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A knock called her to the door. Kel opened it, the pinned tunic in her hand. There stood Gower and Tian.

“She never came last night,” the maid said, clutching a balled-up handkerchief. “I waited and waited. I thought - we quarreled, but Gower says she told you she meant to visit me.” Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she’d been crying.

“She did. She said you were going to hem the queen’s dress while she did the bodice.” Now all Kel’s instincts clamored that something was very, very wrong. Other maids would lose their tempers and cause their mistresses and friends anxiety - not Lalasa. After three years Kel knew her as well as she knew anybody. If Lalasa was not here, if she hadn’t been where she had said she would be, then something had happened.

“Gower, will you check the servants’ infirmary?” she asked. “If she took sick, perhaps…”

Gower nodded and left them.

“Please, Lady Kel, what might I do?” Tian asked. “My lady’s off with her husband to Port Caynn. I’ve the whole day free.”

Kel tried to think, while part of her mind cried that she had to get ready for the big examinations right now! Her parents would be there; Numair and Daine, the two Shangs, Master Lindhall, and Stefan from the stables. She hadn’t much time.

“Try palace stores,” she suggested. “The drapers, and the tailors. Maybe she just got me a new uniform.” It seemed unlikely - the pins in the tunic she held were an argument against that - but it was all she could think of.

“Thank you, my lady.” Tian dipped a curtsy and ran down the hall.

Anxious, Kel shut the door. She could change clothes, at least. Her other uniforms were presentable, if not as perfectly fitted as the one she held. She found the freshest uniform and started to change.

The sparrows had picked up on her tension. Those birds not ferrying seed to the nestlings fluttered around the chamber and courtyard, as if they expected to find Lalasa in a crack in the walls.

“Where’s Jump?” she asked them. “What happened to him?”

The birds whirled and spun in a frenzy. All of them suddenly halted, coming to rest on her bed. “You don’t know,” Kel guessed.

Crown hopped forward one step and gave a single peep. Kel had a feeling that her guess was right.

“Look for them, those who can be spared?” she asked. “I know you’ve the nestlings to care for, but…Find Lalasa? Find Jump?”

Crown chattered. She and half the birds on the bed took to the air and flew away. The rest went back to the seed dishes.

Kel had just pulled her tunic over her shoulders when she heard a low scraping sound near the door. Had someone like Joren thought to make her late by laying a messy trap outside, as people had done in her first year? When she opened the door - carefully, in case a bucket of water was rigged to drop on her - she saw only pages. She examined the flags in front of her door for puddles of urine or oil, but saw nothing. Turning, she found a sheet of parchment on the floor. She’d heard it being slid into her room.

The handwriting was bold, the message unmistakable.

She is in the palace. you can find her if you look.

At the bottom of the page there was a further note:

Tell anyone and we will hurt her.

Kel’s hands began to shake. Slowly and carefully, she folded the parchment in half, then into quarters. Why kidnap a maid?

To hurt her mistress.

When she had finished her probationary year and won Lord Wyldon’s permission to continue, she had thought it would be the end of people trying to make her quit. Now she knew they had only been waiting. They had committed a crime to stop her from taking the big exams.

It won’t work, Kel thought grimly. The tests usually end by the second bell after noon, with no halt for lunch. Once they’re over, I’ll be able to search wherever I want.

“I knew you would come,” Lalasa had whispered that night Vinson had scared her. “I never knew anyone who would fight for me.” Lalasa, creeping about like a mouse for a year or more, terrified of her own shadow. Now she was a vivid and happy young woman, and she gave Kel credit for the change. Of course she would understand that Kel had to take the big exams first. She always thought Kel was more important than she was.

She would be frightened, Kel was sure of that. And she must have been so throughout the long night.

Someone pounded briskly on her door. It was not Gower or Tian, but Neal, Merric, Seaver, and Esmond, all dressed for the examinations, hair neatly combed and plastered into place with water or pomade. “Reporting for inspection, sir!” Merric said, trying to grin. They all saluted.

What could she do? She let them in and did the requested inspection, tugging at collars and hemlines, checking their hose for wrinkles, patting a stiffened clump of hair into its proper place. “You’re as lovely as a field of daisies,” Kel assured them when she was done. “Why don’t you go on to the assembling room? I’ll be there in a moment.” She had to think.

Neal did not leave with the others. “What’s the matter?” he demanded, holding her eyes with his. “You have your Yamani face on.”

When had he gotten so short? Kel wondered, distracted briefly. He had towered over her once. Now he was just an inch taller, and he was almost nineteen.

“Kel, what’s wrong?” Neal demanded, gently shaking her arm.

The note had said tell no one, but they could hardly spy on Kel here, in her room. She unfolded the note and gave it to him.

“Who are they writing about?” Neal asked.

“Lalasa. She never came home last night, and Tian says she never arrived there, where she said she was going. Jump’s missing, too.”

Neal returned the note. “Tell the palace guard. They’ll find her.”

“Did you read the whole thing?” Kel asked him, shocked. “They’ll hurt her!”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Neal told her stubbornly. “If they torture her on top of kidnapping, in the palace to boot, they’ll get no mercy from the royal courts, and they know it. They just want you to be late.” He searched her face, his green eyes feverish. “Kel - no. You’re not going to - That’s what they want. You’ll repeat a year, two - maybe all four. You can’t! Not after all we’ve been through!”

Kel wiped her eyes. They were wet, for some reason. “Neal, she trusts me. She’s my responsibility. And she’ll be so frightened…! have to find her.” Until she heard herself say it, Kel hadn’t realized she was really going to do it, really going to turn her back on the big exams and repeat however many years Lord Wyldon gave her. She fought to smile. “I just want to be the second-oldest page in living memory, don’t you see.”

“No, you won’t.” He drew a deep breath; his wide mouth trembled. “We’re friends. I’ll help. Between the two of us - “

“Absolutely not,” she said fiercely. “No, no, no!” The last four years had been torture for him. Now he wanted to do it all again for her? She couldn’t let it happen. It would kill her to see Neal either give up a knighthood or repeat his page years. “They win twice then, don’t you understand? Now get to the assembly room!” He looked down and away. Kel grabbed his arm and towed him to her door. “You can be my knight-master when I do take the exams, if you want to make it up to me. Neal, please. Don’t make me feel responsible for you both! She wouldn’t be in this trouble if not for me!”

She thrust him out her door, where Gower caught him. “Excuse me, master,” the manservant remarked, setting Neal on his feet. To Kel he said, “She’s not in the infirmary. Miss, you must get to the examinations.”

If she told Gower, he, too, might argue. “I’ll catch up to you,” Kel told Neal, glaring at him, silently warning him to go along with what she said.

“There’s a stain on one of my hose. I have to change it. Gower, would you check the room where they’re holding the exams? Maybe she decided to get there early, before the seats were taken.” Neal still hadn’t budged. Kel took a deep breath. “Neal, if you are my friend, go.”

He left at a run. Gower frowned at Kel. “I really think, miss - ” he began.

“Do as I say,” Kel ordered him curtly, fresh out of the ability to both lie and be polite. She closed the door in his face and waited, listening. Only when she heard his slow footsteps moving away did she leave the door. She had her belt knife. Her benefactor had sent her a brace of wrist knives; she put those on now. The birds were looking already; it was time for her to do the same. She closed the lower shutters and locked them. The sparrows who stayed with the nestlings continued to flutter in and out through the upper windows.

Before she opened her door again, Kel stopped, and rested her forehead against it. Right now the fourth-year pages were gathering. Lord Wyldon would be on his way to inspect them before they entered the examination room. She could still do it. She could still go if she ran, and she’d be on time. If she came in after the training master, all she would have to repeat would be a year. Surely that wouldn’t be so bad. Look at how quickly this last year had gone.

Once they entered the examination room, though…

Wetness trickled down her face. Impatiently she wiped her eyes. Maybe Lalasa would escape her kidnappers. She was clever. If they didn’t frighten her too badly, she might get away. Maybe Kel would open this door, and there she would be.

Kel opened the door. Tian was trotting toward her, more upset than ever. “Lady Kel!” she cried. “No one has seen her in stores.” She hugged herself, eyes huge in her drawn face. “Did Gower find her?”

Kel shook her head.

“And you’re off to the examinations?” Tian inquired.

Kel sighed. She didn’t want to worry about Lalasa’s friend with so much else on her mind, but Tian looked as if she needed something to do. An idea occurred to Kel. “Do me a favor, unless you have other duties?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Tian whispered. “I can’t even work on the queens dress. Lalasa has it.”

Kel opened her door. “We’ll shoot two arrows from one bow, then,” she said cheerfully. “The queen’s gown’s on a stand in the dressing room - why don’t you work on it? Stay here in case Lalasa comes in. Tell her I’m not angry, and make sure she waits for me.” After all, Lalasa might get away, or her kidnappers would free her once Kel was so late that she’d have to repeat all four years or give up completely. “And if you work on the dress, then she won’t be late in getting it to the queen.”

Tian thanked her passionately. Embarrassed, Kel shooed the older girl into her room.

Her list of places to search began with those she knew who wished her ill. Joren should have been at the top of it, but he had been so odd for the last two years that Kel wasn’t sure about him.

Vinson, on the other hand, was definitely someone to look at, and Joren’s room was on the same hall. Kel trotted upstairs to the squires’ rooms, on the floor above the pages.

Kel rapped hard on Vinson’s door, once, then twice. She heard nothing when she put her ear to the wood, and saw nothing when she peered through the keyhole. She tried Garvey’s room next, then Joren’s. No one answered either knock. The hall itself was as silent as if all the squires were on the road with their knight-masters. She knew that wasn’t the case; almost everyone had stayed to attend the congress.

Next she tried the pages’ and the squires’ armories, the storerooms where supplies were kept for their part of the palace, and the catacombs far beneath the palace. There was no sign of Lalasa anywhere. Sweating, covered with smutches from the dusty catacombs, Kel made her way up to the ground floor again. She emerged in a quiet area between two wings of the palace and sat on a bench out of the wind to catch her breath. Next she would try the area of unused sheds where Lord Wyldon had schooled them in city fighting. Those empty buildings made perfect hiding places.

And if she’s not there, where will you look? demanded her shrill and frightened self. Garrets? Storage barns? Stable lofts? The palace is huge. Better to go to the examinations now, and save yourself a year or two!

I’ll look wherever I must, thought Kel stubbornly. She had to find Lalasa. The kidnappers might decide to remove a witness to their crime, and kill her.

She heard a fountain splashing nearby. It might be a good idea to cool off before she resumed her search. The brisk wind turned the water cold on her face, but it helped to clear her head. She was drying her hands on the underside of her tunic when the sparrows arrived, flapping around her head as they screeched.

“You found her?” Kel asked them, trembling. “You know where she is?”

Crown hovered in midair, something in her beak. When Kel stretched out her open hand, the sparrow lit on it and dropped several long black hairs on Kel’s palm. Freckle came next. His gift to Kel was a small clump of short, fine white hairs.

“Both of them? Lalasa and Jump? Where?” Kel asked. “Show me where.”

The sparrows lit briefly on the fountain’s rim, getting a quick drink. When they took to the air again, they flew ahead of Kel, swooping and bobbing on the gusty wind, leading her through a courtyard and across a small garden. When a long shadow fell over Kel, she looked up, and stopped in her tracks. They had brought her to the building that formed the base of Balor’s Needle. Now they flew straight up, dancing in flight around the fragile-looking iron stair that twined around the tower.

fourteen
NEEDLE

Kel’s vision went gray. A bubble of panic rose in her throat. Why am I surprised? she wondered. Whoever did this wanted to be sure I would fail.

I don’t have to, though, she thought. I can tell someone and they’ll get her and Jump. I won’t have to climb those stairs. I could look around instead and see if I can find out who did this.

“I knew you would come,” Lalasa had told her.

Wasn’t finding where she was enough?

It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. How could she face Lalasa - or Neal, or Owen - knowing she had turned her back? How could she face herself?

Kel bit trembling lips and forced herself to smile at the birds who had perched on the outer stair railing. “Your opinion of my courage is higher than it should be,” she told them. “I’d as soon have my fingernails pulled out than go that way.” She laid her hands on the doorknob and twisted. The great wooden panel swung open. Air scented with old incense and candles poured over Kel as she stepped inside the Needle.