“Is that what it feels like? The Skill?” Riddle spoke.
Nettle shook her head. “No. I don’t know what to call that. Well, yes, it is the Skill, but it is the Skill as a hammer’s blow rather than as a finger tap. Dutiful, what can we do? He’s more dangerous than Thick. If he goes on like this, he may damage some of the newer Skill-apprentices who cannot wall him out.”
Even with my walls raised, I sensed their agitation. “It’s coming clearer,” I offered them. “I’m coming back to myself. I will be better by morning, I think.” I used only the words, sliced thin as paper. They all looked relieved.
I attempted a question. “How is Chade?”
Nettle shook her head. “He is caught in fascination. With everything. The weave of the blanket. The shape of his spoon. His wound is bad. We would like to do a Skill-healing on him once he has rested a bit, but Thick is still at Withywoods, and we are reluctant to let anyone use the stones to travel now. We were hoping you would feel well enough to help, but …”
“Tomorrow,” I said, and hoped it would be true. I was remembering how to do this. Package a tiny bit of thought in a word and let it out of my mouth. Strange. I had never known that when I spoke I Skilled a tiny bit with the words, to make the meaning more clear. But only the tiniest bit. I’d opened my heart and let them feel the rush of gratitude I felt that they would try to help me. I should not do that. I could not recall when I had learned that. Had I ever learned it, or had it just always been so? They were all staring at me. Words. Use words.
“I hope to have recovered more by tomorrow. And perhaps be able to tell you what I experienced inside the stones. And help to heal Chade.”
An urgent thought bubbled up in me. How could I have forgotten him? “The Fool. Does he live still?”
A glance between Dutiful and Nettle. A secret fear. “What’s happened? He’s dead, isn’t he?” It was a terrible thing for me to even imagine. A tremor of sorrow rose bubbling in me. I tried to catch it, to hold it in.
Dutiful paled. “No, Fitz. He’s not dead. Please, don’t feel that! Such sorrow. No, he’s not dead. But he’s … changed.”
“He’s weak? Dying?” I thought of the secret Skill-healings I’d practiced on him. Had they gone wrong, come undone somehow?
Dutiful spoke quickly, as if to stem my emotions by giving me information. “Ash was tending to him. Lord Chade had told him to do whatever the Fool needed, to give the Fool whatever might do him good. Or so the lad took his command. You know that in his zeal to follow you, Lord Golden escaped his room and somehow managed to get as far as the stables. How, I cannot imagine. When he was found the next morning, he was nearly dead of the cold and his injuries.”
“I knew that,” I affirmed.
Dutiful looked relieved at my swift response. “You are coming back to us, aren’t you? You sound clearer in your words. More alert. Thank Eda you are better. I feared that neither one of you would completely return to us.”
“Yes. Better.” It was a lie. I wasn’t better. I was becoming duller. Slower. The complexities of the world that had danced and blossomed all around me but a few moments before were fading to dim simplicity. The chair was just a chair, all echoes of the tree and the forest that had produced it muted to insignificance. Nettle sat on the chair, and she was only Nettle, not a tributary of the rivers that Molly and I had been, or the quiet water where her unborn child turned and formed. I was not better. I was simpler, slower, duller. Human again. As to what I had been in the previous hours, I had no name for it.
I lifted my eyes to Dutiful. He was watching me expectantly. “The Fool,” I prompted him.
“He was near dead. When first he was found, he was mistaken for a beggar or wandering madman. He was taken to the infirmary and given a clean bed to die in. But a young apprentice there recognized him from the night you brought him in. She raised quite a fuss before her master would listen to her, but finally a runner was sent to me.