healer, and the lady, who served as ambassador, and also as a silent translator, and who invited Bitterblue to call her Fire. Most of the travelers were browner-skinned than the most sundarkened Lienid Bitterblue had ever seen, except for a couple who were paler, and one, the man who'd spoken before, who was fully as pale as Madlen. Their hair and eyes were also a range of hues— ordinary hues, aside from Lady Fire. And still, there was something in the way they all looked—in their jaws? In their expressions?— something they all had in common. Bitterblue wondered if they saw some sort of distinctive similarity when they looked at her and her friends too.
"I don't completely understand this," she said. "Any of it."
Lady Fire said something, which the pale man made a move to
translate, in his nice, funny accent. "The mountains have always been too high," he said. "We have had—stories, but no way across, or—" He made a motion with his hand.
"Under," said Po.
"Yes. No way under," said the man. "Fifteen years ago, a—" He paused again, baffled.
"A landslide," said Po. "Revealed a tunnel. And now the stories will no longer be mere stories."
"Po," said Bitterblue, disturbed that he was publicly displaying his own ability, even though she knew he was pretending that Lady Fire was talking to him mentally. Wasn't he? Or maybe she was talking to him mentally, and if so, did Lady Fire know what Po was? Wouldn't that make her a thousand times more dangerous? Or— Bitterblue grasped her forehead. Had Bitterblue, sitting here, thinking about it all, revealed Po's secret to Lady Fire?
Po's hand found its way around Katsa to Bitterblue's shoulder. "Take a breath, Cousin," he said. "This comes on the tail of too many horrible days. I believe this will seem like good news once you've had the time to absorb it."
I remember the day we all sat in a circle on this library floor, she thought to him. The world was far smaller then, and still too big.
Every day is so overwhelming.
The pale fellow was trying to talk again, saying something about how they were all sorry to have arrived during horrible days. Bitterblue raised her eyes and peered at him as he spoke, trying to place something.
"Whenever you talk," she said, "there's something familiar about it."
"Yes, Lady Queen," agreed Death dryly. "Perhaps that's because it's a stronger version of the accent spoken by your healer Madlen."
Madlen, thought Bitterblue, staring at the man. Yes, how odd that
he sounds like Madlen. And how odd that he's pale with amber eyes like Madlen. And—
My Graceling healer, Madlen.
There are no Gracelings in the Dells.
But Madlen has only one eye.
Just like that, one of Bitterblue's anchors in this world turned, suddenly, into a perfect stranger.
"Oh," she said dumbly. "Oh dear." She thought of all the books in Madlen's room and found the answer to another question. "Death," she said. "Madlen saw Leck's journals on my bed, then that dictionary appeared on your shelf. The dictionary is Madlen's."
"Yes, Lady Queen," said Death.
"She told me she came from the far east of Estill," Bitterblue said. "Fetch her. Someone fetch her."
"Allow me, Lady Queen," Helda said, in a dark voice that made Bitterblue glad she was not Madlen at this moment.
Helda pushed herself up and swept off, and Bitterblue stared at her guests. They'd all gone over a trifle sheepish.
"Lady Fire apologizes, Bitterblue," Katsa said. "She says that it's embarrassing to be caught spying, but regrettably, not spying is never an option, as no doubt you understand."
"I understand that it makes for an interesting definition of the peace they claim to come in," said Bitterblue. "Did they make Madlen take out her own eye?"
"No," said Lady Fire emphatically.
"Never," added Katsa. "Madlen lost her eye as a child, doing an experiment with liquids and a powder that exploded. It made it possible for her to pretend."
"But how does she heal so well? Are all healers in the Dells truly so gifted?"
Katsa translated. "Medical knowledge is highly advanced there, Bitterblue. Medicines grow there that we don't have here, especially in the west, which is where Madlen is from, and science is paramount. Madlen has been kept supplied with the best Dellian medicines during her time here, to keep up her pretense."
Science, Bitterblue thought. Real science. I would like that kind of progress in my kingdom, in a sane manner, without delusion. Suddenly, she loved Po for his stupid paper glider, because it was based on reality.