Cassandra

XII. Talebarer

Castle Whitestone, nearly two years later.
"That's good. Very good." Lady Briarwood said smiling, and she took my hand as she spoke, tracing the lines across my palm for the thousandth time. "You learn so quickly! It amazes me how far you've already come..."
    "It's because you're such a good teacher." I said humbly.
    "It's because you have such long fingers." She retorted admiringly, running her hand over them while she spoke. "Fingers like these were made to play."
    I sat silent next to her, half shrinkingly allowing her to hold my hand. The trace of her fingers felt warm across my skin, swirling over the palm in familiar pattens, and I relaxed under their influence. A seed of warmth flickered deep in my chest, pulling me to the center of myself. I could have let her do this forever...
    "Lets try again," Lady Briarwood said, releasing my hand suddenly, and turning back to the piano as if recalling herself. "And let your fingers to the work. Music is meant to be felt, not thought."
    Obediently I rested my hands on the keys, feeling the smooth polished ivory under my fingertips. At Delilah's signal I began to play, almost painfully aware of my fingers, of the flexing of tiny muscles in the back of my hand. I tried to relax myself, and let my fingers do what ever they wanted. In my technical execution I was much improved, I could play the piece absolutely perfectly, but there was something deeper that I couldn't reach. At most times it didn't matter, with new pieces Lady Delilah forgave small mistakes, but when I knew the song perfectly there was something she wanted that I couldn't capture. I could feel myself grasping now, searching for something I couldn't place.
    As always happened when I was playing incorrectly, Lady Briarwood's hands began to twitch restlessly, as if she were longing to take possession of my hands and play through them. Then her index finger half unconsciously touched one of the keys, her hands gradually took over, and soon she was accompanying me. Slowly I slackened off, until Lady Briarwood was playing alone, watching her fingers ripple across the keys.
    Undoubtedly she was a far more accomplished player than myself. Her hands almost had a mind of their own, and the dexterity with which she played was mesmerizing. But there was something in her position, in the half unconscious dance of her fingers, in the sound of the music, that was almost alive. She could effortlessly command a depth of emotion that was completely beyond me.
    At the hight of the song Lady Briarwood stopped, the last notes trailing away into silence. Silence like a thick vapor replaced it. Lost in thought she sat, her breathing slightly agitated, fingers still poised on the keys. I knew better that to disturb her, to try would have been totally useless, she was not even aware of me.
    "That is enough for today..." Delilah said a last, drawing in a deep breath, and pulling her hands away.
    There was a shadow in her voice, as imperceptible as a change in temperature, but still felt just as strongly, and I shrank away from the piano, feeling that I'd disappointed her. I stood up to leave the piano bench and retreat to one of the window seats, but Lady Briarwood stopped me, her hand flying to my arm and holding me back.
    "Sit down, my dear. I forget that you are not a seasoned player...It is too much to ask for you to play like one yet." She said, pulling me back into my seat. Once again her hand had sought out mine, and her fingers were tracing their familiar patterns. "I have something for you. You just turned twenty one did you not?"
    "I didn't know you knew my birthday..."
    "My dear, I used to know everything about your family." She suddenly released my hand, rising and going to her work basket. After turning over the squares of fabric, embroidery wheels, and skeins of thread, she returned with a small package wrapped in tissue paper. Settling herself on the bench, she pressed it into my hands.
    "A bit of a birthday gift." She said as I began to open it. "The fates decided that Silas and I were never to have any children, so now I can give it to you..."
    Inside the tissue paper was a necklace of gold, with a small red teardrop shaped pendant. It was very plain, but at the same time beautiful, the chain glittering like a delicate golden thread wrapped around my fingers...
    "Thank you..." I whispered haltingly, feeling the chain with my fingers.
    "I meant to give it to my daughter, when she came of age." Delilah murmured. "You would have been very like her. When I first saw you running down the stairs, I thought you reminded me of her. She would have been your age...and you had her eyes..." For a moment she fell silent, her eyes distant, clearly lost in her own thoughts, and when she spoke again her voice was contemplative, her reflection turned inward. "But that was a long time ago, before I made my choice...The Whispered One hadn't spoken then..."
    Her voice trailed away, her eyes looking through the necklace in my hands to an image I couldn't see. My curiosity was peaked, and I waited with shallow breath for her to say more, eager to hear the rest. I itched to know the meaning of this riddle. But no answer came, she was silent, lost in her own deeply buried secrets.
    "My lady..." I said, recalling her eyes to my face.
    "Yes dear?" She replied with a faint start, a smile flitting across her face, as her attention came back to me.
    "Who is the Whispered One?" I asked hesitantly, half shrinking away from the question. "I've heard you and Lord Briarwood speak of him before, who is he?"
    Delilah squeezed my hand convulsively, going very white, all expression vanishing from her face. I felt an apology dancing on the tip of my tongue, and I shrank away, suddenly terrified. Before I could say anything Lady Delilah thrust me away from her, throwing me to the floor, sending a jab of pain through me as I hit the ground.
    "You shouldn't ask me something like that." She murmured, her eyes completely dead.
    A sharp pain stabbed through the back of my skull, as something seizing me by the hair. Strong arms jerked me into the air, throwing me across the room, and I collided with a sharp piece of furniture. Before I could struggle to my feet, the familiar stench of death enveloped me, making me gag, and a blunt force cracked across the side of my face.
    "That's enough." Lady Briarwood said at last. "Bring her to me."
    I could taste blood in my mouth, and the right side of my bottom lip was torn, the bruised flesh boiling hot against my tongue as I probed it. Weakly I tried to struggle to my feet, but my shaking limbs felt too unsteady to support me, and I was too weak to stand. My chest hurt with even the shallowest breath. Everything hurt.
    Cold hands seized me, raising me by the arms, and a hand muzzled my mouth. The skin pressed into my mouth was clammy, the flesh underneath soft and rotten, and a bitter putrid taste filled my mouth. I struggled to break away, bile rising in the back of my throat as the taste of spoiled meat spread across my tongue.
    "Look at me." Lady Briarwood commanded, and I unwillingly met her eyes, the two undead servants forcing my head back. She was very white, her face a cold mask, chiseled out of white marble. She bent down, and retrieved the necklace she had given me from where it had fallen on the floor, the teardrop shaped crystal looking like a drop of blood against her skin. I choked on a sob, rent in half by my own devotion to her.
    "I hope you will learn from this punishment." Delilah said, a flicker of pity coming into her expressionless eyes, and gently she touched the side of my face. "I can find it within me to forgive you...but I forbid you to ever ask me such a question ever again..."
    I nodded dumbly, and her face became cold again, as she withdrew her hand.
    "Take her away," She said to one of the servants, "And lock her in one of the dungeons for the night."
    Exhausted I bowed my head. Offering no resistance, making no protest as I was dragged from the room. The warm coppery taste of blood lingered in my mouth, one side of my face inflamed across the cheekbone and throbbing, aching pain prickling across my shoulders. Every lurching step of my captors down the dungeon stairs jarred me uncomfortably, sending another sting of pain across my back.
    Roughly I was thrown into one of the cells near the stairs, coming to rest with my face pressed against the straw that covered the ground, and I heard the cell door clang behind me, locking me in. Memory hissed in the shadows, my mouth tinged with the blood. I shivered, and curled up in the corner with my head buried in my knees, as far as possible from both the cell next to mine, and the chains where I had found my brother.
    It was cold, and I gathered closer into myself, trying to trap in my fleeting body heat. The torch that had been set into the wall the last time I came down here, when I deceived Geru and the men, was not burning now. After the two dead servants shambled out, I was left in utter blackness, and only memory gave me any idea of the dimensions of the space I was trapped in. I could fill the blindness with the shapes that I knew where there, but I could not see them.
    "Psst. Hey, you!"
    I jumped as a strange voice broke the silence, retreating deeper into my corner, as if I could make myself disappear into the wall.
    "Psst," The voice hissed again. Still I made no answer, huddling silent in the darkness, and after a moment the voice added. "Speak up, I know you're there. I want to talk to you."
    It was a man's voice, not particularly unpleasant, or threatening. He sounded friendly, and spoke quietly. But he didn't seem to fear being overheard, as if experience had taught him that nobody was close enough to hear us. The inflection of his words was just slightly different than the speech of anyone I'd ever met here, the consonants more clearly pronounced, in the same way that Anna Ripley's voice had a subtle deviance.
    The total darkness made it difficult to judge distance accurately. But he didn't sound as if he were that close to me, and I guessed that he was probably farther away than I'd first thought. There was a slight muffle, and echo, that told me he was at the other end of the dungeon at least, if not all the way in the other cell block. But the silence of the dungeon, as well as the reverberation of the stone walls, helped to carry sound farther.
    "Who are you?" I whispered at last, shrinking fearfully as I realized how loud even that sounded in the silence. No answer came, and a long silence fell before the stranger spoke again.
    "They call me Talebearer." He said at last, his voice guarded, calculating.
    "You're not from here Talebearer." I whispered. It wasn't a question.
    "No I'm not." He assented.
    "What are you doing down here?" I murmured, half afraid to break the silence that had fallen, intrigued, but frightened by his guarded answers.
    "That business is my own." He answered shortly. "My reason for coming here has no concern with you, it is my own knowledge, and belongs to no one else."
    He seemed angry at my questions, and I recoiled meekly, afraid that I'd offended him.
    "I'm sorry..." I whispered, huddling down into myself, and falling silent.
    "Don't be, I didn't mean to be harsh, but I'm a suspicious man." He said, a little testily, I thought. "I came to listen, and see what there is to be seen. But seeing is a dangerous business, and eyes are unwelcome in secret places, so here I am. If I judge correctly, there were some secret places I saw here, that the rulers of this castle would rather not have me divulge to others."
    He had still chosen his words carefully, with the same guarded calculation that had been in his voice when he told me his 'name.' For now, it was enough of an answer to satisfy me, and I sensed that this was not a man who took questions kindly. We were both here, united by the fact that there was no one else to talk to, and that companionship contented me.
    "What about you?" He asked at last, goaded into speech by the absence of anything else to amuse himself with, other than conversation with me. I was the only diversion that presented itself. "My crime was seeing what was meant to be hidden, what did you do to deserve a bed down here?"
    "I asked questions." I said broodingly, recalling the event bringing my distress back to my mind, and the bruise on my cheek tingled uncomfortably as I remembered it. "Questions get you in trouble, I should have known better than to ask, questions always hurt. But I ask anyway. I always do..."
    My head dropped back to my knees, exhausted by remembering. Every bone of my body ached, my cheek throbbed painfully, and my mind felt chilled and heavy. I was tired of speaking.
    "Whats your name kid?" Talebearer asked, his voice much more gentle, and somehow more open, than before.
    "Cassandra..."
    "Well listen kid, I've asked a lot of questions in my time, and let me tell you, it's worse when you don't ask. Questions keep us alive. Keep them to yourself, don't share them with anybody, but don't for the love of god, stop asking. That's what I do: I ask, and my eyes give me an answer."
    "You sound like a dangerous man Talebearer." I whispered, a smile drawn out of me in spite of myself.
    "For anyone trying to keep secrets, I'm a nightmare. I see what I see."
    I laughed, I couldn't help it. He frightened me. Not only in his foreign speech, but in his alien attitude, this outlook of blatant interference. I was half intrigued, half repulsed, by his irreverence. And I had more questions. They burned at the tip of my tongue.
    "What are you thinking kid?"
    "Where did you come from?" I whispered, eager to finally ask my questions, now that he had invited me. "I've never met anyone like you..."
    "I'm from Emon, it's a big city far southwest of here."
    "I know where it is." I said thoughtfully. Father used to speak occasionally of Emon, mostly in passing, and not as a place that had any real influence in our affairs. But I knew enough to remember that it was a coastal city, and that the royal family of Tal'dorei had their seat there. What a man, spy really, from Emon could be doing here, I had no idea. But Talebearer seemed to anticipate my question.
    "There are eyes watching Whitestone, more than you'd think, even though it's remote, and not everybody is satisfied with what they see. Something isn't being told, and I was sent here to listen. Listen, and watch, and put a light into dark places."
    "But who sent you?" I asked.
    "My superior sent me." Talebearer said, and for the first time, I sensed strong feeling in his voice. It was a feeling I recognized, for I felt a rush of sympathy as I heard it. It was devotion. Clearly Talebearer looked up to this man, admired him, was proud to serve him.
    "He's a man of many secrets, and he has eyes everywhere. The authorities of this city keep strangely distant, and the story of the de Rolos succumbing to plague doesn't fall into place. A few are starting to get suspicious of the silence. Something isn't adding up. Two rebellions, the city in ruins, creatures stalking the city at night, a castle full of undead abominations, the noble families dead, the de Rolos slaughtered...my superior was right to send me."
    "You won't get away." I whispered soberly. "Nobody ever does, we've tried..."
    "More will come." Talebearer said simply.
    Another silence fell, and I settled my chin back into my knees, considering what Talebearer had told me. In all my life I'd never left this sheltered corner of the mountains. This was my home, and I'd been born and raised here, as isolated from the rest of the world as if we were living on our own city in the clouds.
    "I've never been to Emon..." I murmured.
    "Haven't done much traveling?"
    "Whitestone is my home, the farthest I've ever been is Swiftshore at the river bend. They get good fishing there, but I've only been there once or twice." I shrugged, reflecting back on my limited experience.
    "Better than nothing I suppose, but this city is an out of the way corner all the same." Talebearer mused. "What the Briarwoods could want with this place is beyond me. There's the white stone mines, but they stopped exporting that, and there isn't enough money in the timber production to make this place worth their while, yet here this is the place they chose to take over..."
    I had nothing to say to that, it was a question to which I had yet to learn the answer. I knew where the answer was. Deep down, miles down, buried under the earth south of here: something called the Ziggurat. Someone named the Whispered One.
    But at the moment I was more concerned with Talebearer himself, where he came from, what he had seen...He was well traveled, and less standoffish than Anna was. The hard consonants of his unfamiliar speech, his casual mentions of faraway places, were all drawn from a much wider scope of personal experience than my own. Far from being curious about his purpose here, I was simply curious about him.
    "What is Emon like?" I asked suddenly. "What do the people do there? What does it look like?"
    "Well it's...warmer, for one thing..." Talebearer said, after a moment's silence, in which he searched for words. "It's a big city. Makes this place look like a tiny mountain village in comparison. Set right on the ocean, with ships coming and going all the time, and merchants come up the Silvercut, bringing trade and news from the east...It's busiest in Winter's Crest, when the merry makers come. You should see it..." Talebearer laughed slightly, his voice becoming more animated as he warmed to his subject. "People come in from all over Tal'dorei, laughing and celebrating, probably getting so drunk they can't even stand, as likely as not. All the shops stay open at night, and the glassblowers make tiny glass lanterns to put candles in, so after dark it's almost as bright as if it were mid-afternoon. Then on the last day, Emperor Uriel makes a speech before the feasting starts, thanking people that happened to make themselves useful the last year, or did something good for the people. He usually gives them land too, maybe a mansion if they happened to be useful enough. Most of the time it's army captains or city diplomats, or the occasional Arcanist."
    Talebearer's voice changed, becoming softer, more thoughtful for a moment as if he were remembering something. "But we had some strange customers at this last Winter's Crest. This band of adventurers from Westrunn: a bunch of half elves, a couple gnomes, and the tallest hunk of beef I've ever seen. His biceps were about as big as my head. I think they helped the emperor in some way."
    "I've never seen a gnome." I murmured thoughtfully. "Everyone in Whitestone is human, and not many people travel this far...There used to be a bard that would come up from the south on Winter's Crest, when I was younger...I don't know where he came from, but people called him Talisin, and every year he'd show up out of nowhere under the Suntree. Playing songs until nightfall. Father and Mother always gave him a bed for the night, and he'd stay up with them talking until the sun came up. He liked to tell stories in the taverns after nightfall too. I think he made most of them up, poking fun at the gods. He told me that dragons have long necks because when Bahamut and Tiamat were fighting they pulled at each other's necks so hard, they got permanently stretched...I believed that story for the longest time..."
    "I heard the same fable about Elephants."
    "What are Elephants?"
    Hours passed by slowly, the time dragging in the complete darkness, but at least there was Talebearer to keep me company, though he talked more than I did. He had seen more than I had...Gradually our voices sank into silence, ready topics of conversation exhausted, and I was tired out. It had been years since I talked to anyone for so long. Yet we were both stuck here in the blackness, separated by one partition of stone wall, and there was a kind of companionship in that.
    I had given up trying to find out more about Talebearer's business than what he told me. He was a secretive man, and kept his own closely guarded council, but he was a good man. I was sure of that. He was a good man, and meant no harm to me at least.
    There was no way to track the time, but at some point I must have fallen asleep. It was a featureless slumber, unmarked by dreams, and when I woke I had fallen from my curled up position in the corner, lying with my face pressed into the straw. Not only that, but the atmosphere had changed. Light was pressing through my eyelids, and as I came to consciousness I could see a torch had been set in the bracket on the wall. Voices echoed in the walls around me, muffled slightly by distance, but still carried to me by the reverberation of the dungeon.
    "I told you before!" Snarled Talebearer's voice. "Do what ever the hell you want, you'll get fuck all from me. I came, I saw, kill me if you like, but I'm not the first, and I won't be the last."
    "It doesn't have to be like this." Lord Briarwood said, cool, collected, almost amused. I smiled when I heard his voice, struggling into a sitting position. "We'd hate to cause you unnecessary pain..."
    Talebearer let out a sharp gasp, vented through gritted teeth, that he bit off and muffled stubbornly.
    "Fuck you...." He growled.
    "This really is pointless." Silas replied. "It would be better for all concerned, yourself especially, if you would just cooperate. After all, we have all the time in the world, and you have nowhere to go. We can continue this for as long as we need to. One way or another you're going to give us what we want."
    "My life means absolutely nothing." Talebearer snarled, voice strained, weak, but still rebellious. "I have nothing left to lose. You can kill me if you like, it won't make a difference. The more of us disappear, the more suspicious it'll look, you can't change that. Torture me as long as you like, but you can't cover up this bloodshed forever--"
    His voice disappeared into another sharp exclamation, and I heard him struggle uselessly, as if he were writhing in pain. Lord Briarwood laughed, a mirthless sound that chilled my blood, sending a shiver down my back.
    "You can't resist me forever," He said, "I'll break you in the end."
    "Oh, do let us finish this another time darling." Broke in Delilah's voice, sounding petulant and irritated. "I'm tired of this."
    "You know how--" Lord Briarwood began, but then his voice suddenly cut off, silence falling heavy over the dungeon in its wake. For a moment the silence remained unbroken. Then I heard a faint rustle of fabric, Silas releasing a long slow breath, and a small musical laugh. He probably had his arms around Lady Briarwood's waist right now, and she was most likely running her fingers through his hair.
    "It can wait." She murmured dismissively.
    "For now." Lord Briarwood unwillingly conceded. "But only for the moment."
    Silas appeared around the corner, emerging from the other cell block, and headed for the stairs. He never looked at me, and disappeared out of sight. Lady Briarwood followed, but paused at my cell. Her face was half veiled by shadows, looking jagged and ghostly, and her eyes were impossible to read. Guilt coiled in my gut.
    "Have we learned our lesson then?" She asked, her voice impossibly gentle.
    "Yes."
    "That's good."
    Moving swiftly Delilah unlocked my door, pulling the cell open, and holding out her hand to me. I hesitated, half believing it couldn't be real. But Lady Briarwood only beckoned impatiently, saying "Come my dear, come." Eagerly I bounded to my feet, and took her offered hand.
    "I hope you profited by my little punishment." She said, caressing my hand as she spoke, and she looked at my face searchingly.
    "Yes my lady."
    "Yes indeed..." She mused for a moment, then smiled, apparently satisfied. "Yes, I can see you have."
    She released my hand, motioning for me to follow, and made her way back upstairs. Irresistibly drawn after her, I followed, footsteps echoing in the silence as I hastily trailed after her. I was eager to leave the memory of the dungeon behind.
    "Hey kid..." It was Talebearer's voice, and I faltered when I heard it, glancing back at the dungeon indecisively.
    "I'm sorry Talebearer." I murmured into the darkness, still hesitating upon the stairs.
    "Don't ever let them get to you kid. You keep asking questions, you hear me? Don't ever let them take that from you."
    I couldn't think of a reply, there was none, and at last whispered, "Gods guidance with you Talebearer," hastily turning away. Scaling the stairs two at a time, I emerged in the free air of the castle, drawing in a deep breath as if I'd just risen from being underwater. Half remorsefully I glanced back at the darkened stairwell leading down to the blindness of the dungeon, a strange impulse holding me frozen at the top of the stairs.
    "Cassandra." Lady Briarwood's voice startled me, and I found her standing behind me, waiting for me to follow her. "Come along, my dear."
    The spell was broken, I was myself again, standing in the middle of the servant's wing. Torches had been mounted on the walls, bathing the hallways in flickering yellow light, and in their uncertain light shadows had been cast in all the corners. Hastily I followed after Lady Briarwood, unwilling to make her wait for me again.
    Evening shadows were swiftly gathering as we re-entered the sitting room, pressing up against the windows, and lurking in the corners. The fire had a bright, cheerful look, warm and inviting. Delilah drew me to the hearth, settling me next to her on a low couch by the flames, and bent down to retrieve her workbasket.
    "I'm glad to have this little incident behind us." She said cheerfully, straightening as she spoke, and shifting delicately through the basket's contents. "It was not very pleasant for me to punish you my dear, but if you have profited by my lesson, then I'm glad to have acted. I hope I will never have cause to treat you so harshly ever again, for I am very fond of you my dear."
    "I learned my lesson," I said submissively. "I won't question you again."
    "That's good, I'm glad to hear it." There was a glint of gold against her pale skin, and she drew out the necklace she had given me. "I'm going to give this back to you, and I hope I never have any reason to take it from you again. I forgive you my dear."
    Hands shaking I took the necklace from her, rubbing the delicate chain between my fingers. I could hardly believe my good fortune. This necklace that should have been an inheritance for her daughter, should have been a gift for her child, for the flesh of her flesh. And after everything I'd done, after how I'd offended her, she still felt me worthy of such a gift. I couldn't put into coherent thought how much it meant to me, but it was a keen, piercingly sweet kind of lingering pain.
    "Thank you..."
    "Let us put all of this behind us," Lady Briarwood said kindly, tilting my face up to look at her, and cupping my cheek. "We can forget this ever happened, and continue on, exactly as we were before."
    "Yes my lady."
    Lady Briarwood's hand against my cheek felt warm. Then her face hardened, and she withdrew her hand suddenly, as if it sickened her to touch me. The door behind us had opened, and Lord Briarwood had stepped into the room. His eyes flickered over me, and I blushed, silently leaving my seat next to Lady Briarwood. Silas never cast a second glance at me, but I could sense his approval. It was not my place to linger so close to his wife when he was there. Carelessly Lord Briarwood occupied my vacated seat, and I shrank away to the shadows of the window seat, settling in the darkness behind the half drawn curtain.
    "I was wondering when you'd come." Delilah said, accepting a kiss on the cheek from Lord Briarwood.
    "You and I need to talk, we have quite a bit to discuss."
    "Naturally." She replied, without much enthusiasm, threading a needle with a long piece of dark green floss.
    "I would like you to attend to me." Lord Briarwood said, after a moment's silence.
    "I am attending."
    "This can't continue unaddressed any longer."
    "He's nothing more than a pawn," Lady Delilah said, with a little annoyance. "He has next to no value, no power, no leverage, there is absolutely nothing he could possibly do that would be more than a minor inconvenience. He has no weight."
    "He's seen--"
    "You are too concerned with trifles. Who is there he can tell? There is nowhere for him to go! We have him, safe, out of harms way, where there is nothing more he could do with the information he has. Either he will yield to your influence, or we will dispose of him."
    "That solution may deal with the immediate problem, but there is more to think of here, and that will not be so easily dealt with." Lord Briarwood said. Delilah only shrugged slightly, and continued to sew, delicately stitching a leaf into her patten. With a sudden movement, Silas seized her hand, gently wresting its motion.
    "In one particular at least, this is a genuine threat." Silas said, keeping her hand in his, as if afraid that her attention would wander if he released her. "He hasn't been the first, and this outside interference will continue, and the longer it goes on, the more suspicion we will attract. It will only get more pointed, unless we address it. Publicly."
    "What is to be done then, my darling?" Delilah said sourly, twisting her hands out of Silas's. But Lord Briarwood had succeeded, her attention was at last fully on him, and once her hands were free she didn't immediately go back to her sewing. "We can't allow this man to walk free, carrying his meddlesome tales to the closest ear. If he continues to resist you, we will have no choice but to silence him, and according to you that is only an aggravation of the evil. Are you suggesting that we step out into the light? Knowing what you are, knowing how they would judge you, knowing that it would set destruction upon our entire purpose?"
    "No I am not suggesting that." Lord Briarwood said patiently. "I am suggesting that some form of false explanation must be given. We have resources, there are steps we can take. But this silence must end, we cannot remain unknown any longer. It would only draw even more suspicion."
    "Can you really be certain of that?"
    "There are safeguards around this city." Silas returned soberly. "My descendants keep a close watch upon our borders, but only a fool would say that there is no danger. One day their vigilance might waver, and someone like the meddler downstairs will escape our reach. If that happens, then we will be revealed, and it won't be on our terms. We must act before then, and stop this stream of spies before one of them manages to escape."
    A long silence ensued. Lord Briarwood sat leaning back, framed against the light of the fire, watching his wife searchingly. She sat unresponsive, her fingers mechanically stitching, her eyes far away, as she considered what Silas had said. I watched them both, keeping as still as possible behind the curtain. In such complete silence I knew the slightest movement would be painfully noticeable, and at the moment I didn't want them to notice me.
    "I don't like this distraction." Delilah said at last, her voice regretful. "If we really are going to 'address this matter publicly', we should certainly have to travel, there is no doubt about that. And I don't savor the thought of straying so far..."
    "We have time," Silas said dismissively. "Anna is weeks ahead of schedule."
    "I know." Lady Briarwood said with a weak smile, her hands pausing in their mindless dance for a moment. She glanced toward the windows, taking in the darkness that had fallen outside, all the darker because of the firelight from the hearth.
    "Very well." She said, rising from the couch. Silas rose with her, and she stood on tiptoe to give him a swift kiss. "If you think that we should do this, I trust your judgment."
    "Thank you for the confidence."
    With a swift movement of her fingers Delilah wound the rest of her thread around one finger, throwing the whole project into her basket. Once her hands were free, she laced them between Lord Briarwood's, saying, "You and I had better get rid of our present difficulty then. He has troubled us quite long enough." And with these words, she drew him from the room, leaving me alone behind the window curtain.