And he said, “Because you made Jennifer a guest-friend last spring.” She hadn’t been ready for that—this time it showed in her face. A triumph for him of sorts, but the moment was too high by far for petty score-keeping in the power game. He went on, to take away the sting, “Loren would mistrust the wildness of this too much, but I thought you could deal with it. We need you.”

“You trust me with this?”

His turn to gesture impatiently. “Oh, Jaelle, don’t exaggerate your own malevolence. You aren’t happy with the power balance here, any fool can see that. But only a very great fool would confuse that with where you stand in this war. You serve the Goddess who sent up that moon, Jaelle. I am least likely of all men to forget it.”

She seemed very young in that moment. There was a woman beneath the white robe, a person, not merely an icon; he’d made the mistake of trying to tell her that once, in this very room, with the rain falling outside.

“What do you need?” she said.

His tone was crisp. “A watch on the child. Complete secrecy, of course, which is another reason I came to you.”

“I will have to tell the Mormae in Gwen Ystrat.”

“I thought as much.” He rose, began pacing as he spoke. “It is all the same, I gather, within the Mormae?”

She nodded. “It is all the same, within any level of the Priestesshood, but it will be kept to the inner circle.”

“All right,” he said, and stopped his pacing very close to her. “But you have a problem then.”

“What?”

“This!” And reaching past her, he pulled open an inner door and grabbed the listener beyond, pulling her into the room so that she sprawled on the carpeted floor.

“Leila!” Jaelle exclaimed.

The girl adjusted her grey robe and rose to her feet. There was a hint of apprehension in her eyes, but only a hint, Paul saw, and she held her head very high, facing the two of them.