Shredlu returned to the principal hallways for the final approach to his destination. Manners forbid making his entrance like a servant. He scratched at the appropriate door, waited patiently. She would come when it became clear he would not go away. Someone might pass and remark upon his presence.

Lady Everay Non Ethan appeared beautifully serene when she opened the door herself, more swiftly than Shredlu anticipated. She had prepared herself to receive company. Elegantly gowned and coifed and bejewelled, she appeared a regal vision of Winter, tall, lithe, blonde, her forty-six summers unbetrayed by cunningly engineered lighting. "Shredlu. Will you stand there gawking 'till some roving band of functionaries tramples you?"

The Magician stepped forward. "You surprised me, Ethan You were waiting."

"Am I so isolated and deaf that alarums and tumults fail to reach me entirely? I hear Winter's name whispered when they think I cannot hear. What disaster has befallen the child so soon after her cheerless nuptials? Has she been laid low by melancholy, like her mother before her?"

Ethan confused melancholy with bitterness, Shredlu feared. Her bottomless well of bitterness was the principal reason he came visiting so seldom anymore. "She is laid low but wicked magic was the agent. Someone sent a tackoo to steal her dreams." His gaze swept the decadence around him. Ethan certainly made Everay pay for her participation in its progression.

"How could that be? Tackoo and dorado and the gell people.... They're nightfears you Magicians made up so you can extort a livelihood from the rest of us."

She did not believe that. It was a play-argument from a time when there had been less cool between them.

"This is no game, Ethan. A determined and abiding malice has turned its countenance upon Everay. The weight of its animosity is being born by Winter but it is not she who won the motivating hatred. She's never been out of the tower."