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“Spare me the lecture,” cut in Xanthe. “I know the risks. Go fish about in that heap over there; there’s something I want to show you.”

Aurienne swallowed her gentle, respectful nonlecture, and proceeded towards the indicated heap: Xanthe’s satchel and cloak, dropped beside the bed.

“The yellow file,” said Xanthe.

Aurienne recognised the loose-leaf file as the register of requests received for Haelan services. She occasionally assisted Xanthe in prioritising the asks, which ranged from requests for Haelan aid in dysentery-infested villages to overwhelmed hospitals. A single Haelan and her seith could change the tide in any of these circumstances—though, given the Pox, all recent requests had been rejected.

Among the letters in the file were the usual suspects; Aurienne recognised the scrawl of the Northumbrian king, the angular script of the king of the Danelaw, the elegant hand of the Kentish queen (always envied by Aurienne, whose writing looked like the abstract blobs of stool culture in a petri dish).

Xanthe extracted a letter from the file. She studied it with her sparse brows knotted into a frown. “Throwing you to the dogs, possibly,” she muttered. “But you’d have a wolf with you, so perhaps…?”

Aurienne cast her a look of polite enquiry, but Xanthe didn’t see fit to explain herself to anyone at the best of times, and she was particularly deep in thought now.

“I think you’ve got the coconuts to do it,” said Xanthe. “The real question is whether I want to risk you.”

“The—the coconuts?”

“The cobblers. The bollocks.”

“Ah.”

Xanthe carried on an inarticulate dissertation on the relative size of Aurienne’s bollocks, their propensity to drag on the pavement, their potential to serve as blimps in times of need.

Snapping out of her reverie, she tapped an age-bent finger upon the file. “We may have the bugger.”

“Which bugger?” asked Aurienne, given that there were so many.

“Wellesley,” said Xanthe.

“How have we got him?”

“Wellesley requested Haelan assistance for a sick child a few months ago,” said Xanthe, passing Aurienne the letter. “Paeds was drowning in Pox cases, obviously, so we declined. I know your source on Wellesley’s involvement was questionable, but it’s an interesting coincidence.”

“Do you think the incursion on Swanstone might’ve been linked to his child?” asked Aurienne.

“A desperate father, wishing to find a healer for his ailing daughter?”

“Why do you sound cynical?” asked Aurienne, skimming through the letter. “Doesn’t he seem sincere?”

“He seems a touch melodramatic. And there were about a hundred courses of action he could’ve taken before leaping to ingress of Swanstone—if it was him—with incendiary devices, at that. But if we wanted a door into Wellesley Keep, and a neat way to bypass his anti-Fyren measures, that letter is it. I could make the arrangements.”

“Right,” said Aurienne. “But if Wellesley wants a Haelan for as-yet-unknown nefarious purposes, we’d be handing her over on a silver platter.”

“Right,” said Xanthe. “But the Haelan could explode his heart with the touch of her tacn, should the situation call for it. And if she was accompanied by a Swanstone guard, as is the usual protocol, who was actually a Fyren assassin, then the two of them could discover something of use, and keep her shielded in the meantime.”

“Right,” said Aurienne. “And Wellesley wouldn’t be stupid enough to harm a Haelan. He’d be incurring the wrath of almost every Order.”

“Right,” said Xanthe. “And the Wardens would only be a deofol away, should Wellesley be stupid enough.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

Aurienne eyed Xanthe. Xanthe eyed Aurienne.

“Good thing about my blimp-sized bollocks,” said Aurienne.

“May they carry you swiftly, and may the winds be fair,” said Xanthe.