"And we will live happily ever after?" the Fool asked I watched the bits of mortar fall. "That is my intention." "And mine. My hope. But a thin one." "Don’t doubt us, or we are lost." "Fitz, my love, that is the problem."

He slept, curled like a kitten, his brow nearly touching mine. His breathing was deep and even, and one long hand was palm up on the blankets between us, as if in offering, or beseeching something of me. Sleepily I reached over and set my hand in his.

"I watched you carve that figurehead. Don’t deny to me what you feel for him."

"I can’t go through another one of your deaths. I can’t." "You can’t?" He gave a giggle of despair. "You see. We’re trapped. I’ve trapped you, my friend. My beloved."

"I’ll protect you and we will kill them all," I promised him savagely. I spoke my oath tightly, only to him. I leaned in close to whisper the words. "They will bleed and die and we will take back our own from them."

But when his mouth was by my ear, he muttered mawkishly, "Farewell, Beloved." Despite my irritation, I had to smile. I gave him a hug and released him. "Go safely, Fool."

His head was pillowed on his outstretched arm and the fire glazed him with light. I looked at him and my heart turned over in my chest.

"A Catalyst to them is a tool, not a true companion. Not a friend. Not someone who shares the prophet’s heart."

"Wait. I see. You imagine that I have never known intimacy of that sort. That I have been "saving myself" for you." He gave a contemptuous snort. "Don’t flatter yourself, FitzChivalry. I doubt you would have been worth the wait."

"To see you take breath puts breath back in my lungs. If there must be another my fate is twined around, I am glad it is you." He leaned forward then and for an instant pressed his brow to mine.

"After I leave you here, will I ever see you again?" "Probably not. It would not be wise." He lifted my hand and tenderly kissed the sword-callused palm of it, and then held it in both of his.

I ran my fingers lightly down the lines of his jaw, and around his eye socket. At least no bone was damaged. "Who did this to you?" I asked him. "I walked into a series of doors. Or the same one several times. It depends on which door you ask."

"In that last dance of chances When I know you’ll not be mine I will let you go with longing And the hope that you’ll be fine."

"He’s got a new face, y’know. An’ and axe. An’ blue eyes like me." "Blue eyes?" Amber exploded incredulously. "They’re supposed to be dark brown, nearly black!" She suddenly spun around and hastened forward.

"The clothes look much better on you than they did on Lady Thyme," I complimented her. "I hope they also smell better," was the Fool’s response.

"She wears a freedom ring in one ear, you know, the earring that Chalcedean freed-slaves must purchase and wear to prove they have been granted their freedom. She said it was a gift from her one true love."

"The name my mother gave me, I give to you now, to call me by in private." He closed his eyes but his grin grew even wider. "Beloved. She called me only ‘Beloved’." "Fool!" I protested. He laughed. "She did," he insisted.

"In the space of a sundown, you show me the wide world form a horse’s back, and the soul of the world within my own walls."

"Well. And he doesn’t even know that you love him?" "I think he chooses not to. Perhaps he suspects. But he leaves it alone. He is like that."

Then I dreamed, I think, of the Fool.