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  "Lenthard?"

  "Mmm?"

  "I think you may, perhaps, be correct about my losing consciousness."

  "You feel faint?" She grasped his arm.

  "I can barely keep my eyes open." He said this evenly enough, but his voice was hollow.

  "This cold isn't helping any."

  "No." His voice was breathy. "Lenthard?"

  "Yes?"

  "I don't want to die."

  "No." Ash faltered, unable to find something more substantial to say on the subject. She didn't want to die. She'd never felt less inclined to die in her life. "I can't think of anything else to try."

  "I can try following the feeding stream out – should have tried that sooner."

  "If you can fit through whatever opening there is at the bottom of this shaft. If it stays wide enough for you. If it doesn't take you directly into the Milk." She shivered, and shifted her grip on him, taking his hand. "It would be even worse, trapped down there, beneath all that weight of rock, unable to go any further, unable to turn back. Horrible."

  "Quicker."

  "Quicker doesn't fit with not wanting to die, does it? It must be long past sunset by now. They'll be searching for both of us."

  "They'll think I killed you and fled."

  The weary matter-of-factness of his words made her wince. And it was true. Lauren Carlyon, perfect first seruilis, son of a monster. No matter what he did, no matter how many hard-earned honours he won, suspicion would fall on him at the first opportunity.

  "Only people who don't know you," Ash offered, which was a very feeble response indeed. "I, uh–"

  "You flinched the moment you heard my name," he pointed out. "Was that simply at the Rhoimarch's bogeyman, or had my father directly harmed you?"

  Strongly suspecting that the last thing Carlyon needed right now was an announcement that she was his nearly-stepmother, Ash briefly repeated the same half-truth she'd told Heran. Carlyon listened without comment, then said:

  "I loved my father."

  A black, bitter announcement, filling Ash with dismay. She could hear in the words Carlyon's need to speak, but this was not a conversation she wanted to have.

  "He was everything that a father should be. Strong and wise and accomplished. Never, not once, did he raise his voice to me. His punishments were always fair, designed to make me understand the error of my ways. He spent time with me, taught me to understand the Balance, to defend myself, to believe in honour. I worshipped him."

  "You don't have to tell me this."

  "Don't I?" he asked, then added, just audibly: "Who else can I tell it to?"

  "I – you–" Ash grimaced. She'd known that she didn't really want to see behind the perfect first seruilis mask. Holding hands with Lauren Carlyon in the dark, waiting for death or rescue, and talking about the man who frightened her most. But she didn't let go, and eventually the words began again.

  "I spent most of my early life out at Morncriffe, was due to start attending the Mern after my thirteenth birthday. It had been a strange few weeks leading up to that, because Father had abruptly married a girl my own age, who had immediately been killed in a fire. I couldn't understand it, and Eman, the only person who I could bring myself to ask, would only say that it was better not to talk about it. And then word arrived that Father had died.

  "We went into Luinhall immediately. The day I arrived one of the servants, a woman who had never even spoken to me before, took great pleasure in destroying my father's memory for me. She said, oh, the most monstrous things about him and called me a fool when I didn't believe her. She told me he'd beaten my mother to death."

  "Lauren..."

  "I–" His hand tightened on hers. "I still didn't believe it of him. Wouldn't. Shut my eyes to the strange expressions, refused to hear the whispers. Then, his funeral."

  Ash grit her teeth with the effort of not pulling her hand away, her abused fingers firing back to agony. But now would be a terrible moment to flinch from him again.

  "After that, when it was impossible not to face, Eman confirmed every story, and added...too many of his own. He'd gone through the same childhood, but Eman had been privileged to discover the truth through observation of the man himself, and cannot bear to have him mentioned. Our father, who I'd longed to emulate, and who I now spend all my energy trying not to become."

  "Why would you–?"

  The faint metallic scraping that interrupted might as well be the explosion of one of the chancy new flintlocks. Ash certainly jerked as if shot. She stared upward, gasping as a grey half-circle appeared.

  "Hallo!" She screamed it, even as it occurred to her that it might be Frog, come back to check. "DOWN HERE!"

  "Ash?"

  Barely audible, but Ash still managed to recognise the voice.

  "Cassia?! Cassia! Thank Luin! Lower the bucket! Oh, Sun." She was going to cry, at the stupidest moment.

  "...all right?"

  "Yes! The bucket! THE BUCKET!"

  "...moment."

  The head disappeared, and the circle opened up fully.

  "Cassia?" Lauren's voice was hoarse, choked by shock and emotion.

  "Laundry maid. Astenar incarnate. I'm going to have to think up something really nice to do for her."

  A little cough of laughter, and then Lauren took a deep breath and seemed to forcibly summon back his usual first seruilis self. "But how did she find us?"

  "Who cares? I'll ask when we get out of this pit. Oh, Luin's Heart, I didn't really believe we would."

  "I don't think I shall until I'm standing on something solid."

  A squeaking noise was all the warning they had before the bucket free fell toward them. It struck Ash painfully on her shoulder, enough to bruise, but not to make her sorry.

  "...get help..." drifted down.

  Ash called an encouraging response, but it looked like Cassia had already departed, so Ash pulled out some slack, and looped the rope, bucket and all, under Lauren's arms.

  "I was thinking I'd just climb right out," she said. "But my hands and feet feel like soggy dough. Could you manage?"

  "Possibly," Lauren replied, but didn't need to test his ability as rescue came with rope ladders, and extra lines to twist into harnesses, taking their weight as they climbed. Ash sent Lauren first, but quickly followed, and found herself hauled up the last few rungs by Investigator Verel.

  "Investigator," she said. "You are beautifully warm."

  Her legs trying to give out beneath her, Ash gave a moment's attention to the inordinately large number of people in the room. Guards mainly, and a couple of Godskeeps. She found Carlyon sitting on the floor, leaning against the well, a Guardsman examining a bruised and swollen lump decorating one temple.

  Business first, Ash hung a moment on Investigator Verel's arm. "It was Frog," she said, in a terse undertone. "Athan Vicardie. Laid a trap for Lauren and tossed me in after."

  The Investigator responded with a blanket and a nod, handing Ash off to another Guard. Ash was finding it difficult to stand, her bare feet swollen and painful, but that did not stop her from searching out Cassia and soaking her with a well-earned hug.

  "How did you find us, you wonderful creature?"

  "I followed you," Cassia admitted, a blush competing with a beaming smile. "At least to the Gods' Hall. You were acting so oddly. When I heard the Guard were searching for you, I came to check." She produced a shining slip of metal. "Is this yours?"

  Ash laughed in pure delight, picturing Cassia following her as she followed Carlyon as he followed Frog. Then she had to sit down.

  After inspecting her tender feet, she smiled at Cassia. "I don't suppose I could impose on you for a pair of soft shoes?"

  "I'll fetch some," Cassia promised, and dashed off as Ash's trailing Guard minder produced a jar of what smelled like semaileon, and set fire to Ash's fingers and toes by rubbing it into the skin.

  "That's one way to wake me up," Ash gasped, trying not to writhe away. Strangely, being out of the water seemed to be
robbing her of her remaining warmth. She used the blanket to dry herself as much as possible, then frowned around at the crowded room.

  "I still don't see how he managed to get behind me," she said, as the Master of the Mern arrived, with Thornaster at his elbow. "I made certain there was no-one else in the room before I went anywhere near."

  Thornaster smiled with relief at the sight of her, then checked, his attention shifting to the well.

  "What is this place?"

  "Former Well of the Heart," Ash said through chattering teeth. "Not used for that since the Breaking."

  Her Visel's openly shocked expression, hastily suppressed, told Ash that fact was no small matter, and she decided not to make several pointed remarks she'd saved up on the sheer pointlessness of putting bolts on wells, and whether the Godskeeps had thought something was going to come climbing out.

  Perhaps they had.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  One advantage of having few answers was that detailed discussion could be put off in favour of getting warm and dry. Two Guards linked arms and carried Ash off in style, only pausing to accept some slippers from Cassia. Thornaster caught them up just before they reached his quarters, and Ash suspected at least one of them would be spending the night uselessly guarding the corridor outside, even though she'd only wandered into the mess by accident.

  "Can you manage your clothes?" Thornaster asked, pulling her nightshirt and her thickest socks from a chest.

  Ash murmured vague assent, and fumbled her way through the change, listening to voices in the receiving room. Thornaster returned briefly with a glass and a plate. The plate held pastries stuffed with fruit and goat's cheese, which Ash inhaled, but she hesitated over the glass. Brandy. Another bout of shivering decided her, and she gulped it down. Liquid heat.

  "Frog will run," she said when Thornaster appeared again. "With Lauren still alive, he can't do anything else."

  "He won't get far." Thornaster sat beside her on the end of the bed and dropped a drying sheet over her head. "Here – a family party trick." The sheet grew abruptly warmer, and Thornaster made quick work of drying her hair.

  "Was the well...wrong?" Ash asked, through the muffling cloth. "What would have happened if we'd died there?"

  "Montmoth would have been pulled further out of Balance. That place – it's not the centre of corruption, but I suspect it was the weakness which allowed Karaelsur entry here in the first place. Two Wells of the Heart! And Arun didn't even think to mention it!

  "How long were we down there?"

  "It's around a decem from midnight."

  "Really? It felt longer." She sighed. "Well, at least I learned how to swim. I'll have to try that again, somewhere brighter and warmer."

  He laughed, a helpless sputter. "You would transform this into a positive experience, stripling."

  Ash glanced at him over her shoulder. "I thought you weren't going to call me that any more."

  "I was going to do a great many things. Take my share of the heroics so this hunt took less of a toll on you. Not declare myself until you were safely in the charge of my mother."

  What happened next hardly felt real. Two warm arms, sliding around her as her Aremish Visel drew her against his chest. Breath tickling her ear when he curled down to press his cheek to hers. He couldn't be doing exactly what she wanted him to do. But the sensation of being held didn't go away. It was not a hallucination.

  Disbelief turning to delight, Ash promptly leaned back and started enjoying herself.

  "I don't know that I'd call being tipped down a well heroic."

  "Yes, truly careless." His arms tightened. "Ash, I – oh, Sun, this is the worst time to have this conversation."

  "Not from where I'm sitting."

  "Perhaps, but proposing to exhausted girls I've just dosed with brandy is not precisely the kind of behaviour I'd care to boast of. We'll finish this in the morning."

  He pressed his lips to the top of her head, then let her go and stood, moving to pull down the bed's coverlet.

  "No arguments."

  "Very optimistic of you," Ash said, but clambered beneath the sheets and let him tuck her in before adding: "You thought you'd manage to get me all the way to Aremal without me declaring myself?"

  This produced an expression that stole Ash's breath and left them staring at each other. Thornaster managed a shaky smile, and said: "Ambitious of me, admittedly. Goodnight, stripling."

  The last thing Ash wanted to do after that was sleep, but there was little choice. She dreamed, inevitably, of falling, and then of trying to hold the lid of a well shut, as something tried to push its way out, and she thought she could hear her own voice crying out through the metal.

  ooOoo

  Waking to sunlight, Ash found Thornaster asleep in a chair beside the bed. He was freshly dressed and shaved, and a breakfast tray sat on the table by the window, so she guessed he'd been up all night and had not quite managed to push on through the morning.

  How long had it been since she'd last thought herself in love? Seventeen and fascinated by Melar, working herself up to tell him her secrets until she'd realised the depth of his interest in Larkin. Brief spurts of attraction over the years, never solid enough for her to chafe more than a little at the confines of her deception. And then this man, with his inclination to levity, quick intelligence, and that shining dark hair that had once again fallen over his eyes. The idea that she could be free to smooth it back filled her with wonder.

  He'd tired himself enough to not wake when she slid out of the bed, or even when she collected clean clothes and took herself off to another room to dress. Refreshed, she returned and sat on the bed to eat breakfast and contemplate a hasty marriage.

  Beneath her fizzing delight Ash discovered a strange reluctance. It was not that she didn't want him. But there was a league or two of difference between pretending to be Thornaster's seruilis, and tying their lives together. He might start believing she should do what he said, or smother her with unnecessary caution. But, no – even when he'd thought her nearly a child, he'd accepted sense. A more significant factor would be his family – and all Aremal – which would likely have opinions about sudden marriages. That was daunting on one level, but not something she could treat as a real hurdle without admitting to a shameful level of cowardice.

  Ash looked down at her hand, remembering a night too many years ago: how she'd tried to break free, had fought and struggled with all her strength. There was no similarity in the situation at all, but she realised the source of her hesitation. Fear.

  Hateful how nightmares of Eward Carlyon still had the power to bind her. If she could set them aside, was there any doubt that Thornaster suited her, that all she needed was for him to wake up and ask his question? Though it seemed to her that a proposal was unnecessary. He'd made his intentions clear.

  Sliding from the bed, she padded slowly up to him. For all her confidence, her heart started pounding, and her hand shook as she lifted it, but still she smoothed back his hair, and waited for the moment of sleep-born surprise to pass, and his eyes to focus on her. And then she said: "Yes."

  Perhaps Thornaster's best feature – besides the horses – was his ready comprehension, which meant that he dispensed with unnecessary questions, any tiresome delays, and simply swept her into his lap and kissed her.

  Perhaps he'd been drinking mead, for the taste of him was sweet fire, and Ash burned up, intent on nothing else but making him hers. Any lingering qualms could be brushed aside, and even the reason she was so successfully 'Ash Lenthard' cast no shadows. While taking off her clothes certainly didn't make her face or figure less boyish, the intensity of Thornaster's reaction made clear that he found no deficit.

  They didn't waste breath on words until long after, when Thornaster sighed breathily, linked fingers with hers, and murmured: "Home."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Something my father would say. He and my mother were pushed toward each other by a great many people who thought the
y were an appropriate match, so of course they resisted. But my father realised that whenever he was with my mother, he felt like he could most truly be himself." He lifted her hand, examining the scrapes left by her attempts to escape the well. "I don't think I'll ever again feel at home, unless you're there."

  This effectively ended the conversation as soon as they'd started it, but the ninth ardeca bell reminded them of the world outside.

  "Arun is expecting us at midday."

  "They didn't catch Frog, did they?" He would have told her if there'd been news.

  "No. The Setsel's entire immediate family was gone by the time the Guard arrived. The servants and remaining relatives have admitted no knowledge. Someone is likely sheltering them, but that investigation is only beginning."

  "I'm so angry with him," Ash said. "Which is a stupid thing to say about someone who just tried to kill you, but I never imagined him to be the sort of person who would sacrifice people's souls for his ambitions."

  Thornaster touched the long line of scar tissue down her arm. "I've met the whole of the Vicardie family – none of them bore the corruption I've been sensing. The capture of the Vicardies is unlikely to end this."

  "So you'll keep up your walking tour of the city?"

  "Possibly. I first need to do what I can about this second Well of the Heart." A slow smile lightened his expression. "If, that is, I can bring myself to get out of bed. Arun suggested that if I was going to try to marry you out of hand, we should start by telling each other our real names. I'm most curious as to why he knows yours."

  "Kiri. I guess she talked about me, back when they were engaged."

  Thornaster's eyebrows lifted, but then he frowned. "Was Arun engaged when he came to Aremal?"

  "He – well, Kiri thinks he broke it off with her for the way she kissed him goodbye. Which is...I presume Aremal improved our Rhoi enormously, but I'm still inclined to black his eye for the line of reasoning which must have led to that."