Nemia had been watching Xalva for several minutes and he'd yet to wake. She'd wondered a few times, with sudden feelings of deep cold, if maybe he was just dead, but each time he'd eventually move slightly in his sleep or let out a visible breath and she sank back into the warmth of her cloak, both relieved and a little guilty. Because maybe, she thought each time, Xalva dying would be for the best.

Though how many of her problems stemmed from Xalva she didn't really know. If you believed he had shaped who she was, maybe all of them. Or maybe she had only Tobias to blame. Or maybe just herself.

Finally, she leaned forward and rapped her knuckles on the bars of the cell. "Wake up," she whispered. The dungeon guards were never too far from his cell, though they tended to keep to their games and discrete drinking in the guard chamber close by. She kept quiet out of habit in any case.

"Back again?" he murmured, once he'd processed the shadows around him, the lump of darkness sitting on the other side of the bars. "Now would be a good time to get me out."

"Your leg is worse."

"Infected," he agreed, "And very painful."

"You should have traded for a salve last time I came. It would have been more useful that one of Morie's dreams." She still worried over that trade. Fretted over what Xalva could possibly want with it, whether or not she had betrayed Morie by agreeing, what had come over her to want to remember her own dreams so badly.

"I disagree." But he paled even more as he sat up, propping himself up on one arm and not moving his leg. "Come to trade some more?"

"What do you want with Morie's dreams?"

He smiled thinly. "Even that information has a price."

"What is it?"

"My freedom."

"No." She was looking at him steadily, but she still had no idea what came over her when she said, "You're going to die here."

That shocked him to silence for a moment, and then he laughed. "So serious! No, I am not going to die here. You're not a killer. All these years of training, yes, but still not."

Her heart tapped out an uneven rhythm against her chest. "I won't kill you. I'll just let these guards or that infection do the job for me."

"We both know there is no difference, whether you kill me yourself or leave me to die. Either way, you won't."

"You don't know what I've become."

Something disturbingly close to pity filled his expression. "Of course I do. I became it myself, long ago."

She wanted to take it back. She wanted to say she was nothing like him. But she'd given up on denying it. Tobias had wanted an Assassin. At long last, he was getting one.

Heir to the most feared assassin in the kingdom. She shuddered.

"Do you know why you're still alive?"

"Because I am too stubborn to leave this world without a fight?" He smiled without humor. "Because they keep me alive. When I die, it will be on their terms."

"There hasn't been a trial for the attempted assassination of the princess."

"Obviously not."

This was what she'd come for, and she knew he could tell because he had the look on his face that meant he'd found the upper hand.

"Why are they waiting?"

"Because, Nemia, they want you to execute me."

On some level she'd known that, but to hear him say it, to know he was right, pushed her to the verge of panic. "But-- but you'll die before that. If they haven't announced a trial date yet it won't be for a while."

"Oh, don't underestimate me. I can hang on for however long that while is. And then when they tell you to kill me, you'll help me escape."

She pressed her lips together hard. "See about that."

"I certainly will. But you didn't come here only to ask questions you can answer yourself."

Nemia rolled her shoulders back, stalling. She had one answer. Perhaps now she should just go. Leave Xalva to rot in the darkness.

But in the most unfortunate turn of events, as usual, Xalva was right. He was not going to die down here. At least not today.

She pulled the tin from her pocket. "I brought something from the healer's."

"To dull the pain?"

"To halt the infection."

He sighed. "That will do."

She didn't move to hand it over. "The schedule I showed you. That I found in Morie's room."

"The one written in code."

"Yes. It belongs to a royal spy, doesn't it?"

"Possibly."

Not a real answer, but probable the best one he'd give her. "Alright then. A trade for the salve." She rolled it between her hands nervously. "I'll give it to you if you tell me another one of my dreams."

He thought for a minute. "You have no idea if they are important."

"But they're mine, and I want to know them."

"Then you will. In your dream there was another girl who offered you a dagger, but the blade faced you so as you took it the blade cut your hand."

"That's all?"

"There is meaning to be found even in a sharp blade and red blood, Nemia. I trust you will figure it out."

She tossed the tin to him through the bars and stood up. As if she didn't understand there was meaning in daggers, in knives, in blood spilt willingly and unwillingly. As if it wasn't all she understood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Irina."

Irina paused with the door to the Laycreek rooms halfway open and looked over her shoulder. She'd recognized his voice, but it was a still a small shock to see Savion Regenmace standing there with his arms crossed. In the past week or so since he'd returned from the border she'd hardly seen him.

"Savion. Were you waiting for me?"

"I was. May I come in?"

"May as well." She left the door open for him and went in, setting her bags on the desk and folding her cloak over the back of the chair. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" They hadn't left off on good terms before he left for the border, but she wasn't sure he had come about that. Savion could become an emotional wreck at will, but once given a while to adjust he could fake stability or any other emotion well enough, and she couldn't read his face now.

"I wanted to check in." He sat in one of the chairs near the fireplace, facing her, and without thinking she leaned back against the desk, settling into their old routine.

"Do you have something to report?"

"Not really. Just wanted to catch up, I've been out of the loop for so long."

She shuffled a few papers into a pile. "Then come to the Inigrit meeting tomorrow night."

"I don't want to talk to them. I want to talk to you." He eyed the bags she'd set on the desk. "Shopping?"

The rapid change of subject caught her off guard. "Uh, yes."

"That's where you were coming home from?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Why did you need a cloak to go outside during summer?"

He still noticed everything, apparently. She considered lying her way out, but let it go. "I wasn't outside shopping. I was in the dungeons, and they're cold."

He smiled. His smile always looked a little ironic or sarcastic, even when he meant it truthfully. "In the record rooms, you mean."

"Yes," she conceded. "I was doing a little research."

"Never a rest for you, is there?"

"Not if I'm going to be the leader of the Inigrit within five years."

He laughed. "Why wait so long as five years?"

"Because Lord Delmeneth is doing well enough. For now."

She expected him to laugh again, but he only tilted his head back thoughtfully. Well, you'd have to be a fool not to take her seriously. Finally, he said, "Delmeneth may need replacing sooner than you think."

"How so?"

"He's lost favor. Quite quickly and permanently, I believe."

She frowned, and set her papers down as she realized she'd been reshuffling them over and over. "What has he done?"

"Oh, nothing new. It's not what he's done-- or, really, it is what he's done, but this mistake was many years ago. This is about what the Thief did."

"But surely Delmeneth isn't to blame for the Thief running away?"

He shrugged. "Probably not. But I'm only repeating what I've heard Father say. They're connected, is all I know."

She doubted it was all he knew if his father had really been discussing it, but pressing hard was not the way to get it out of him. "Well, if Delmeneth has really lost favor, I would guess it's to do with the poisoning incident."

"Nonsense, that was so long ago. Everyone's gotten over it."

"Now, that's a loaded statement. Do you think the people who were nearly killed are over it?

"Well, no," he admitted. "But they really ought to be. It's not like anyone actually died."

She laughed. This was what it used to be like, debating without any heat. If he could be her friend again, she'd like that, she realized.

"True. I suppose we can write it off as the hijinks of a young man who didn't know any better."

"Of course, one must allow for these kind of harmless pranks. If we ourselves haven't poisoned anyone at this age, why, it's only because we're more mature than he was."

"Well then, that settles it, you're right-- no one can blame a man for his mistakes eighteen years past. I wonder why he's lost favor, then?"

Savion shrugged. "I'm sure we'll find out. I swear this castle oozes gossip. What were you in the record room for?"

"Seeing if Therese of Verivain had a record there. That reminds me, you know the mage seal you put on our entrance?"

"The fire entrance to the Artifacts' Vault?"

"Yes, that. You must have done a shoddy job, it's all scraped up."

He frowned. "Are you sure? Mage seal can be taken off pretty easily, but you have to figure out it's there first."

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Well then, I'll take care of it. Can't have anyone else finding our little secret, can we? Although it would be nicer to have a tunnel right to the record room."

"We're not digging holes all over the castle, Savion. The one we have is fine."

"Oh, you're no fun," he sighed. "I only wanted some earth practice."

"So build me a magical sandcastle," she deadpanned. "And then let's figure out who ruined your magic glue."

"No one told me I'd be made fun of when I got back," he grumbled. "I can't get a break."

"Wait till you meet Nemia. I think she'll find you hilarious."

"The assassin? Why will I meet her?"

"I have to catch you up on some things."