Kurellan came to visit after Idris’s medicines had been administered and he felt well enough to be out of bed. Idris had not moved far, though. The balcony door was open and the perfumed summer air wafted in; Idris was in his patio chair, his legs covered in a woollen blanket as he stared out at the garden below. The old judge brought the chest up with him and placed it in the corner of the bedroom, out of sight from Idris’s seat.

  “You can deal with that when you’re ready,” Kurellan said. “We have... other things to discuss.”

  Kurellan settled on the stool and gazed out of the window for a while, following Idris’s turned head. It had been so long since Idris and Kurellan had really spoken; they never used to talk at all, outside of necessary conversations about court business or work. The last time they had spoken privately, Kurellan had left Dravid Orrost’s confession on the end of Idris’s bed and told him rather cryptically that he knew about the Fairy Queen’s trick. Idris had no idea what he was supposed to say or do. He was not sure Kurellan was his friend and he was certain that nothing that had happened over the last two weeks would particularly endear him with the old judge, who famously abhorred the art of necromancy. Kurellan looked calm, though, his salt-and-pepper hair swept back, his expression neutral.

  “Gleesdale is rather lovely,” said Idris.

  “That it is.”

  “I feel quite a fool for neglecting it for so long.”

  “The people tend well to themselves and the land. I’m sure that’s why Her Majesty gave it to you. It’s a jewel in Marbury’s crown, that’s for sure.” Kurellan sighed. “Nothing like Raven’s Roost, hmm?”

  Idris shook his head, thinking of the dark blackness of the tower against the sky as they rode away.

  “Nothing like it.”

  “How is your throat?”

  Idris touched his bruised neck protectively. He was lucky it was not worse.

  “I can talk and eat. I was fortunate.”

  “Your father has quite the grip, hmm?”

  Frowning, Idris looked closely at Kurellan’s face. The judge showed no sign that he had said anything strange.

  “You... knew?” Idris said.

  “Your uncle and I, we were friends,” said Kurellan. “He told me he had business to attend to in Outer Arbedes, when you must have been about fifteen. I tried not to pry too much into his business, everything with you. There was enough to do at that time, anyway, what with His Majesty’s passing, and I was doing my best to keep Her Majesty safe from external threats and keep the kingdom running in King Gael’s absence. I knew you existed, but none of that had anything to do with me.”

  “And you still had no idea I only had one foot?” said Idris, surprised. Kurellan shrugged.

  “Like I said, I didn’t pry. After he came back, though, he sought me out specifically. Haylan gave no details, but he said under no circumstances was I to let you go there. There was someone there that was dangerous to you. I did not put the pieces together until you were older and by that time, I hardly thought it mattered. You had a cosy life. Why complicate it?”

  Once, Idris had believed Kurellan to be a dull, curmudgeonly bureaucrat who despised him, yet every time they spoke, he discovered this was not true. Kurellan was observant, even if he was set-in-his-ways and old fashioned, and he cared deeply for the continued wellbeing of the kingdom and its people – which apparently included Idris, too. It was quietly comforting to know that he had been watching from the corners for so long.

  “I do not remember you visiting with Uncle Haylan,” said Idris. “Ever.”

  “He didn’t take many visitors. Likely due to the nature of your work and your…”

  “Missing limb?”

  “That.” The old judge shifted his jaw. “How a man can hurt his only child… that gnaws at me, Idris. I have seen kinder beatings between total strangers.”

  “Layton and I are total strangers,” said Idris, hating the cold feeling in his chest. “It hardly hurts. Willard’s herbs dull everything quite neatly.”

  “You do seem very calm for a man who has had his world turned upside-down.”

  “I am tired of crying. And the herbs are very, very good.”

  “Then perhaps, while you are in the land of the unfeeling…” Kurellan reached into his jerkin and pulled out a thick parchment envelope. “I should give you this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your uncle left it to me before he passed. He said I would know when to give it to you but that likely, it wouldn’t be for a long time. Feels good now.” Kurellan put it on Idris’s blanketed lap. On the front was Haylan’s handwriting: Master the Third. “Whatever happens next,” said Kurellan, standing, “know you have people behind you who care about you.”

  Idris was almost too stunned to joke about it, but he eventually managed to croak, “Even you, Your Honour?”

  “We’ll see, whelp,” said Kurellan as he walked out.

  Idris toyed with the edges of Uncle Haylan’s final gift for a few minutes, wondering what Haylan had thought so important that he had to give it to Kurellan, of all people. Finally, his fingers feeling fat and heavy, he tugged the wax seal apart.

  Dearest nephew,

  I start this letter much like the last I wrote to you, although you have not yet read that letter. You are almost sixteen. Today, we walked the cool verandas of the royal palace in Veridia as the autumn set in. You are steady on your prosthetic – you hardly even need the crutches anymore – and, after several turbulent years, quite steady in your heart, too. It has been difficult. There were months where I thought we would not get here. There were days where I watched you, to make sure you did not do yourself any purposeful harm. I think those days are over, now. I hope they are, at any rate.

  We walked and talked of the coming season, of the work you wanted to do. The princess will be crowned in three days and you want to be useful to her, and I am sure you will be in the years to come. In the afternoon, you worked on your stances. You raised three mice and had them bring you paper, quill and ink. I must say, it is still the strangest thing, to watch you perform. It simultaneously excites and terrifies me.

  I love you, still. You are not my little nephew, anymore. You are a man, or close enough to one that I am redundant in your daily care, except first thing in the morning and last thing at night. You are softly spoken and polite, and I must say rather awkward at social functions, although I am certain that this is something you will grow out of once you are less critical of yourself. You are a perfectionist, which is the only thing that ignites your temper outside of losing at cards. And while your particular aptitude is distasteful to most here at the palace, I am glad that you have accepted it as a part of who you are, without bitterness or disappointment.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  So, my first reminder: necromancy is not evil. You are not evil. Your blood is not bad, or wrong, or abnormal. The arias gave you a strange gift, to be sure, but the way you use it is your decision. Right now, you want to raise horses to help the farmers in the corn fields to bring in their harvest. In fact, I think that is what you retired to study – horse anatomy.

  To the point. I have returned from a necessary trip that I think I should detail here. Unfortunately, I am too much of a coward to speak this to you, and I did not collect the box from Temple Hill, which I intended to do. I was too shaken from what I saw to do so. That is unfair to you and I do apologise. Hopefully you can find some forgiveness in your heart when you read this. I hope we can talk civilly about it afterwards.

  Idris paused, turned the papers over so he did not read ahead. He remembered Uncle Haylan’s trip. It was not uncommon for Haylan to leave to perform his work while they were in Veridia, but he normally went with a lot of luggage. That time, Haylan travelled incredibly sparsely. When he returned, he did not come back with souvenirs like he usually did. Instead, he greeted Idris, said he had some business to attend to and went to his rooms. It was so close to the death of the king that Idris had assumed that Haylan was doing paperwork to protect their stay in the palace, and did not question.

  Sighing, he returned to the letter.

  I went back to Temple Hill, and then further out. In my previous letter, which I hope you have read by the time you receive this letter, I told you about your blood father, a man named Layton.

  Idris – I found him.

  The death of King Gael had me thinking that maybe I had done you a disservice. Perhaps you should have been with him, or at least he should have known where you were all this time. It was unfair of me to take you without his knowledge. So, I travelled into Outer Arbedes for the express purpose of finding Layton, telling him that you were safe and well and perhaps arranging a meeting between you, if that was what he wanted – and you, too, of course. I was going to tell you everything when I returned – give you the letter and the proof, and speak with you about it, and ask if you would like to know Layton.

  I changed my mind.

  Idris, this man, Layton – he is a bitter, lonely man. I am certain that if you met, he would manipulate you into thinking that the only future you have is in seclusion and paranoia. It pains me to keep holding the truth at bay, because you truly deserve it, but I do it for your protection.

  I think, if I had given Layton the opportunity, he would have killed me.

  I do not write this lightly. When I came upon him, it was entirely by accident. The ruins of Outer Arbedes are vast and dark and it is easy to lose your way. I spent most of my time there making maps and charting my progress. It was at one of these junctures I came across a man who was leading a horse along one of the wide roads, and I called out to him to make my presence known.

  He turned and dropped instantly into a casting stance. By the time he had done so, I knew that it was him. I remembered his face, but I do not know if he remembered mine. I told him I came in peace and I was glad to have met him on the road, and I reintroduced myself and asked if he was Layton.

  He said, “Where is my child, Haylan?”

  It was the way he said it, I think. Something cold and unhinged.

  “Where have you taken my child?” he said.

  I knew then that I had made a mistake. He was angry before I even had the chance to speak. He thought I was there to hurt him, probably.

  I told him you were well and that I had tried to find him years before, and that I was surprised that he had not reached out to try and find you previously.

  “I have a deal,” said Layton.

  “With Astridia?” I asked.

  “He is to come to me,” he said.

  “He is, or you would like him to?”

  “He is mine by right,” Layton said.

  “Yours?” I said, surprised. “No, Layton, he is the heir to Temple Hill, and he belongs to nobody. A kingdom-wide call went out to claim him, I am surprised you did not answer if you feel that strongly about his welfare. He needed you, and you were not there. But I promise he is well, and well-taken-care-of.”

  “He is no healer’s heir,” said Layton. “He is of noble birth, from a long line of necromancers, and you will give him to me.”

  Idris, you are not a possession to be bartered over. Layton’s tone convinced me that to him, that is all you are. A commodity. He does not care for you. If he did, he would have tried harder to find you. He cares more for his own protection than about being a loving father.

  I told him that he would not be meeting you, now or ever, as long as I was alive.

  That was probably wrong of me. I was angry by then, though. I had come to give him a chance and he was aggressive and derogatory towards you, and you are worth more than that. But standing there, in front of him at last, for him to be so cold towards you, it made me think of all of the pain we had been through together, how hard we have worked to rebuild a good life for you, everything we have both given up and sacrificed so that we can be a family, together and strong, without your mother or Obrin – and I thought of how if Layton truly cared for you, he would have been there, too.

  I turned my back on him, which was careless, as he shouted after me that if I meant to keep his son from him, I had better expect to be killed for my insolence, and I think he might have harmed me if his horse had not got spooked at his rage. I took the opportunity and I fled.

  I did not return to Temple Hill. How could I?

  I came straight home. Yes, home. Home is wherever you are, and you are in Veridia. I hugged you tight and you asked how my trip was, and I lied to you and said it was uneventful but that I had business to attend to, and I went and wrote a letter to your mother.

  I am angry with her, too. A deal? Neither of those people deserve to be your parents. Where has she been, while I have been here with you? Not that I regret our time, Idris. I am glad I was here. I dread to think what might have happened had I not been.

  Hopefully, this time, she will respond. I have not given her much of an out if she does not.

  Idris, I am sorry. If you want to meet Layton, I can tell you where I found him. I do not want you to expect a welcome from him that is warm or fatherly. I see his blood in you, now that his face is fresh in my memory, and it pains me. You are a better man than he is, than he can ever be. He ran from you and he hid from Astridia, and he expects your fealty? No.

  You are Idris. You may no longer be an Eremont, but you are a healer’s heir. You are a necromancer and one day, you will be proud of that. I am proud of that. You have worked hard and you continue to work hard. You have overcome.

  One day, we will sit and discuss all of this. It will not be soon. I am sorry that I cannot be brave enough to be honest.

  Let me end my letter the same way as I ended the first. Tomorrow, we will dine on apple preserves and oats for our breakfast, and you will likely complain about the practice Magus Arundale will make you do in your lessons because the practice chambers are cold and it makes your joints ache quite awfully. I will tell you to dress warmly and you will not, because you are fifteen and you think yourself the wisest man on this earth, so I will put a scarf in your book satchel just in case.

  I will continue to love you. I will try to teach you patience and optimism, and I will remind you of all of the people who care for you – the princess and the magus, and me. And I will be grateful that I have you by my side, and that you put your trust in my hands, even though I cannot tell you the truth of who you are or who waits for you in the far edge of Marbury, not now.

  I wish I had some sort of power to fix this for you, to make this right. Maybe one day, you will have that power.

  All of my love, now and forever,

  Master the Second (your uncle, Haylan Eremont)

  Enclosed, behind the letter, were the maps Haylan had talked about, crude maze-like drawings of Outer Arbedes. Haylan was no artist. Idris traced the lines fondly, regardless.

  “I miss you, Uncle,” he whispered. “And I forgive you. You were right.”

  Then, behind those, was a final letter.

  It was from his mother.

  Idris read it once, frowning, and instantly read it again. It was clearly the response to Haylan’s letter, the one that had arrived just after Idris’s sixteenth birthday.

  This is none of your business, Haylan, it read. You cannot make demands of me as if I have no rights. Idris is my son. That is all that matters. But yes, unfortunately he is also Layton’s. Under no circumstances does Idris ever return to Temple Hill. If his father is there, it will get messy. Do what you said you would do and protect him.

  Idris closed his eyes, steadied his breathing and sucked his cheeks.

  The rest of the letter confirmed most of what Layton had said. His mother had told Layton that he could collect Idris from Temple Hill, two days before the winter solstice, on Idris’s sixteenth birthday. Astridia wrote that Haylan must not allow that to happen, that for as long as possible, Idris should remain ignorant and unaware.

  If you tell him, she wrote, that will be the end of everything. And I suppose that means you will hold true to your ridiculous ultimatum, and that you will not allow me to speak to him again. As long as he is safe, that is fine by me. I will not be writing again.

  That afternoon, Idris carved the Eremont crest into the bedframe with a steak knife Lila brought him at lunchtime. It was a cruel, sharp representation of the crest he thought was his own, a long time ago, which he knew now had never been his, but he wanted to feel it beneath his fingers, to see it one more time.

  If he had never truly been an Eremont, and he did not want to be a Vonner… then what did that make him?