I suppose once she said that I ought to have known how foolish it was."

Carala sat stunned. She remembered well the bitterness and rage Othma Sulivar had demonstrated, but something like this was almost beyond imagining. "I can tell you," Carala said in a trembling voice, "the she-wolf would not have been impressed."

"She sees you in a worse light than is true," Ammas said with the barest smile. "But Othma is in Autumnsgrove, far from here, and she is not the one sworn to you. You demanded I tell you everything about your condition, and so I do. The bond is an option. If it's one you wish to explore, I will do so. But let there be no more secrets between us, if you still want my assistance."

A small smile touched her lips. "Why do you feel such guilt, Ammas?"

Now it was his turn to be surprised. "You really need to ask me that? After hearing what I considered doing to you?"

"You considered it."

"I did."

"But you laid no enchantment on me."

"No, nothing worse than the stilling charm."

Her fingers lightly touched the charm at her throat. "And now you come to me, and give me an open choice, rather than lure me into something I do not understand."

Ammas's voice was as uncertain as she had ever heard, almost confused. "I suppose I do."

"So you are not Tacen. I wish you understood what a relief that is."

Ammas, who had never considered the similarity between Othma's advice and what the werewolf had done to Carala, had no response to that at all.

"Ammas," Carala said gently, sidling closer to him, a smile on her lips, "do you remember telling me, the night we met, that my guilt over something I had not done was useless?"

"I do," he murmured.

"Then let me tell you the same thing. You could have tricked me into this easily. But you did not. I -- " She paused, realizing she was about to admit she knew what had happened to Senrich and Renelle, but bit that off before she could go any further. "Before all this happened, I never believed all the things that were said of my father, and I knew -- yes, knew -- what a collection of traitors and charlatans your kind was. But I understand things better now, and the idea you would be tempted to punish my father in some way is no more surprising than the idea a she-wolf would be tempted to hunt an innocent child."

Ammas looked down at his hands. "My father would be ashamed of me."

"I never knew him, so I cannot say," she said with a touch of dryness. "But I think you have nothing to be ashamed of. Of course, my perspective is hardly a fair one."