I nodded at him, unconsoled.

He sat down beside me. “Do you remember anything unusual about your passage through the stones?”

“I think Chade fainted just as he pulled me into the stone, so he was not using his Skill to help us make the passage.” I didn’t like to remember it. “I was aware that we were in a passage. Aware of my identity in a way I hadn’t been before when traveling through the stones. I was trying to hold on to Chade and keep him together. But to do that, I had to let down my own walls. If you know what I mean.”

He nodded, his brow furrowed. He spoke slowly. “You know that I’m not talented in the Skill. I sense it. I have a lot of strength that I can lend, but I can’t do much in the way of directing it. I can help someone else, but not really initiate it.”

I nodded.

“I’m not really sure that I’m Skilled at all. I think I’m just a person who can give strength. Like my father.”

I nodded again. “Burrich excelled at that.”

He swallowed. “I scarcely knew my little sister. Withywoods was far away, and she seemed to not really be a part of my life. I saw her a few times, but she seemed, well, too simple. As if she’d never really be a person. And so I didn’t get to know her. I regret that now. I want you to know that if you need my strength in any way, you’ve but to ask me for it.”

I knew he was sincere. And I knew there was precious little he could do for me. “Then look after your older sister and protect her in any way you can. I do not know what lies ahead for me. Be here for her and protect her.”

“Of course.” He looked at me as if I were slightly daft. “She’s my sister. And I’m part of the King’s Own Coterie. What else would I do?”

What else indeed? I felt a bit foolish. “When you left Chade, was he better?”

His face grew grave. He looked down and then lifted his eyes to meet my gaze squarely. “No. He’s not.” He ran his fingers back through his hair, then took a deep breath and asked me, “How much do you know of his activities with the pillars and stones?”

My heart sank. “Next to nothing, I imagine.”

“Well, he has always had a very keen interest in Aslevjal. He was convinced that the Elderlings had left a great amount of knowledge behind in those little blocks of memory stone and in the carvings on the walls. And so he would go there. At first, he would let the coterie know where he was going and how long he expected to be gone. But as his visits became more frequent, Nettle endeavored to restrict him, saying that as Skillmistress she had the right to do so. He countered that the knowledge he was gaining was well worth the risk to ‘one old man’ as he put it. It took King Dutiful stepping in to stop his travels.

“Or so we thought. He was no longer leaving Buckkeep and going up to the Witness Stones. No. He had discovered from his studies of the markings that there was another passage-stone, one that apparently been incorporated into the building of Buckkeep Castle itself. Or perhaps it was originally there. We have hints that sometimes portal-stones were actually inside strongholds. There is some information that leads us to believe there was a circle of passage-stones built into the Great Hall of the Duke of Chalced’s throne room. Long since toppled, our spies say … Oh. Sorry. Down in the dungeons of the keep, in one wall, there is a stone and on it is carved the rune for Aslevjal. He had been using it, and often. To conceal his use of it, he would leave Buckkeep late at night, and return by morning.”

My nails were sinking into my palms. It was the worst and most dangerous way to use the stones, according to Prilkop. Years ago, he had cautioned me against making such a passage twice in the space of less than two days. I had not listened, and I had been lost in the stones for weeks as a result. Chade had been taking very grave risks indeed.

“We only discovered it when he went missing. For a day and a half we could not find him, and then he came staggering up out of the dungeons, half out of his mind, with a sack of memory stones slung over his shoulder.”

I knew a jolt of anger. “And no one thought to tell me this?”

He looked surprised. “That would not have been my decision. I know nothing of why you were not told. Perhaps he begged them not to. Nettle, Dutiful, and Kettricken were extremely angry and frightened by the incident. That, I think, was when he truly stopped his experiments.” He shook his head. “Except for the amount of time he was spending delving into the cubes of memory stone he had brought back. He had them in his apartments, and we think he was using them in lieu of sleep. When Nettle confronted him about his absentmindedness, he explained what he was doing. When she ordered them removed to the library, and limited his access to them, he was furious. But not as a man is furious: more like a child deprived of a favorite toy. That was over a year ago. We thought he had mastered his thirst for the Skill. Perhaps he had, but maybe these last two trips, too close together, woke it again.”