Ashleg, the wooden-legged pine marten, entered the throne room of Kotir with two weasels, Brogg and Scratt. Tsarmina and Gingivere were sitting in there. Fortunata the vixen stood nearby.

"Did you bring back the Gloomer?" Tsarmina demanded.

"We brought back his head," Ashleg said, dropping it at her feet. "Somebeast had cut it off when we found him."

"Impossible!" Tsarmina cried. "The dragon girl will pay for this someday!"

Gingivere was oddly calm. "I say, just thank the seasons we're not dead too and move on with our lives."

Tsarmina whirled to him. "How can you say that? Look what she did to our lord father! Blood must be repaid with blood! That's our family's way."

"It's not a cause for a blood feud unless somebeast dies," Gingivere said patiently. "And Father won't die if we keep taking good care of him, according to Fortunata. Daenerys Targaryen will know better than to come back here again. My advice to you is, just forget about her."

She slapped him. Five red scratches appeared on Gingivere's face, made by Tsarmina's claws. "It should have been you who got burned," she said. "To think, all the great men in our family have led directly to you. You're an embarrassment to House Greeneyes."

Gingivere stared at her. "I will forgive you for that… but I will not forget it." He turned to Fortunata. "Do you have Father's medicine?" Gingivere was the only one Verdauga trusted to administer it.

The fox handed him the bottle of lotion. "Here you go."

Gingivere headed off to Verdauga's bedroom. Ashleg and the other soldiers cleared out too, leaving Tsarmina and Fortunata alone. "Did you fix the medicine like I told you?" Tsarmina asked.

Fortunata nodded. "There's enough poison in there to lay half the garrison low. Tomorrow morning, Verdauga will be dead, and everybeast will think Gingivere killed him."

Tsarmina pulled the vixen close, her cruel eyes burning. "You'd better hope he really is dead in the morning. Otherwise, you might as well prepare some poison for yourself. It would be a lot easier than facing me."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

One moment Theon was asleep, the next, awake.

Kyra nestled against him, one arm draped lightly over his, her breasts brushing his back. Until Theon had sent for her, she had lived all of her eighteen years in the winter town without ever setting foot inside the walls of the castle. She came to him wet and eager and lithe as a weasel, and there had been a certain undeniable spice to fucking a common tavern wench in Lord Peter Griffin's own bed.

Theon thought he had heard something. He slid out from under Kyra's arm and got to his feet. A few embers still smoldered in the hearth. A boy named Wex slept on the floor at the foot of the bed, rolled up inside his cloak and dead to the world. Nothing moved. Theon crossed to the window and threw open the shutters. Night touched him with cold fingers, and goose prickles rose on his bare skin. He leaned against the stone sill and looked out on dark towers, empty yards, black sky, and more stars than a man could ever count if he lived to be a hundred. A half moon floated above the bell tower and cast its reflection on the roof of the glass gardens. He heard no alarms, no voices, not so much as a footfall.

"All's well, Greyjoy," he thought. "Hear the quiet? You ought to be drunk with joy. You took Winterfell with fewer than thirty men, a feat to sing of." Theon started back to bed. He'd roll Kyra on her back and fuck her again, that ought to banish these phantoms. Her gasps and giggles would make a welcome respite from this silence.

Then he heard a knock at the door. It was an ironman named Urzen. "Stewie Griffin is missin' from his bed!"

Theon groaned. "How can that be? Drennan and Squint were standing guard right outside his door!"

"They've disappeared too. The door is standin' wide open, but nobody's there!"

Theon told himself he must be as cold and deliberate as his father. "Rouse the castle," he said. "Herd everyone out into the yard. We'll see who's missing. And have Black Loren make a round of the gates."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Down in the yard, an uneasy crowd of men, women, and children had been pushed up against the wall. Many had not been given time to dress; they covered themselves with woolen blankets, or huddled naked under cloaks or bed robes. A dozen ironmen hemmed them in, torches in one hand and weapons in the other. The wind was gusting, and the flickering orange light reflected dully off steel helmets, thick beards, and unsmiling eyes.

Theon walked up and down before the prisoners, studying the faces. They all looked guilty to him. "How many are missing?"

"Besides Stewie, just the two Pines children and that halfwit from the stables," said a guy named Aggar. "Oh, and two of Maron Botley's sons are gone too. They were the ones guardin' Dipper and Mabel."

Theon's head was whirling. That made four of his own men who had vanished. Had they betrayed him and helped Stewie and his friends escape? No, they would have no reason to do such a thing. Had they been killed, then? But if that were the case, where were the bodies? And how could they have been killed? When he and his men had first seized the castle, they'd found a pile of weapons hidden in Stewie's closet, but they'd confiscated them all.

"Has anyone had a look at the stables?" he asked.

Aggar nodded. "No horses are missin'."

"They're afoot, then. Stewie will be riding in a basket on Hodor's back, no doubt. They can't have gone far. Come first light, I mean to bring them back." He hooked his thumbs through his sword belt as he surveyed the Griffin servants. "I need huntsmen. Kevin," he addressed Joe Swanson's son, "Saddle my horse Smiler and a horse for yourself. Murch, Gariss, Poxy Tim, you'll come as well." Murch and Gariss were the best huntsmen in the castle, and Tim was a fine bowman. "Aggar, Rednose, Gelmarr, Gynir, Dagmar, Wex." He needed his own to watch his back. "Farlen," he told the Winterfell kennel master, "I'll want hounds, and you to handle them."

They assembled by the Hunter's Gate as the first pale rays of the sun brushed the top of the bell tower, their breath frosting in the cold morning air. Eleven men, a boy, and a dozen dogs. They went around and around for a long time, but they couldn't find a sign of Stewie and them, not even a footprint.

So, when Theon returned to Winterfell, he found an old football and burned it. He mounted the charred football on a stake above the castle gate, and he told everyone it was Stewie's head.