It was true. Allowing oneself to flow into the Skill-current was intoxicating. The sense of merging and belonging beckoned as pain and worries flowed away. It felt powerful and right. I’d been tempted, and more than once. I would have felt ashamed if I had not been so frightened. And so desperate. “We have to pull him back,” I told her. I teetered on the edge of telling her why it was so important. Then feared that even if she knew, she would not let us try.

“No. Not we. You have to stay well back from this, Da. Because I’ve sensed it in you since you came back from Withywoods. The current tugs at you both.” She took in a breath, her hand set on the barely visible rise of her belly. “Oh, that Thick were here now. But even if the weather holds fine, he is still two days away.” She put her attention back on me. “It would probably be best if you left. And set your walls as tightly as you can.”

I couldn’t go. Chade had clutched the blankets to his throat and was watching her as if he were a small boy and she had a switch behind her back. “I brought him poppy. For the pain. If we dull the pain, he might have more control.”

She shook her head. “He can’t have it. We think that right now, the pain is what is keeping him here, in his body. It’s reminding him he has a body.”

“He seemed fine when we spoke earlier. Well, in pain from his wound, but he made sense. We took counsel together …”

She was shaking her head at me. There was another tap at the door and Steady entered. He nodded to me and actually smiled. “Fitz! I’m glad that at last you can be yourself here at Buckkeep Castle.”

“Thank you,” I said inanely. My gaze was on Chade. He was staring up at the portrait of his brother, his mouth moving soundlessly as if he spoke to him. But Steady’s full attention was on his sister as he asked Nettle, “Should you be trying this? Shouldn’t you be resting?”

She smiled at him wearily. “Steady, I’m pregnant, not ill. Where are the others?”

He tipped his head toward me as if we were sharing a joke. “When she snaps her fingers, she expects the king to come at a trot. He’ll be here soon, Nettle.”

“It will be only the three of you? That’s not much of a Skill-coterie. You’ll need me here.” I tried not to sound as desperate as I felt. I reached my hand toward Chade, thinking that if we touched, I could reach him. Nettle sharply slapped it aside.

“No. We have two Solos we can summon if we think that we need their help. Amethyst and Hardy are not very sociable but both are strong in the Skill. For now, I think those most familiar with Lord Chade can best call him back and bind him up. But not you.” Nettle answered my question and then pointed at the door. I opened my mouth to object and she told me, “You can’t help us. You will only distract us, and that includes distracting Chade. And you may make yourself more vulnerable than you already are. Chade is hemorrhaging into the Skill-stream. And he’s actively trying to draw you with him, whether you realize it or not.”

“I have to stay. You have to bring him back to his senses. Then, wise or not, he and I must attempt to Skill together.”

Nettle narrowed her eyes at me. “No. The very fact that you are asking this shows me that you are strongly drawn to it.”

I met her gaze. Oh, Molly, would that you could look at me with that same stubborn look your daughter wears. I steeled my heart. Loyalty to the Farseer reign Chade had always taught me. Above all things, even loyalty to Chade. Right now, my judgment was clearer than his. “That’s not it at all. It’s not the Skill-yearning. It’s Bee. A short time ago, when we were talking, Chade revealed to me that his daughter Shun—Shine—has the Skill. She is untrained. And worse, he sealed her to the Skill lest she be vulnerable.” The anger on Nettle’s face was building to fury. More frightening was Chade’s lack of reaction to my betrayal. He was watching the wall again, his mouth hanging ajar. “He has been unable to reach her, to Skill the unlocking word to her so she can help us find her. He did not know if it was because he was weak or because the danger all around her has made her put up her Skill-walls. Together, we were going to try to break through to her.”

“After I’d told both of you to refrain from Skilling?”

“I’d forgotten that,” I said honestly.

“You expect me to believe that?” She bit off the words one by one.

“It’s true! The chance to find Bee was all I thought of.”

Her look softened slightly. No, I had imagined that, for her next words were, “And knowing that, you did not think to immediately come to me, the Skillmistress, to seek my advice and expertise in this matter?” She folded her lips tightly, then, as if against her will, asked me, “Do you have any respect for me at all?”