Professor Lawson paced the length of Prince`s Anryn`s apartments. He flapped his hands by his sides while the servants moved luggage into the room and began to unpack. He tried not to reach for his throat, though the phantom thrust of the dreaded spike felt closer now than ever.

　　He felt sick with dread, worrying whether he could offer the boy council before his father got to him. Anryn`s survival was all down to the exchange of information, now. If Professor Lawson could manage to tell the King what he needed without telling him too much, he might yet avoid the dull red X of the prisoner`s dilemma.

　　In the brief moments of Gruffydd the Younger`s arrival to the palace, he`d explained as best he could. When they had been standing in the vestibule, while Gruffydd stood outside greeting the court from the steps, Professor Lawson whispered a few urgent words into King Anathas`s ear—Prince Anryniel`s life was in danger, Gruffydd`s son posed as the prince to draw out the assassins.

　　He hadn`t mentioned the witches.

　　"I sent my son to school to learn statecraft, not theater," the King had said, his voice pitched low to reach only Professor Lawson`s ears. "What sort of counsel do you give the boy?"

　　Before Professor Lawson had been able to reply, Queen Eva had touched the King`s arm. His sovereign sent him off with only a flick of his flinty eyes.

　　Now Professor Lawson wondered whether he`d chosen the wrong information to share—or merely the wrong timing. It was a relief that the Lightning King had not berated him there in the vestibule, but the lack of an immediate reaction might only mean the King saved his anger to direct toward his son.

　　A waste of a good mind, the professor thought. He glanced around Prince Anryn`s apartments, noting the utter lack of any family portraits or personal touches. He supposed most of Anryn`s things were still at Amwarren, waiting to be sent. Even so, someone had managed to decorate the rooms at the palace for the wedding. Scarlet banners hung in all the rooms, and bright red and white flowers were arranged in vases. Garlands of green leaves symbolizing fertility hung from the canopied bed, and white silk sheets were made up beneath the heavy velvet coverlet.

　　Professor Lawson sat in one of the matching slipper chairs by the prince`s bed to wait while valets raised about. He drummed his fingers and wiggled his toes. How a mage had enspelled him so easily, Professor Lawson could not imagine. All his life, he`d kept moving, as the priests had instructed from childhood. It must have been easier to ensnare a distracted mind than the priests realized.

　　The minutes dragged by, while the cheers in the streets rose to a fevered pitch. He wished fervently for the appointment book stolen from his desk—if he could review his notes on the wedding schedule, he would know down to the minute where everyone was meant to be at that moment. The professor would have liked to have been there when Beatrice of Sanchia arrived, to coach young Gruffydd in the manner in which he should greet the woman who was to be the prince`s intended. But the real Prince of Ammar took precedence. He waited.

　　At last, Maertyn Blackfire stumbled into Prince Anryn`s rooms. He carried a case of bottles under his arm, two of which were already empty.

　　"In God`s name, Master Blackfire, it`s barely noon," Professor Lawson said. He took the case from Maertyn and looked into the hall. "What happened? Where is the prince?"

　　"I do not know," Maertyn admitted. "Do you want one? It is stronger than I thought that it would be and it tastes like trees."

　　"Get ahold of yourself," the professor said. At a complete loss, he began to lecture: "This is a critical moment, Master Blackfire. The prince`s plan rests on sussing out his assassins by deception. I confess, it has its weaknesses—the boys` fathers surely know what the two of them look like& But if it`s a member of Lady Beatrice of Sanchia`s party who means Anryniel harm, this is the moment we would ascertain their intent."

　　Maertyn blinked at him, bleary and uncomprehending. "I thought it was her father who wanted her dead?"

　　"Beatrice`s father? The Duke of Sanchia? No, no. He is most eager for a royal crown for his daughter. He has four of them, and each marriage he can secure only grows his wealth. The previous Duke, perhaps, still had cause to resist Ammarish influence, but he was deposed thirty years ago&" Professor Lawson squinted at Maertyn. "Or do you mean Prince Anryniel? Has the prince`s disguise confused you?"

　　"She does look pretty in a veil." Maertyn rubbed a hand across his face. "If someone is still trying to kill Anryn, they will still try. They do not care about disguises."

　　"The disguise is only to eliminate Sanchia as a possibility," Professor Lawson clarified. He waved his hand as if he gestured to his slate at the front of the lecture hall in Amwarren. "In the terms of the marriage contract, Sanchia can cancel the transfer of the Golden Fleet if Beatrice is returned to them. This only happens if Anryniel were to die before they are legally wedded, which occurs with the bedding ceremony. If all this goes according to plan with no further attempt on the prince`s life between the church and the bedroom tomorrow, then it could not be Sanchia who plots Prince Anryn`s death." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

　　"What is a bedding ceremony?" Maertyn said.

　　Professor Lawson sighed. He might as well be explaining diplomacy to a frog. A drunk frog. For the first time, the professor missed Gruffydd the Younger and his insipid observations—at the very least, they echoed the point the professor tried to make.

　　Yet Maertyn Blackfire was not a fool, he conceded. What the man knew, he knew. Without his esoteric well of knowledge, neither Professor Lawson nor Prince Anryn would have been alive at that moment.

　　You were the only man Anryn would follow into Nynomath, Maertyn had said. The words now gnawed at him.

　　Professor Lawson squeezed his hands together to stop them from their useless flutters in the air. He fretted over whether he reached the limit of the value that he could provide Prince Anryn. Despite his years of study and practice in law and diplomacy, Amwarren`s leading professor of law and diplomacy could not work out the source of an assassination plot. He felt he had all the variables, but could not place them in any formula that he knew to calculate power.

　　It could not be the King; no rational man would eliminate his only heir, lynchpin to an alliance nearly twenty years in the making. It was unlikely to be Nynomath—if mages had wanted the prince dead, that was easily accomplished without the insidious theft of the professor`s own face.

　　No, the threat had to be closer to home, Professor Lawson reasoned. If no move were made between now and the bedding ceremony, it may be that the bride herself had a knife hidden under the pillow. He went to check, tugging the heavy velvet drapes back from the four poster bed.

　　Professor Lawson drew up short at the sight of the folded velvet coverlet, strewn with flower petals and a Winze doll laid atop them. For some reason, the King`s words now echoed in his mind. What sort of counsel do you give the boy?

　　He turned back to Maertyn. "Master Blackfire, I`ve changed my mind. Pour me a glass of the Daleinne you have there."

　　Maertyn picked through the bottles in his case. "Which one is it?"

　　"Middle row, third from your left," Professor Lawson said. "It is a light gold color. A single malt whiskey with toffee and nectarine flavors."

　　Professor Lawson drank it down. He imagined where it burned in his throat was the path the spike would travel when they mounted his head upon it. He glanced at Maertyn and thought that he would likely require a bigger spike.

　　Unless it`s the stake for him.

　　He weighed his next words before each left his mouth, teetering at the brink of his conscience: "Can you& see anything? As the prince has asked you to?"

　　"No," Maertyn sipped from the bottle. His lips stretched in a grimace and a brightness seemed to kindle within his eyes. Professor Lawson had seen him make this face before—in the carriage while the fire burned all around him.

　　Thus far, the professor had rationalized his contact with witches. The fools dancing around the carriage, the desperate souls in the woods—this man with his uncanny timing and prodigious capacity for drink& All of them were a means to see Prince Anryniel safely onto the Blood Throne. It was even as the prince said: They were his subjects, also.

　　But now, the professor found himself on a road that led well past the point of subhorning heresy. It led to the red X on a grid of four squares. Guiding Anryn to the throne was more than agreeing to the young man`s every impulse. To be a worthy ally to King Anryniel, he would have to do more than go along with events. He needed to understand them and try to shape them with his influence.

　　Starting with this man that somehow seemed to be at the center of it all.

　　"Master Blackfire& What happened to you, in Nynomath?" he asked. "The mages believe that the Winze is all our sins made flesh. Lust and pride, greed and envy& You seem to harbor none of those inferiorities."

　　He watched Maertyn`s face. Some of the bright violence in those eyes faded, replaced by a shadow of suffering. The look might have been the same on any of the thousands of students Professor Lawson educated. An unlined face burdened by worry, with none of the greed or avarice associated with Hell.

　　Maertyn looked down at the bottle between his hands and began to roll it across his palms. "They cursed me. I killed them and I left."

　　"Ah& I see," Professor Lawsons said. He pressed for more, hoping to draw out some detail that could tell him who Maertyn had killed—some clue as to why had the mages called him by the name of the bad luck dolls. "And afterward? You came home to Ammar?

　　"I came home," Maertyn said. "But& part of me did not come back. The part that could age."

　　It was such an odd thing to say, and yet the whiskey opened Professor Lawson`s mind beyond the bounds of what it could contain. He considered with all seriousness what Maertyn said and concluded that some aspect of it must be true.

　　The mages in the woods were utterly convinced that he was something dire. After all, Maertyn did have some curious effect on those around him. Prince Anryniel stood up straighter, and saw his father`s kingdom with fresh eyes. Gruffydd the Younger was more sober and humble. And Professor Lawson had discovered in himself the temerity to reach far beyond his station and even shift his loyalty from King Anathas to Prince Anryniel—all starting from the moment he`d found this raving drunk outside his office.

　　"If you find yourself on the same road twice, be sure to read the signs the second time," the professor quoted. He sketched a sign of blessing in the air between them, his sincerity and the dram of whiskey steadying his fingers. "And if you find yourself on it a third time, Master Blackfire, then I shall indeed believe that you were cursed with immortality. For I cannot imagine a Hell more complete than making the same mistakes again and again for an eternity."