I don't feel with cooks or dancers, or your guard, or Katsa. He may have some mental power."
"Could he be prescient?"
"I don't know. I met a woman in Nander who calls birds with her mind, and calms them. Your friend—he's called Saf, is he?—Saf felt a bit like that woman, but not exactly."
"Could he have a malevolent power like Leck's?"
Po let out an explosive breath of air. "I've never encountered anyone with a mind like Leck's. We must hope I never do." He shifted position and changed his tone. "Introduce me to Saf, why don't you, and I'll ask him what his Grace is."
"Oh, certainly, why not? They wouldn't think it at all strange if I showed up with a Lienid prince in tow."
"So, he doesn't know who you are? I wondered."
"I suppose you're going to lecture me now about telling lies."
He began to laugh, which confused her at first, until she remembered to whom she was speaking. "Yes," she said, "all right. How did you explain your mad rush to my office today, by the way? The spy excuse?"
"Naturally. Spies are always telling me things in the strictest confidence at exactly the last moment."
She giggled. "Oh, but it's awful, isn't it, Po, so much lying? Especially to people who trust you."
He didn't answer this and turned back to the wall, the humor still in his face, but something else there too, that silenced her, and made her wish she hadn't been so flip. Po's particular web of lies was not, in fact, very funny. And the longer it went on—the more Council work Po did—the more people who gained his trust—the less funny it became. The lie he told when pressed to explain his inability to read—that an illness had damaged his close vision— stretched credibility and occasionally raised eyebrows. Bitterblue didn't like to imagine what would happen if the truth were to come out. Bad enough that he was a mind reader, but a mind reader who'd been lying about it for more than twenty years and who was admired and praised all seven kingdoms over? In Lienid, flatly revered? And what of his closest friends who didn't know? Katsa did, and Raffin, and Raffin's companion, Bann; Po's mother, and Po's grandfather. That was all. Giddon didn't know, nor did Helda. Nor did Po's father and brothers. Skye didn't know, and Skye adored his younger brother.
Bitterblue didn't like to think how Katsa would react if people
began to be vicious to Po. She thought that Katsa's ferocity in his defense might be frightening.
"I'm sorry I couldn't spare you having to do what you did today, Beetle," Po said.
"There's nothing to forgive. I managed, didn't I?"
"More than that. You were marvelous."
He was so like her mother in profile. Ashen had had that straight nose, that promise around the mouth of a quick smile. His accent was like Ashen's, and so was the fierce, loyal feeling of him. Perhaps it had made sense that Po and Katsa had dropped into her life just when her mother was torn out of it. Not justice, but sense. "I did as Katsa taught me," she said quietly.
He reached his arm out and pulled her in, hugging her tight, centering her around herself again with his embrace.
BITTERBLUE WENT NEXT to the infirmary to find out about Teddy.
Madlen was snoring fit to drown out an invasion of geese, but when Bitterblue pushed the door open, she sat bolt upright in bed. "Lady Queen," she said hoarsely, blinking. "Teddy's holding on."
Bitterblue fell into a chair, then pulled her knees up, and hugged her legs hard. "Do you think he'll live?"
"I think it's highly possible, Lady Queen."
"Did you give them all the medicines they need?"
"All I had, Lady Queen, and I can give you more for them."
"And did you . . ." Bitterblue wasn't sure how to ask this. "Did you see anything . . . odd while you were there, Madlen?"
Madlen didn't seem surprised by the question, though she peered at Bitterblue keenly, from Bitterblue's sloppy, knotted hair all the way to her boots, before answering. "Yes," she said. "There were some strange things said and done."
"Tell me," Bitterblue said, "everything. I want to know it all, strange or not."
"Well," Madlen said, "where to begin? I suppose the strangest thing was the excursion they made after Sapphire got back from walking you home. He came into the room rather obviously happy about something, Lady Queen, shooting significant looks at Bren and Tilda—"