Chapter 161

CASPIAN

I have signed nine treaties in my life that I meant, and some hundreds that I did not. The difference is not in the ink. It is in the morning after, when a man reads back what he has put his name to and finds out which kind it was.

I found out on a Thursday at the beginning of April, in Odette’s kitchen, on two sticks.

***

She came down before the petitions, while the bread was still proving under its cloths and the range had not yet come up to heat. She had her riding boots on. I saw that first, and then the satchel, and then that she had not slept much either. Her left ear was still bad from the valley; she stood with her right side toward me, as she had done for three weeks now, without seeming to know she did it.

“I’m going to Ellisar,” she said. “To look. Not to answer. I want to stand in it before I say anything to anyone.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. My father rides back at first light. Rowan’s coming.” She looked at the stool,