I begged off sick for the rest of my day's classes and Recalled straight home, my mind so turbulent I could barely pull together the spell. Once there I dropped my lute and bag onto the bed and began pacing up and down the apartment. My hands ran through my hair over and over again. Viarmo knew. Had always known — if he hadn't already known who I was that first afternoon, he surely would have found out within a matter of weeks, if not days.

How could I have been so stupid? As soon as I'd learned he was a spymaster it should have been obvious that he'd have looked into my background. Why hadn't it occurred to me, even once?

Because you were so ready to see what you wanted to see. Think what you wanted to think. He showed you what you expected, and you were all too ready to believe it. It was easier. You wanted to keep thinking nobody knew who you were. That you'd managed to leave it all behind.

I threw myself onto the bed and curled into a ball, fighting back tears. Well, that illusion had been well and truly shattered. Between Jarl Idgrod and Viarmo the new life I'd been building suddenly felt as fragile as a soap-bubble, ready to burst between my outstretched fingertips. What was I going to do? Did I even have to do anything? Viarmo had said he'd made sure nobody else knew …

I stayed curled on the bed, my head abuzz, and counted the minutes until Inigo would finish work. Never had I needed my best friend's counsel and company more.

To both my annoyance and grudging relief, however, when I told him everything that afternoon he didn't seem at all surprised by either piece of news.

"I always thought there was more to Mister Viarmo than met the eye," he said, sitting nonchalantly on the bed while I paced up and down in front of him. "It did not smell right."

"You're — you're not worried? For me?"

"Why should I be? So Mister Viarmo has known all along. That just means there is one fewer person you have to lie to now, yes? And you cannot say that he has been treating you like a princess, given how much you complain after every lesson you have with him."

I stopped pacing. "That's … true."

"And he has been protecting you. You should be glad he is more clever than he seemed."

"Manipulating me, too."

Inigo shrugged. "That is merely his job. I would not take it personally."

"And what about Dead Men's Respite? Inigo, I could have died. If you'd not been with me, I would have."

He chuckled dryly. "I think that may have been one miscalculation on Mister Viarmo's part. I do not think he really expected you to go. He probably thought you would come back and ask again to audition later, suitably humbled. But he underestimated your tenacity, yes?"

"Father would call it my stubbornness. So would Master Ylbert." I dropped onto the bed. "But I suppose you're right. And had I not met you, I'd probably never have gone there in the first place." Sighing, I rubbed my face. "Okay. And what about Jarl Idgrod, and all this 'destiny' rubbish?"

"I do not think it is rubbish. Your aura increasingly shines like a beacon, my friend. It is clear to anyone with eyes that you are destined for great things."

I regarded him anxiously. "I don't want great things. All I want is to be a famous musician, drink wine with you, and kiss Felix."

"That is a lie," Inigo said. "And you know it is. You could never be satisfied with a normal life — look how much you are enjoying your secret work in the courts, yes? You said yourself you would not give it up for something more ordinary."

My mouth twisted.

Inigo grinned a toothy grin. "Do not worry, my friend. You can count on me to make sure that no matter how great your destiny becomes, I will be by your side to make sure your head does not get too big as a result. For that is just how good and self-sacrificing a friend I am."

"You're too kind."

"I know," he said, "Lilith."

Over the following days I tried to put both Viarmo and Jarl Idgrod out of my mind and instead concentrate on my life as it was, without worrying for the future. The present was so very pleasant, particularly those hours I spent with Felix, that it wasn't difficult to distract myself.

Worries about the future regarding Felix, too, I did my best to banish. The here and now was so sweet; why ruin that by fretting about what was to come? Felix might not know who I really was, but his hands were so warm, his voice so soft. My parents would almost certainly not approve of my 'dallying' with a commoner, but my heart lurched whenever he looked at me, and I had never felt so happy.

The only dark spot in my blissful existence was, once again, Fironet.

Turdas evening found Inigo and I at the inn, eating supper before I was due to perform. I was having trouble enjoying my potato and leek pie, however, and kept shooting filthy glances at the bar.

"You are going to put out your neck," Inigo said mildly, looking up from his own pie. "Will you not ignore Miss Fironet and eat your pie? It will get cold."

"I can't. She's following Felix around again."

Inigo shot me a long-suffering look. "Kirilee, Felix works here. It is his job to speak to customers, like Fironet."

"Not like this. She's been trailing after him for the last quarter hour, and she keeps touching him."

"I am sure Felix will tell her to leave him in peace, if she is bothering him."

"He won't, though," I said, scowling. "He's told me it makes him uncomfortable, but he's too polite to actually say so, no matter how often I tell him he should."

My eyes narrowed as I watched Fironet lean against the bar, smiling and batting her long eyelashes. Felix smiled shyly back, then dropped his gaze. My scowl deepened. I didn't feel the least bit threatened, but it bothered me that Felix had so much trouble standing up for himself — and that it was Fironet, of all people.

"She still hasn't auditioned," I said. "What does she even do all day? I see her mooning around the College sometimes, but never actually, you know, talking to anyone. Or practicing."

Inigo set down his knife and fork. "Can you not give her a break? She is not an unkind person."

At that moment, Felix walked over to our table carrying a pie on a plate, followed by Fironet herself.

"Da said I can have my supper now, too. Mind if I sit with you?" He smiled, and my heart lurched.

"Of course," I said, making space for him. Then, "… Hello, Fironet."

"Kirilee," she said flatly. These days she made little pretence of friendliness towards me.

Fighting an urge to roll my eyes, I turned my attention back to my pie. To my surprise, however, she addressed her next words to me, too.

"I was just telling Felix about my sister. Do you have any siblings?"

"No," I said.

"Well, it's funny, but though my sister and I are quite alike, our taste in men is very different. That's not always the case though, is it? Sometimes these things run in families, and siblings have to compete with each other. Or take turns."

"I don't really understand your meaning," I said blandly, though I did. "I wouldn't know. Like I said, I haven't got siblings."

She blinked at me slowly, then gave Felix a sweet smile. "Well, goodbye then; Felix, Inigo." Then she turned and paced sedately away to take a seat with the city's fletcher, Fihada.

"Still think she's not unkind?" I said furiously to Inigo. Felix had gone very red.

"She is having a difficult time, my friend. This is not what she is usually like."

"Whatever you say," I said, stabbing at my pie.

I was trying to get better with judging people overly harshly. I was working at it; I really was. But I couldn't help but feel that Fironet had earned every scrap of judgement and scorn I was throwing her way.

After I had finished my set for the evening, Felix drew me into a back room. I was expecting some surreptitious kissing, but instead he closed the door and faced me, arms crossed, wearing a very serious expression.

"Look, Kirilee. I need to know."

"Know what?"

He steeled himself. "What … What was there between you and Sorex?"

I stared at him.

"What I mean to say is …" he went on, rubbing his hands on his thighs and looking very uncomfortable. "Fironet hasn't been the only one. People keep making these comments, things like, 'the little bard sure is desperate to join the family, eh, son', or, 'brothers share and share alike', or that me and Sorex have the same tastes in, er, in white meat …"

I choked. "What?"

"Sorry." He scratched his beard. "I er, I think that's just Nord humour. But, well. I'd like to hear, from you, just what the situation was. As it were."

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Well — I mean —"

I sighed and told him all about Sorex's supposed feelings for me, my obliviousness until after the fact, my confusion about my own feelings on the matter … and his death, and haunting.

"I don't really like to think about it," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "But we weren't together. There wasn't anything there but potential, if even that."

"But if he'd lived …"

"I don't know. Like I said, I don't like to think about it. And he didn't." Realising my discomfort had made me terse and insensitive to the effect my words might have had on Felix, I softened my voice. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean …"

"No, it's all right."

He sank to the floor. I sat down beside him.

The silence stretched between us, taut and heavy. I didn't know what I could possibly say, or whether I should say anything at all.

"Do you miss him?" Felix said at last.

"Of course. Very much."

"I miss him too."

Another long silence.

"We were going to travel together, you know," Felix said dully. "Once I'd finished my apprenticeship. He was going to take some time off, leave Da to see how good Mina was at helping manage the inn, and we were going to go together to see all the places he'd read about in those travel books. But I came too late."

I didn't know what to say. Taking his large hand in my small one, I held it tightly.

"Were you there? When he died?" he asked suddenly.

I shook my head. "That was the day I went to Dead Men's Respite. To get the book for Viarmo. I didn't even know until the next morning."

His head dropped forward, hanging limply on his neck. "Da wouldn't tell me anything about it. I had to talk Lisette into telling me how it happened. How he … died. It was so unfair!" His voice suddenly rose, and his hand pulled from my grasp to tighten into a fist.

"I know," I said, trying to hold back tears.

Felix's voice was ragged, and his shoulders shook. "Did you know, the bastard who did it? He didn't even get properly punished. Lisette told me. Some stuck-up noble prick, he just got a slap on the wrist. The whole thing was rigged. He — he murdered my brother, and he was out of prison in weeks. How is that justice? How is that fair?"

"It's not. I'm sorry."

"Don't say sorry. It's not your fault. It's those — those fucking nobles; always walking all over us, doing whatever they want, never with any consequences."

Suddenly I was very still. My heart felt as though it had been clenched in a vice. Felix hadn't noticed though, and was ranting on.

"It's their fault, Kirilee. Sorex isn't the first, and he won't be the last to fall prey to them. Their arrogance. Their cruelty. Their indifference. They don't even think they're the same as us, and they're not — they don't have to play by the rules. He wasn't even in prison a month!"

"I'm so sorry," I whispered.

"I hate them," Felix said, his voice shaking. "I pretend for Da, because we get the nobles in here all the time, but you — you I can tell the truth to. They're the reason my brother's dead, and his killer was barely even inconvenienced. No wonder he came back as a ghost. He wanted revenge."

I wanted to reassure him, but could barely think any further than the heartwrenching, searing pain and fear in my gut. My insides writhed and twisted. I could hardly breathe. It took all I had not to double over.

I hate them, I kept hearing, hissed in my ears.

We sat in silence for a long time, both consumed by our own thoughts. Finally, after a long, deep breath, Felix stood up.

"I'm sorry. It wasn't fair to put all that on you. But thank you. For listening, and for being honest with me about it. Neither Da nor Mina ever want to talk about Sorex. I appreciate you telling the truth."

Not the whole truth, a voice whispered from the back of my mind. But I said nothing as he kissed me and bade me goodnight.

Later, curled up next to Meeko in bed, my thoughts ran in circles.

I hate them.

How could I possibly tell him the truth now? If he knew, not just that I was one of the loathed ruling class, but had been deliberately keeping it from him and his family …

It's their fault.

Perhaps it wouldn't matter to him. Perhaps having gotten to know me first, he might understand that most nobles weren't like the one who had stabbed Sorex in the gut. I hadn't even known … It hadn't mattered to me who had done it or why, only that I'd never see Sorex's crooked smile again.

They don't even think they're the same as us.

Surely he would understand. Inigo had. Inigo had never held it against me, or treated me any differently. To him I was still the same person. Surely Felix would be the same. Felix knew me.

But does he? whispered that same voice.

In truth … he didn't. There was so much of me he didn't know. So much was missing that it was almost as though the Kirilee he was with was a wholly different Kirilee to who I actually was.

But on the other hand, with Felix I could be me, the core of myself, whoever I was underneath all the layers of bard and spy, noble and Mara-chosen. Even though he didn't know about most of those layers yet, in a way the version of me he saw was the most myself I was with anyone, except perhaps Inigo.

Pressing my pillow tightly over my head I rolled over, trying to avoid what I knew to be true. What we had now was good. I didn't want it to change; more, I didn't want it to end, as it surely would if Felix were to learn that I was a hated noble myself.

I knew, though, that I had to tell him. The longer the deception lasted the worse it would be when it was finally revealed. Little though I wanted to admit it, Felix needed to know the truth about who I was, if there was to be even a chance of a future for us.

It was easier said than done. Each day I spent hours agonising over how to speak to Felix about that which I didn't even like to think about myself. The entire boat ride to the town of Winterhold on Loredas, where I was to play for and report on the Stormcloak-sympathising Jarl Korir, was spent in proposing and discarding plans to Inigo.

"Just tell him, and figure out the 'how' as you go," Inigo said with characteristic bluntness. He was in a very bad mood, after half a day on a boat — he hated large bodies of water, and the ocean most of all.

"But how?" I leaned over the railing and watched the sun glitter off a nearby iceberg. "It's not exactly like I can just sit him down and say, 'Oh by the way, I know you hate nobles but I'm actually the heir to a moderately important duchy in High Rock and could buy half of Solitude if I wrote home to my parents and asked for a little spending money, oh and also when I go away to perform for certain jarls I'm really gathering information for probably the Imperial Legion but I don't actually know for sure, oh and also did I mention I've met and escaped three Daedric Princes and my soul has actually been personally claimed by one of the Divines, incidentally that's the reason you feel all warm and nice around me and I'm increasingly worried that's why you were drawn to me in the first place rather than anything to do with me personally' — It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?"

"I am sure it is not just your Mara-aura drawing Felix to you," Inigo said.

"Really? That's the most helpful thing you have to add?"

Inigo just shrugged, and I stormed off to check on my lute.

Once I'd cooled off I had to admit that it was actually a little reassuring to hear. But unfortunately for the thorniest problem, that of the secret of my birth, Inigo had no answer, no matter how often I asked.

The entire next week passed, still with my having said nothing to Felix. True to his word, Viarmo now seemed set on sending me away from Solitude every weekend: after Winterhold it was Riften, Laila having once again requested me for a soiree. Felix had been so upset I was away again that I had secretly prepared a special surprise for after he finished work on the day of my return. He arrived at my apartment to find I'd laid out a spectacular picnic for us to share on my rooftop garden, under a field of stars and the brightly shining twin moons.

"This is amazing!" he said, smiling ear to ear as he sliced himself a hunk of cheese. "But how did you find the time? I thought you were travelling back from Riften today?"

I poured myself a goblet of spiced wine, and threw a blanket around our shoulders. "My Recall spell, remember? Otherwise I wouldn't even have made it back til tomorrow."

"Oh. That's right. But shouldn't you have gone to the festival, then? Instead of putting together all this?"

"Probably." I shot him a wicked grin. "But what Viarmo doesn't know won't hurt him. Or me. And as far as I'm concerned, missing his stupid festival is my due recompense for being sent to every far-flung corner of the province every weekend."

Felix chuckled. "I'm certainly not complaining." He settled down with his cheese and bread and began to eat, far more daintily than I'd have expected for such a large man. "I still can't believe what your magic can do. Just being able to completely ignore distance like that. Why don't all magic people do it? I'd never even heard of it til I met you. Why doesn't it get used all the time for deliveries and suchlike?"

"I asked Viarmo the same thing, a while back," I said, idly picking at some olives. "I never realised, but apparently it's quite a rare skill, which takes a fair bit of both magic and will. He said most mages struggle with it, especially keeping more than one Mark at once. And things can go quite badly wrong. Mages have been known to disappear and never reappear. So most don't bother, opting for slower but safer travel. Well, except for Telvanni mages — you know, that Dunmer Great House? But they're all kinds of weird, when it comes to magic."

Felix drew me closer. "Handy that you can, then, otherwise we'd be apart even more."

"Yes. Very handy."

For a time we sat together eating and drinking in silence, the woolen blanket warming our shoulders, Meeko warming our feet, and Felix warming my heart. How very happy I was, I thought.

"The stars are beautiful tonight," Felix said eventually.

"They are. Look, see the Ritual? It's so bright … Makes sense, I suppose, given it's Morning Star right now."

"Which one's that? I never learned to tell them apart. Well, except for the Tower; that's my own sign."

"That one, there. If you squint really hard you can almost pretend it looks like an eye. Mine's the Lady. It's over there, see? Next to it is the Serpent, it's not actually meant to be made of stars at all …"

I showed Felix the various constellations arrayed above our heads, using his hand to trace their shapes in the air. In return he described to me nights spent under the stars as a boy, camping with Sorex. Although he might not have known their names, he was at least as familiar with the stars as I was.

"But tell me about your weekend," he said, enclosing my hand fully in his and holding it to his chest. "What was it like, playing in a jarl's court?"

"Oh, nothing special. It was one of Laila's soirees. The food was good, though, and I saw some really beautiful gowns — but you probably don't want to hear about fashion, do you?"

"No, I do. Tell me everything. Please."

And so I told him; all about the beautiful silks and satins, the program I'd chosen, the compliments I'd received, the special treats Laila had hired a private baker specifically to make — from a family whom Maven Black-Briar was professionally courting, I'd learned, though that I left out.

I also didn't mention the way each of Laila and Maven's sons in turn had tried to draw me into conversation. They had boasted endlessly about their recent petty accomplishments while I smiled blandly, and had invited me with varying degrees of politeness and subtlety to supper, or a glass of wine, or a horseback ride, or in Sibbi Black-Briar's case, unceremoniously into his bed. I had refused them all with as much delicacy as I could muster, but even so … This, I thought, Felix didn't need to know about.

Everything else, Felix drank in. He was astonished at how casually and dismissively I spoke of Laila's court. "I'd have been so nervous around all those nobles and fancy people I'd barely have been able to speak!" he said, eyes wide. "I can't believe you found it so easy to fit in with them."

"I —"

I was so close to telling him everything, then. Inigo had been apoplectic when he'd found out the previous day I still hadn't told Felix anything. The subtle work for Viarmo he could understand leaving out, he'd said; perhaps even being a Chosen of Mara; but there was no excuse, none, for my continuing to lie about my family and background.

"Have you learned nothing from my mistakes? Or even your own?" he'd said. "You should know better. I thought better of you."

At the time I'd been angry, but I knew now that he was right. I had been presenting Felix with the Kirilee I thought he should have, or only as much of her as I felt safe sharing. But she was not really the Kirilee I was.

Inigo was right. A real, honest relationship couldn't be founded on dishonesty, no matter how frightened I was of revealing a difficult truth. I already knew this myself. And both he and Viarmo were right that I couldn't pretend to be anyone other than who and what I was; all of who I was. Not when it mattered.

My feelings for Felix were real. I wanted this to be something real, something true. I wanted him to know who I really was … even if that meant he wouldn't want me any more. I had to tell him the truth.

Felix broke the long silence.

"Yes, larkling? What were you going to say?"

"I … like being up here. With you."

He held me closer. "Me too."

I just needed to figure out when, and how.