“So. After all that. What did you tell him about?” I kept my voice very soft.

“Oh, nothing. Only about the old man. How to stack his wood. Not to shake the wine bottles when I bring them to him. To take away the dirty dishes and old food every morning. Not to move his papers, even though he lets you move his papers. That he says I have to do what you say, even though I don’t want to come to you. About how you want to talk to me. And they said, ‘Don’t go! Say you forgot!’ About how you talk at night sometimes.”

“Who talks? Chade and I?” I drew the comb slowly through his hair and trimmed the hair below it. The damp black points fell to the floor as my heart rose hammering in my throat at his next words.

“Yea. That you talk about Skill and Old Blood. That he calls you a different name. Fizshovly. That you don’t like me to know about the girl who cries.”

The sharp fear from his mangled naming of me was swallowed in his mention of “the girl.” “What girl?” I asked dully, longing for him to say only “that girl” or “I don’t know.” My guts were water inside me.

“She cries and cries,” Thick said softly.

“Who does?” I asked again with a sinking heart.

“That girl. That Nettle that whimpers at night and won’t stop.” He cocked his head, making my scissors take too deep a cut. “She cries right now.”

That stretched the bowstring of my fear tighter. “Does she?” I asked. Gingerly, I lowered my walls. I opened myself to Nettle, but felt nothing. “No. She’s quiet now,” I observed.

“She cries to herself. In a different place.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“In the empty place.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I repeated with a growing sense of alarm.

He frowned intently for a moment, then suddenly his face eased. “Never mind. She stopped.”

“Just like that?” I asked incredulously. I set my scissors and comb down.

“Yea.” His finger casually investigated his nose. “I’m going now,” he suddenly announced. He stood up and glanced around the room. “Don’t eat my cake!” he warned me abruptly.

“I won’t. Are you sure you won’t stay and eat it?” A kind of shock had left me immune to all feeling. Had Laudwine untangled my true name from Thick’s maiming of it? He definitely knew my daughter’s name. Danger yawned below us, and I spoke to a half-wit about sugar cakes.

“If I eat it, then it would be gone.”

“There might be another.”

“There might not,” he pointed out with incontrovertible logic.

“I’ve an idea.” I went to one of Chade’s less cluttered shelves and began to move things. “We’ll make a spot for you, here. And we’ll put Thick’s things on this shelf. So they’ll always be where you can find them.”

For some reason, this seemed a difficult idea for him to master. I explained it several ways, and then had him put both the sugar cake and the feather on the shelf. Hesitantly, he picked up the bowl that had held the raisins and nuts. Only a handful of the sugared nuts remained. “You can put that there, too,” I told him. “And I will try to put more nice things to eat in it.” So he did, and then stood and admired it for a time.

“Going to go now,” he abruptly announced again.

“Thick,” I began carefully. “Tomorrow, on washing day. Will a man come to take you to One-arm?”

“Don’t talk about him.” He was adamant. Adamant and scared. I could hear the roiling of his Skill music.

“Do you want to go, Thick? To see the one-arm man?”

“I have to go.”

“No you don’t. Not anymore. Do you want to go?”

This seemed to require a lot of thought. Then, “I want the pennies. To buy the sweet.”

“If you told me where One-arm is, I could go for you. And get the pennies for you, and bring you the sweet.”

He scowled and shook his head. “I get my pennies for myself. I like to buy it myself.” He was suspicious again, edging away from me.

I took a breath and counseled myself to patience. “I’ll see you tomorrow, for our lessons, then.”

He nodded somberly and left Chade’s chambers. I went over and picked up his wet pants from the floor. I hung them on the chair back again. I doubted that anyone would wonder about the robe Thick now wore. It was a long-outdated style for Buckkeep Castle, and servants, especially the lowest level of servants, were often dressed in their masters’ castoffs. I sighed and sat down in the chair and stared into the fire. What was I going to do?