I indicated my cup on the table. “No, thank you. I’ve been drinking hot tea this evening.”

“Oh. Very good.” Chade walked around the table to see what I was working on. “Oh. Did you finish the Icefyre scrolls?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I don’t think we’re going to find anything useful in them. They seem to be very vague about the actual dragon. Mostly accounts of earthquakes that proved that the dragon would punish someone if he didn’t do what was just, and so the man realizes that he had best behave in a righteous way.”

“Nevertheless, you should finish reading them. There might be something in there, some hidden mention of a detail that could be useful.”

“I doubt it. Chade, do you think there even is a dragon? Or might not this be Elliania’s ploy to delay her marriage, by sending the Prince off to slay something that doesn’t exist?”

“I am satisfied that some sort of creature is encased in ice on Aslevjal Isle. There are a number of passing mentions of it being visible in some of the very old scrolls. A few winters of very deep snowfalls and an avalanche seem to have obscured it. But for a time, travelers in that area would go far out of their way to stare into the glacier and speculate on what they were seeing inside it.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Oh, good. Perhaps this will be more a task for shovels and ice saws than for a prince and a sword.”

A smile flickered briefly over Chade’s face. “Well, if it comes to moving ice and snow swiftly, I think I’ve come up with a better technique. But it still needs refinement.”

“So. That was you on the beach last month?” I had heard rumors of another lightning blast, this one witnessed by several ships out in the harbor. This explosion had happened in the deep of night during a snowstorm. It befuddled all who spoke of it. No one had seen lightning streak through the sky, nor would expect to on such a night. But no one could deny hearing the blast. A sizable amount of stone and sand had been moved by it.

“On the beach?” Chade asked me as if mystified.

“Let it go,” I conceded, almost with relief. I had no wish to be included in his experiments with his exploding powder.

“As we must,” Chade agreed. “For we have other things to discuss, things of much greater importance. How is the Prince progressing with his Skill lessons?”

I winced. I had not informed Chade that the Prince had not been coming to them. I hedged at first, reminding him, “I’ve been reluctant to let him do any actual Skilling while the scaled Bingtowner is still here. So we had only been studying the scrolls—” Then I suddenly saw little sense in withholding the truth, and no future at all in lying to Chade. “Actually, he hasn’t come to any of his lessons since the farewell banquet. I think he’s still angry at discovering I’d placed a Skill command on him.”

Chade scowled at the news. “Well. I’ll take steps to correct the young man. Regardless of how ruffled his feathers are, he had best put himself to that task. Tomorrow, he will be there. I will arrange that he will be able to spend an extra hour with you each morning and not be missed. Now. As to Thick. You must get to the task of teaching him, Fitz, or at least getting him to obey you. I leave how you do that to you, but I suggest that bribes will work better than threats or punishments. Now. On to our next task: how do you propose that we begin looking for other Skill candidates?”

I sat down and crossed my arms on my chest. I tried to hold in my anger as I asked, “Then you’ve found a Skillmaster to teach other candidates if you find them?”

He knitted his brows at me. “We have you.”

I shook my head. “No. I teach the Prince at his request. And you’ve coerced me into trying to teach Thick. But I am not a Skillmaster. Even if I had the knowledge to be one, I would not be one. I cannot. You are asking me for a lifetime commitment. You’re asking me to eventually take on an apprentice who would assume the duties of a Skillmaster when I died. There is no possible way I could take on a class of students and instruct them in the Skill without revealing to all of them who I am. I won’t do that.”

Chade stared at me, mouth slightly ajar at my contained anger. It seemed to give my words momentum.

“Furthermore, I’d prefer that you let me settle my quarrel with the Prince in my own way. It will go better so. It’s a personal matter, between him and me. As for when and where I will be able to teach Thick? Never and nowhere,” I said shortly. “He doesn’t like me. He’s unpleasant, ill-mannered, and smelly. And, if you haven’t noticed before, he’s a half-wit. A bit dangerous to trust him with the Farseer magic. But even if he weren’t all those things, he has rejected all my efforts to teach him anything.” That was true, I defended it to myself. He had quickly terminated all of my halfhearted attempts at conversation, leaving me in a cloud of Skilled insults. “And he’s strong. If I push him, he may take that dislike of me to a violent level. Frankly, he scares me.”