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wordless prayer for the change to be permanent. Not only Lord Ido’s change, but my own wondrous healing. I could not bear to lose my freedom again.
    â€œSethon will not only be looking for you, Lady Dragoneye,” Master Tozay murmured, a touch to my sleeve drawing me a few steps away. “He will be seeking anyone close to you that he can use as a hostage. Give me the names of those who you think are in danger. We will do our best to find them.”
    â€œRilla, my maid, and her son Chart,” I said quickly. “They fled before the palace was taken.” I thought of Chart; his badly twisted body would always attract attention, if only to drive others away before his ill fortune tainted them. I felt a small leap in my spirit: never again would I be spat on as a cripple or driven away. “Rilla would seek somewhere isolated.”
    Tozay nodded. “We will start in the mid-provinces.”
    â€œAnd Dillon—Ido’s apprentice—but you are already searching for him. Be careful with Dillon; he is not in his right mind, and Sethon will be hunting him for the black folio, too.”
    I remembered the madness in Dillon’s eyes when he had wrenched the black folio from me. He’d known the book was vital to Ido’s plans for power and thought he could use it to trade with his Dragoneye master for his life. Instead, he had brought Sethon and the entire army upon himself. Poor Dillon. He did not truly understand what was in the small book he carried. He knew it held the secret to the String of Pearls. But its pages held another secret, one that terrified even Lord Ido: the way for royal blood to bind any Dragoneye’s will and power.
    â€œIs that all who may be at risk, my lady?” Tozay asked.
    â€œPerhaps …” I paused, hesitant to add the next names. “I have not seen my family since I was very young. I hardly remember them. Perhaps Sethon would not—”
    Tozay shook his head. “Sethon will try everything. So tell me, if they were found and held, could Sethon coerce you with their lives?”
    Dread curdled my stomach. I nodded, and tried to dredge up more than the few dim images I had of my family. “I remember my mother’s name was Lillia, and my brother was called Peri, but I think it was a pet name. I can only remember my father as Papa.” I looked up at Tozay. “I know it is not much. But we lived by the coast—I remember fishing gear and a beach—and when my master first found me, I was laboring in the Enalo Salt Farm.”
    Tozay grunted. “That’s west. I’ll send word.”
    Beside us, the herbalist lifted Ryko’s dripping hand from the bowl and laid it back on the pallet. He leaned over and stroked Ryko’s cheek, then pressed his fingertips under the islander’s jaw.
    â€œA sharp increase of heat,” he said into the silence. “The death fever. Ryko will join his ancestors very soon. It is time to wish him a safe journey.”
    He bowed, then backed away.
    My throat ached with sorrow. Across the pallet, Solly’s face was rigid with grief. He raised a fist to his chest in a warrior’s salute. Tozay sighed and began a soft prayer for the dying.
    â€œDo something,” Dela said.
    It was part plea, part accusation. I thought she was talking to the herbalist, but when I looked up she was staring at me.
    â€œDo something,” she repeated.
    â€œWhat can I do? There is nothing I can do.”
    â€œYou healed yourself. You healed Ido. Now heal Ryko.”
    I glanced around the ring of tense faces, feeling the press of their hope. “But that was at the moment of union. I don’t know if I can do it again.”
    â€œTry.” Dela’s hands clenched into fists. “Just try. Please. He’s going to die.”
    She held my gaze, as though looking away would release me from her desperation.
    Could I save Ryko? I had assumed that Ido and I were healed by