The charm on his wrist was silent, and the lengthening silence became more accusing than words.

Kennit finally whispered, “She’s a woman. That happens to women all the time. They’re accustomed to it.”

“You raped her.”

He laughed aloud. “Scarcely. She likes me. She said I was courteous and a gentleman.” He took a breath. “She only resisted because she’s not a whore.”

“Why did you really do it, Kennit?”

The question was relentless. Did the charm know that the same query rattled endlessly in his own mind? He had thought he was going to stop. He had stopped, until she began crying in the dark. If she had not done that, he would have been able to leave. So it was as much her fault as his. Perhaps. Kennit fumbled toward an answer. He spoke very softly. “Perhaps so I could finally understand why he did it to me. How he could do that to me, how he could pendulum between kindness and cruelty, between lessons in etiquette and seizures of rage-” Kennit’s voice fell away.

“You poor, pathetic bastard,” the charm ground out the slow accusing words. “You’ve become Igrot. Do you know that? To defeat the monster, you became the monster.” The tiny voice became even fainter. “You have only yourself to fear now.”

ETTA FLUNG DOWN HER EMBROIDERY. WINTROW LOOKED UP FROM HIS BOOK, then, with a private sigh, set it upon the table and waited.

“I’m in love with him. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid about him.” Her dark eyes stabbed Wintrow. “He’s with her again, isn’t he?”

“He took her a tray of food,” Wintrow suggested. Over the last four days since they had returned to Vivacia, Etta’s temper had become ever more uncertain. He supposed it might be her pregnancy, but during his mother’s times with child, she had become as content as a fat purring cat. As far as he could remember. This, he supposed, was not much. Maybe it was not her pregnancy. Maybe it was Kennit’s odd, distracted behavior. Maybe it was plain jealousy over the amount of time Kennit was devoting to Althea. He regarded Etta warily, wondering if she were going to throw anything else.

“I suggested she might dine with us. He said she still felt weak. But when I offered to take her tray to her, he said he feared she would do me harm. Does that make sense to you?”

“It seems a contradiction,” Wintrow admitted warily. Conversations like this were dangerous. While she could criticize and even accuse Kennit, any word of disparagement from him was usually met with a tirade of abuse.

“Have you spoken to her?” Etta demanded.

“No. I have not.” He would not admit he had tried. The door had been locked, from the outside. There had been no such lock on his door before. Kennit must have had it put there as soon as he cached Althea. There had been no response to his quiet call.

She stared at him quietly, but he would volunteer no information. He hated to see her like this, so agitated and yet so hurt. Against his better judgment, he asked, “Have you told Kennit yet?”

She stared at him as if he had said something obscene. She folded her arms, almost protectively, over her belly. “The time has not been right,” she said stiffly.

Did that mean Kennit was no longer sharing her bed? If so, where was he sleeping? Wintrow himself was making shift wherever he could. Kennit was not at all concerned that he had given Wintrow’s space to Althea. Wintrow had had to ask him twice before he remembered to bring him any of his clothing. The captain was not himself lately. Even the crew noticed, though no one was brave enough to gossip about it yet.

“And that Jek woman?” Etta asked acidly.

He debated lying, but she probably already knew he’d been down there. “She won’t talk to me.”

Kennit had ordered Jek to be held in one of the chain lockers. Wintrow had managed one visit with her. She had met him with a peppering of questions about Althea. When he could not answer any of them, she had spat at him and then refused to respond to any of his queries. She was shackled, but not cruelly. She could sit, stand and move about. Wintrow did not really blame Kennit for that. She was a large and powerful woman. She had a blanket and regular food, and her serpent burns seemed to be healing. Her lot, he reflected, was not much worse than his had been when he was first brought aboard the ship. It was even the same chain locker. It frustrated him that she would not speak to him. He wanted her telling of what had befallen the Paragon; what he had heard from the crew did not quite match what Kennit had told him. The ship would not speak of it to him at all. Bolt only mocked him when he tried to talk to her.