Candlelight doubled, doubled again. Ingrey blinked, gasped, surged to wakefulness. His head ached abominably. He was standing up. Shock brought him fully alert.

He was standing once more in the temple infirmary, if the room in back of the apothecary's could be so designated. He wore the divine's nightshirt half-tucked into his trousers, but his feet were bare on the board floor. His right hand gripped his naked sword.

“I'm”-he had to stop, swallow, moisten his lips-“I'm awake.”

What am I doing here? How did I get over here?

He'd been sleepwalking, presumably. He had heard of such things. He'd never done it before. And it had been more than just blundering about in the dark. He'd partly dressed, found his weapon, somehow made his way in unobserved silence down a stairway, through a door-which surely must have been locked, so he must have turned the key-across the cobbled square, and into this other building.

Where Lady Ijada lies asleep. Five gods, let her go on sleeping. The door to the bedchamber was closed-now. In sudden horror, he glanced at his blade, but it was still gleaming and dry. No dripping gore stained it. Yet.

His guardsman, with a wary glance at his sword, came to him and took him by his left arm. “Are you all right, my lord?”

“Hurt my head today,” Ingrey mumbled. “The dedicat's medicines gave me strange dreams. Dizzy. Sorry…”

“Should I…um…take you back to bed, my lord?”

“Yes,” said Ingrey gratefully. “Yes”-the seldom-used phrase forced itself from his cold lips-“please you.” He was shivering now. It wasn't wholly from the chill.

He suffered the guardsman to guide him out the door, around the shop, back across the silent, dark square. Back into the divine's house. A servant who had slept through Ingrey's exit was awakened by their return and came out into the hall in sleepy alarm. Ingrey mumbled more