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Ophele was anything but peaceful when she undertook her own small quest the next day.

Clutching her stack of papers to her breast, she hurried across the street, feeling as if she were offering up her firstborn child. In a moment of wildest insanity, she had confided to Justenin that she had nearly finished her work on the devils, or at least that part Remin wanted to present to the scholars.

Sir Justenin had offered to read it.

What else could she say but thank you? Not just because he was kind enough to make the offer, but if it turned out her work was embarrassing drivel, it was best to find out before she shamed Remin before the Tower of Scholars.

Her stomach gave a slippery, nauseating roll. She had truly done her best, but effort did not equal outcome. Nothing plus nothing did not equal something. Making her way through the maze of worktables in the offices above the storehouse, she found Sir Justenin talking with Sir Edemir and stiffened her spine. Her face felt hot.

“This is it, my lady?” Sir Justenin turned politely toward her, holding out his hand. Right up until the moment his fingers touched the pages, she was an instant from snatching them back and saying no, it wasn’t ready after all, so sorry for troubling you.

“Yes,” she made herself say. “Everything about the devils I learned. I’m sure you already know it. It’s probably not very good. I’ve never…”

It was strange how many endeavors ended with this stack of paper. By now, she had interviewed hundreds of Remin’s men. Men who had heard the first howls of the wolf demons. Men who had stood those long, lonely watches. She had tried to capture their experience in pages upon pages of notes, so messy even she could barely decipher them, and then spent pages more thinking about them, organizing them, presenting her new knowledge as clearly as she could.

She had rewritten it a dozen times. She had laid awake at night arguing with herself, testing her own logic and conclusions. And ultimately, she had produced her own version of The Will Immanent, first defining the nature of the devils, and then providing her own speculations and conclusions about what that nature implied.

“…never done anything like this before,” she finished, looking up into Sir Justenin’s pale, placid eyes.

“Are they your honest conclusions?” he asked. It was a question he had asked more than once over supper, when he thought Ophele was insufficiently confident in her assertions.

“Yes,” she said truthfully.

“Then we will make sure they impress the scholars of the Tower,” he said, inclining his head and riffling through the pages. Something about the way he said that made her prickle with alarm.

“We have word that they will be arriving next month, Your Grace,” Edemir explained kindly. “A Master Forgess from the Library of Beasts and Master Torigne, of the Library of Alchemy. With others to follow, if all goes well.”

“Oh. Good,” she said, her hands knotting at her sides as she resisted the urge to snatch her papers from Sir Justenin and run.

She had known they might come. She had known that if they did not, a copy of her research would be sent to the Tower anyway, as a Remin-style rebuke for their neglect. But she actually felt light-headed as she forced herself away, turning toward the steps with every word she had written flashing before her eyes.

“Sorry for dragging you about,” she said as she descended the steps with Sir Davi before her and Sir Leonin behind .

“It’s our job, my lady,” Davi repeated, holding the door for her. It was a fine, warm afternoon, a gentle autumn warmth with a vibrant blue sky. “And if what you wrote is anything like the stuff you’ve been saying, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked anxiously, falling into step between the two men. Sir Leonin always pretended that he wasn’t there and hadn’t heard anything, even when he was interested in the conversation, but Davi was perfectly willing to comment on her activities.

“I do. I hadn’t thought about how we never saw the buggers breed til you said so, but you’re right,” he replied. “Ain’t never seen devil eggs, nor little baby buggers, nor even tell of one devil covering ano—”

“This is hardly a proper topic for conversation on a public street,” interceded Sir Leonin, who was a bit of a wet blanket.

“Ain’t no different than sows and mares,” said Davi, a farmer through and through. “They’re beasts, they all make little beasties the same way. Except for the devils.”

“It’s not a subject to be discussed in polite company, much less with a lady,” the younger man replied, his words cool and crisp and somehow all the more biting for it. “We are meant to be guards, not companions.”

“So you say.” Davi drew himself up to his full, gangling height. “You’re right to say I ought to mend my manners, Leonin, and so I will, so I don’t shame the lady. But I ain’t having her drag me about like a block of wood behind her. That ain’t what the oath means.”

“We can discuss it later.” Leonin showed a few teeth. Ophele looked from one to the other, alarmed. Leonin had often admonished that they were supposed to guard, not talk, but it was the first time she had seen how strongly they disagreed about it. Leonin glanced down at her and inclined his head, his face polite and blank. “We apologize, my lady. It is unseemly to discuss this before you.”

“Don’t apologize for me.” Davi spoke before Ophele could, looking annoyed. “If we mean to be her hallows, she’s bound to hear us squabbling sooner or later.”

“Our job is to protect her from hearing such things. The lady is not one of your little sisters, Sir Davi.”

“After I give my oath, she’ll be the only little sister I’ve got,” Davi retorted hotly. “That’s what the bloody oath means. But you’re right, I got things to say that ain’t for the lady’s ears. ”

“Aren’t,” Sir Leonin said frostily. Ophele bit her lip, her shoulders hunching. There were a great many questions she would have liked to ask them, starting with the specifics of their oath, but the last thing she wanted was to provoke a quarrel.

“Thank you,” she said at the door of the cottage, subdued. They were still glaring at each other.

Putting a kettle on to boil, Ophele set about making a fresh cup of tea, though the familiar ritual did not soothe her. She had completed the task Remin had set her, and it was beyond recall now, in Sir Justenin’s hands. But she still had her own self-appointed task, and it was tedious work. The small table was laden with stacks of almanacs and even taller stacks of interviews, all of them waiting to be cross-referenced against each other to try to pin the devils to places and times.

1 st sighting quarter moon spring mtn pass fighting against blue and gold eagle banners, was a typical example from her notes. Deciphering this meant reviewing all the notes she had taken on the history of the war to figure out what Vallethi mountain war-band had carried blue and gold eagle banners, then figuring out when and where that fight had taken place at least as far as the month, and then consulting the almanac to find out when exactly the quarter moon had been. It allowed her to place the time of the devil sighting within a week.

This was not fun. In no universe could this be considered fun. Even her formidable memory couldn’t record every detail of hundreds of interviews, and Ophele was often left with the frustration of knowing she had read some helpful scrap of information somewhere, but unable to remember where. There were so many interviews, she was having to read them over and over and over before she found the one she had half-remembered.

Ophele objected to this on an almost spiritual level. It was the same grumbling dissatisfaction that had spurred her to reorganize Wen’s kitchen and propose improvements to water distribution at the wall. This was sloppy. It wasted time. It was inefficient.

And though she could feel the date of Remin’s departure for the mountains bearing down on her like a charging bull, Ophele grimly paused in her endless cross-referencing to remedy the problem. There was no point in doing this at all if she wasn’t going to do it right. And even if she was a liar and a sham of a princess and a poisoned sweet, she was going to give Remin one thing to be proud of.

Seven hours later, when Remin came home, she was nearly finished.

* * *

“Do not throw your life away needlessly,” Remin told the new-made Sir Rollon of Hollisey, standing outside the east gate in the gray pre-dawn. It was so early, the stranglers were still cackling in the trees. “Nor the lives of your men. A knight is responsible for every life in his command, and it is your duty to spend them with care.”

He might have been talking to himself. Stars, Rollon was so young. He looked a little less starved after a few days of good eating, but the mountain air would strip the flesh from his bones.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Rollon’s brown eyes were shining. “I am sure there are people alive in Nandre. I will bring them back, I swear.”

“Then go with the blessing of the stars.” Remin stepped back. His sole consolation was the number of older men among Rollon’s twelve, men of judgment and experience, men that Remin knew well. They planned to forage on the march for their food and take to the trees by night, trusting to their armor and stealth to keep the worst of the devils off them.

In theory, that would be enough to keep them from being slain the first night.

“Your Grace,” they said together, and marched away into the trees.

Each leavetaking was difficult in its own way. As soon as Rollon was safely away, Remin galloped back to the north gate to see off Huber and Ortaire. It was impossible for a hundred men to leave discreetly; these two parties were arrayed in marching order, with horses, wagons, and the caravan, its iron sides still scorched black from rapid repairs.

Remin wished he had not remembered Ortaire’s mother.

Seven years ago, he happened to be present when Clement of Feuilles accepted the boy as page, and Remin had heard Clement promise Ortaire’s mother to treat the boy fairly, feed him well, and nurture him to knighthood. And after Clement’s death, the Knights of the Brede had taken him on, raising him alongside Bertin and Rollon. Those three boys had grown to manhood during the war .

“Be quick and careful,” he told Ortaire now, offering a brief clasping of hands. “If I recall rightly, there was an abandoned village north of Estery Creek where you might find gardens still producing. If you have folk with you, and they get hungry.”

“I will remember,” Ortaire promised, and Remin offered all of them his blessing, then let them go.

That left Huber.

“You can save your good advice,” the knight said bluntly. “You should stay home.”

“Don’t worry, Juste will keep telling me so in your place.”

“Then you should listen.” Huber turned his head and spat. The silence between them was awkward, as it had never been when they were boys together. “Take care of yourself, and Her Grace,” he said finally. “If she needs cheering, tell her I’ve a dozen donkeys coming in spring. Economical creatures.”

“I’ll let her know. And you don’t have to do this.” The words burst out before Remin could stop them. “I’m not asking for your life. If you think this won’t succeed, don’t go.”

Huber looked at him with unreadable eyes, bright and flat as a copper coin.

“I know. Never for nothing.” There was an edge to every syllable. But then he exhaled sharply and rubbed the back of his neck. “Fuck, Rem, I know. And if you’re going because you feel guilty, don’t.”

“Your life means more to me than theirs,” Remin said, low and savage. “Than the people you’re going to save.”

“But it’s still the right choice to send me, isn’t it?” Huber clapped a hand on his shoulder, hard enough to smart. He was still angry, and maybe always would be. “Don’t worry, I’ve plans for a flat bit of land where I can breed up the best horses in the Empire. And maybe a herd of my own, since you went so far as to bring it up before the spirits.”

“I’ll mark a place for you on the map. Just come back.” Remin stepped back, hardening his face. There was no point in dwelling on it further. The decisions had been made. These men would march. Not all of them would come back.

“Stay home and fuck your wife, Rem. Make fat babies,” Huber advised, and then whistled, loud and carrying. “Heyyyyyy- yo! Move out, you iron sods! ”

Remin watched them go until they were a smudge in the distance, their voices raised in a marching song that would wake them up for the weary day’s work. It was barely light yet, and he was tempted to pause in his errands to see Ophele, but he made himself gallop past the cottage with only a wave for her guards. There were far too many things to do, and he knew if he stopped, he would linger.

He still had his own march to plan, and gazed once more at the mountains, measuring the faint snowcaps against the burnishing leaves in the forest below. The Third Company had arrived, and the barracks were seething like an anthill, with all the attendant bellyaching and bristling between his wolves. The ferries were disgorging passengers and supplies almost faster than they could be warehoused, and Nore Ffloce was running himself ragged to see that no one would be in a tent come winter.

With the thought of his own departure in mind, there was only one place he would go.

Sousten actually tried to run when he saw Remin coming.

“Plastering takes as long as it takes, Your Grace!” he burst out when Remin collared him, with a flailing of lacy ruffled wrists. “I promise, you will not like it if I take up a trowel myself!”

“That’s the same thing you said yesterday,” Remin growled, unimpressed with the excuse. “I told you I want the duchess in the house before I leave.”

“Then on bended knees I implore you, my lord, by all the stars in heaven, give me a date.” Sousten had been held up by his large, starchy collar, but now he let his legs dramatically collapse beneath him, as if he meant to literally prostrate himself. “Telling me to watch the snowcap on Long Bennitt is no guide for a construction schedule!”

“Pennitt. With a p.” Remin released him. That mountain was visible from the manor hilltop, and the progress of the snow on its peak had coincided with the disappearance of the devils for four years running. “It means as soon as possible. You said we would be ready to move in October. Have them work nights with lanterns if they must. I’ll pay.”

“It is not a matter of pay.” Sousten’s tone implied the very idea was unspeakably vulgar. “They are artisans, Your Grace, plastering is a craft that takes skill and discernment—”

“Triple pay. ”

This had been a source of friction between them. Remin was accustomed to the exigencies of war, where if he had deemed it necessary to move a mountain, his men would have figured out a way to get it done. The idea that manpower and willpower were not sufficient to every problem was entirely new to him.

He did not like it.

“Your Grace, if you would prefer them to splat mud against the walls, I will be delighted to design you a hovel,” Sousten replied, drawing himself up in majestic offense. “If you want smooth walls, they need sunlight. And rested eyes.”

Remin bared his teeth but was forced to abandon the argument. This was all well outside his area of expertise. Sousten took to his heels and Remin cast about for another victim for his impatience. The possibility that Ophele might still be in the cottage when snow started falling was the only thing that could make him rethink his decision to go after the devils himself.

His next stop was the harbor, where he could see from the top of the hill that there was some congestion in the river traffic. It wasn’t Master Gibel’s fault; he could not control the speed with which goods arrived, or the fact that there were six ferry boats and only four docks. The ferries were having to anchor offshore and wait to be unloaded.

“Six runs a day, my lord,” Master Gibel said, blotting his sunburned bald head with a handkerchief. “That was what was projected. We are doing ten, sometimes twelve. I can’t fault the porters; they hardly stand still from sunup to sundown.”

“So I see.” None of them were idle now; they were trooping up and down the gangplanks with the careful traffic patterns of a Segoile High Market day. In the close quarters of the quay, Remin’s generally-invisible fleet of guards drew in close enough that he could see a few familiar faces mixed in with the workers, and a shadow that was not a shadow in the trees on the hillside behind him.

“We could use a few more hands,” the dockmaster conceded. “And a few more warehouses, though the builders are going as fast as they can. But I have already sent communication to that effect to Master Ffloce and Sir Edemir, so you need not concern yourself there, Your Grace. I have word that the shipment from Ereguil has reached Berne. They were delayed with a broken wheel for a day, but will be arriving any day now. ”

“I have been expecting that,” Remin said, brightening. “It should only be a few small items, though.”

“I am told it is a full wagon of goods, my lord.”

That would be the mischief of Duchess Ereguil. Remin could just imagine a crate taller than himself bearing a single large tag: Trappings of Civilization.

“I’ll see there’s someone here to receive it,” he replied, his eyes drifting up the hillside to the barracks. That was his next stop anyway; Tounot and Bram had been bashing heads together since the Third arrived, along with the usual pissing matches between rival commanders. “I know where there are some hands wanting occupation.”

He went to the barracks. He went to the gatehouse. By the end of the day, he had made three complete circuits of the town, and all the while he went back and forth in his mind about whether to tell Ophele that the long-anticipated gifts were finally due to arrive, or whether he ought to just surprise her. He dearly loved to surprise her.

But when he arrived home that evening, she did not look in the mood for a surprise. She was almost hidden behind her stacks of papers and books, her head propped on one hand as she scribbled, and she did not seem to be enjoying herself.

“Ophele,” Remin said gently, so as not to startle her. His fingers nudged a stack of papers aside as he bent to kiss her hello.

“Don’t touch those,” she said, jerking upright, and instantly apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s just that they’re in a particular order. Hello.”

“I’ll be careful,” Remin replied, his eyebrows rising. In all the time he had known her, Ophele had never once snapped at him. “Are you well, wife?”

“Yes. I have a headache,” she admitted, laying a hand on his apologetically. “I’m sorry. Sir Justenin wrote his comments on this, so I’m rewriting it, and I still have to finish more interviews, and it’s all so… tedious.”

“Well, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” he said, kneeling beside her chair. “What did Juste say?”

“I want to,” she said stubbornly. “He said it was good, and he thought my conclusions had merit, but I don’t have enough evidence to support them yet. Which is why I need to do…this,” she said, with an unhappy wave at the taller stacks of papers .

“But you still won’t let me read it?” Remin had so far virtuously resisted all temptation to look at her papers, to prove to himself and her that he trusted her, but he was dying of curiosity. Ophele had been terribly secretive about her work, and he was honestly a little jealous that she let Juste read it first.

“I will, I promise,” she said. “I don’t want…in case I’m wrong.”

“As you wish.” Remin leaned forward to kiss her. “Are you sure you’re well? You seem worried lately.”

“I am, a bit,” she said, lowering her eyes to the papers as if they might be the whole of the problem.

“No one’s done anything to make you unhappy?” he pressed, wishing he could peer directly into her mind. Her golden eyes met his, clear as glass, filled with so many thoughts that he could never hope to read them all. “You know you have only to tell me.”

“I know,” she said softly. “Everyone is very, very kind.”

“Are you worried about my leaving?” It sounded arrogant, but he couldn’t guess what else it might be.

“I—no, of course you must go,” she said, her eyes flying to his face. “I mean, I don’t want you to. I will worry, and…oh, I will miss you. But it’s your duty, isn’t it? Everyone in the valley is counting on you.”

She fit into his arms like the piece of him that had been missing. Remin sighed, stroking her hair.

“I think it is,” he said, low. He did truly believe it was his duty to go, whatever his knights said. He was not an aged lord who could no longer swing a blade. He was Remin, Duke of Andelin. Remin Grimjaw. The stories that had grown up around that name were useful, but sometimes he felt perversely like he was chasing his own legend. Remin Grimjaw could not sit safe at home while his men went to hunt devils.

“But you will be careful,” Ophele lifted her head to look at him, and Remin gently smoothed his thumb between her eyebrows. The pain line was back.

“I will.” He had planned to keep Duchess Ereguil’s shipment as a surprise, but it felt like they were needed now. “We have presents.”

“We do?” She brightened, a slow smile curving her soft mouth. “You don’t have to keep giving me presents. ”

“I didn’t, as it happens. These are from Duchess Ereguil,” Remin explained, feeling his own spirits lift at the thought of his foster mother. “Some of my mother’s things, and I imagine a few things for the manor.”

“We are moving there soon, aren’t we?”

“Yes. Sousten promises it will be ready by mid-October.” He stroked her cheek, and she moved into him, sighing. And maybe that was all it was. Maybe she was feeling the same thing he did, the weight of their responsibilities closing about them like a cage. Soon, their days in the cottage would come to an end. They were building a splendid home together, a splendid life, but…

“I will miss this place,” Ophele said wistfully, looking around the cottage, and Remin knew exactly what she meant.

* * *