“Illness in the brain. We don’t understand it very well, I mean.”
“He’ll get better, though,” Gavin said. “He’ll be himself again.”
Theron watched all of this as if the birds he’d found in the room had begun to sing. The Seneschal, smooth and controlled once more, said, “Perhaps we can have this conversation another time.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.” To Theron, the magus said, “Lord Theron, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you came very close to dying.”
Judah felt the flinch that passed through the room as much as she saw it. Theron only nodded. “Yes. I think I did know that.”
“It will take you some time to recover from the shock,” the magus said. “How do you feel?”
Theron gazed around at all of them. Slowly—fumbling for the answer—he said, “I feel...unlocated.” Then he shook his head. For the first time since he’d been poisoned, he seemed genuinely distressed. “No. That’s not right. I’m sorry.”
The magus put a hand on Theron’s shoulder with a warm smile. “Don’t worry. It will get better.”
“Will it?” Judah said.
The magus’s smile faded. He stood up.
Elly stood, too. “Thank you,” she said, extending her hand again.
The magus took it more confidently this time. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry I can’t be of more immediate help.”
“Arkady’s death was very sudden, wasn’t it? I hope it wasn’t a difficult one.”
“There’s a certain kind of person,” the magus said gravely, “for whom death is never easy. There’s something in them that refuses to let go.”
“It would not surprise me to hear that Arkady Magus was one of those people. But I’m glad it’s you that’s replaced him. You seem very kind,” Elly said.
He bowed. “My mother used to say: when you look into the night, count all the stars you can.”
“Does that mean something?” Gavin said rudely.
“That no single good act will ever be enough, but every good act is important,” the magus replied. “I do my best.”
When he and the Seneschal were gone, Gavin shook his head. “He’s a strange one. Doesn’t seem to mind too much that Arkady’s dead.”
“Do you?” Elly said in her new sharp voice. Gavin didn’t answer and she turned to Judah. “I think he likes you.”
Startled, Judah said, “Why?”
“Because he wouldn’t look at you.” Elly smiled. It seemed like a real smile, or something close to it. “Maybe he’ll marry you, and you’ll end up the happiest of all of us.”
“I’m not allowed to marry,” Judah said, keeping to herself the new amendment the Seneschal had proposed, which was that she was allowed to marry anyone who was completely disinterested in her, and whose allegiance could be bought. “Not that I would want to, if I were.”
“You could do better than some foreign-born magus, anyway,” Gavin said.
Who was to say she herself wasn’t foreign-born, or at least that her parents weren’t? Judah bore more physical resemblance to the entertainers filing through the gate than she did anyone else in Highfall. Before she could say so, Elly said, “I think marriage should be abolished. No alliance marriages, no marriage-leaving tax. No way to keep anyone with you except by treating them well. No way to ensure trade but by being a good neighbor. Maybe when I’m Lady of the City—” words she’d said thousands of times, now filled with bitterness “—I’ll make it a law.”
“Wouldn’t work,” Gavin said.
“Why not?” Elly sounded almost belligerent, and for a moment all the reasons why not hung in the air like smoke: because the Lady of the City didn’t make laws, because marriages were all that kept the courtiers from killing each other, because no tax would ever be abolished, because Elban would never allow it.
“Because people aren’t like that,” Gavin said. “Offer them freedom on the condition that they take responsibility for using it wisely, and they’ll take the chains.”
“Maybe men would,” Elly said. “Ask the women.”
“I’m just telling you what history teaches.”
“Whose version of history?” she snapped. “Elban’s?”
It was the longest conversation they’d had in days. “Theron,” Judah said, to break the tension, “would you like to go up to your workshop? See what you were working on before you got sick?”
Theron gave her the same puzzled look he always gave her, and oh, how tempting it was to grab him and shake him until it rattled clear (even if his befuddled state was her fault, even if she had waited too long). But before he could say anything, Elly said, “No.”