Prelude

THE OLDER ONES IN THE HOUSEHOLD had hunted the missing boy for an hour without result, but his sister knew where to look.

"Surprise," she said. "It's me."

His dark hose and velvet tunic gray with dust and his face streaked with grime, he looked like a very sad goblin. "Auntie 'Lanna and the other women are all making a great fuss, searching for you," she said. "I can't be¬lieve they didn't look here. Don't they remember anything?"

"Go away."

"I can't, now, stupid. Lady Simeon and two of the maids were just be¬hind me-I heard them coming up the corridor." She set the candle be¬tween two paving stones in the floor. "If I go out now they'll know where you're hiding." She grinned, pleased with her maneuver. "So I'm staying, and you can't make me go."

"Then be quiet."

"No. Not unless I want to be. I'm a princess and you can't give me or¬ders. Only Father's allowed to do that." She settled in beside her brother, staring up at the shelves, seldom used now that the new kitchens had been built closer to the great hall. Only a few cracked pots and bowls had been left behind, as well as a half-dozen stoppered jars whose contents were so old that opening them, as Briony had once said, would be an experiment dangerous enough for Chaven of Ulos. (The children had been thrilled to learn that the household's new physician was a man of many strange and fascinating interests.) "So why are you hiding?"

"I'm not hiding. I'm thinking."

"You're a liar, Barrick Eddon. When you want to think you go walking on the walls, or you go to Father's library, or… or you stay in your room like a temple-mantis saying prayers. You come here when you want to hide."

"Oh? And what makes you so clever, strawhead?"