Jesper and Inej had offered to go with him, but Wylan refused their offers. He needed to do this alone, he said. Well—mercher alone. Mercher alone meant he had hired a wagon to take him up Saint Hilde. Mercher alone meant being surrounded by people you weren't supposed to care about. Besides, he suspected neither Jesper or Inej wanted to be along for the first part of the trip.

Alys alternately sang and chattered. It took fairly little energy to keep her company, but a good deal of patience.

"Do you want to divorce him?" Wylan asked. "He might never be released." Ghezen willing.

He knew how sound carried over the water, but there was no one nearby to hear them. Windmills and sheep would keep their conversation private—and if the answer was yes, soon enough it would be no secret. Alys's maid had kept her share of secrets already.

"That's for Mother and Father to decide," Alys replied.

Wylan nodded, struck once more by how unsettling it was his father had married Alys. For all his failings, Jan had likely not taken physical advantage of her. There was a reason Alys slept in a separate room; Wylan remembered his parents sharing a bed. Jan had simply used her to make a new heir, but that was the purpose of marriage from a contractual standpoint. Hadn't it bothered him? Hadn't he felt the wrongness of coupling with a woman barely out of girlhood?

Grabbing Wylan's hand now, she said, "Whatever happens, this is still your brother or sister."

He thought about how she had first described the baby. We'll have a new friend to play with. He didn't know what sort of mother Alys would make, but she cared about her child playing. He thought about the nursery. His father… their father had only seen a new heir. He wondered if his brother or sister would have ever seen the kind side of Jan. Would they have been allowed to play, or be silly?

Wylan squeezed Alys's hand. "Yes," he agreed.

"You could visit. That would be lovely, if you visited."

At least she seemed to be accepting that this was long-term, but he wondered if Alys had fully thought that through. Wylan knew of and did not object to her relationship with Mister Bajan. Presumably they intended to carry on now. They should—they seemed to care for one another. Already he was planning how to act on that visit. Pretending ignorance or pretending surprise? He supposed he had a while to choose. It was strange, but—he knew he must set the terms. Alys hadn't the ability and Mister Bajan had been in his father's employ. Neither of them would feel on comfortable enough footing.

Once Alys and her maid were settled at the lake house, Wylan returned to the boat.

He had one more stop to make before home.

Wylan knew what to expect this time. That did not stop his heart hammering all the way up the long drive. He remembered, last time, collapsing here in the middle of the road, sobbing. He remembered how much it had torn at him to know what his deficiency did to his mother.

No longer blaming himself, Wylan nonetheless felt that sickness all over again.

It wasn't his fault.

It wasn't his fault.

But that didn't change facts.

Jan Van Eck alone bore responsibility for what happened to Marya. Seven years she had suffered here. Seven years of who knew what had been done to her. Wylan didn't blame himself, but he couldn't know about his mother's suffering and not ache for her.

Wylan hopped down from the cart, reflecting that he had a very well-jogged liver by now.

He did not have a straggly bouquet. He had an envelope, and his flute because he knew she liked music and there wasn't much of it here. There would be music when she came home. He had been ashamed to realize how little he recalled about his mother, could not think of what colors she liked, if he ought to ask specifically that the blue sheet be stretched over the mattress, or if she had any favorite sweets to be sure were in the pantry or… or anything.

I'll make up for it, he promised her silently.

He walked up the low stone steps and rang the bell, and wasted no time when he was shown into the parlor—though he did, vaguely, recall the wildflowers he left desperate and broken on the desk last time.

"My name is Wylan Van Eck," he informed the cheerful nurse who greeted him. They did have a lot of cheerful, well-intentioned people here. "Marya Hendricks is my mother and I've come to take her home."

"Oh," the nurse said. Clearly she had not been expecting this. "I'll—I'll need to ask the administrator. It's not often we have a patient leave like this and your mother isn't well."

You made her unwell.

"I'll care for her," Wylan said. He wasn't sure what he had expected. Perhaps that they would see that same sweet nurse Jesper had charmed last time.

Maybe he should have taken Jesper or Inej up on their offers. What if they needed him to read something? His shoulders began to curl, but Wylan caught himself. He took a breath and straightened. He might not look like much. His clothes might be ill-fitting and wrinkled, and there were still bruises on his face. But he was here. And he wasn't leaving without her.

He knew what the administrator saw: a child. Someone too young to understand what he was doing. Even after Wylan produced the transfer of authority, the man couldn't hide his reservations.

"Now, young Mister Van Eck, are you quite aware of your mother's condition?"

"No," Wylan admitted, "I'm not. Any information you can provide would be useful in caring for her at home." Where she belongs, he added silently.

He knew the administrator was trying to scare him, frighten Wylan into realizing he wasn't equal to this task. Marya Hendricks, the man explained, was sometimes calm but prone to violent outbursts from time to time. It was common in victims of hysteria and paranoia.

Wylan listened. He nodded. He didn't say—of course she was prone to violent outbursts. It was how he had known she was still herself, that soft insistence that her name was Marya Van Eck. Her small resistance. His mother had clung to what she could against the people who tried to take it from her, albeit meaning to help. Wylan clung to his determination but he couldn't deny the clear good intentions of the asylum staff.

When the man had finished, Wylan said, "Thank you. Would it be possible for me to wait with her while her things are packed?"

It was not a discussion, he meant to clarify: she was coming home today.

Nevertheless, he found himself talked around until he agreed to see her before making a final decision. He couldn't very well explain he had already seen her just days ago. Last time I was a Shu boy. That seemed like a great way to get himself a room here as well.

At least now, Wylan knew what to expect. It didn't stop his nerves. Last time, she seemed… did she remember him? Know him, somehow? Would she know him now?

"I'm afraid it's not one of her better days," the nurse told Wylan. Not Betje, the one who had been charmed by Jesper's smile. (Wylan could scarcely blame her. Jesper's smile was difficult to resist.)

"What does that mean?" Wylan asked. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to her room. This might not be the best day to bring her home. If you can come back, maybe give her time to adjust to the idea…"

He shook his head. "She's coming home today."

Why wasn't she painting in the sunlight? She had looked worn out, but not entirely miserable there.

Wylan thought of the days he hadn't wanted to leave his bed, the days in the Barrel he was too scared to leave the room. His heart seized to think of his mama like that, sitting on her bed, frightened that Jan's men were here to hurt her.

They hadn't, though. They hadn't hurt her. Right?

"Here we are," the nurse chirped. She unlocked the door and held it open.

Everything inside Wylan leapt, but his skin was frozen still as stone.

"Mister Van Eck," the nurse told him gently, "you can come back another day. She does have bad days, sometimes."

If this had been the Marya he found when he first visited, Wylan didn't know if he could have left. Jesper might have had to haul him bodily from the asylum. And then he would have gone back to Ketterdam, aimed a pistol at his father's forehead, and probably been killed by the stadwatch before he could pull the trigger.

Marya glared at them with raw hatred. Wylan had imagined her frozen in fear. It wasn't fear that restrained her: it was leather straps. Her wrists and ankles were wrapped in soft cotton to protect her skin, but she was unmistakably tied down.

"Why would you do this to her?" Wylan asked.

"Mister Van Eck—"

"Don't call me that!"

He was Wylan Van Eck, but right now he preferred to be Wylan Hendricks. He preferred to forget the name Van Eck.

Hearing it was enough to make Marya jolt. The bed smashed hard against the floor.

"You're here to kill me!"

"No," Wylan said. "No, I'm not."

He stepped into the room and pulled a chair close to the bed.

"I promise I'm not."

Marya yanked at the restraints.

"It's all right," Wylan said.

This wasn't what he had pictured. This wasn't the woman he thought he was bringing home. Somehow, he imagined… he didn't know.

He reached for the restraint.

"I'm going to untie this now."

It wasn't a tie. It was a buckle. Did that matter? He wasn't sure what mattered. He felt like he had fallen asleep and this—it was a dream. It was just a bad dream.

The moment the buckle loosened, her fingers latched around his wrist, so tight he felt a jolt of fear shoot through him and had to remind himself, this is my mother.

"He sent you!"

"He didn't," Wylan said. "He didn't. I'm—I'm Wylan."

"That's my son's name."

"Yes. I am your son. I'm your son Wylan Van Eck. They call me Wylan Hendricks sometimes." His friends called him a lot of things. "I used your name when I ran away."

On reflection, that had probably made it easier for his father to find him.

"Wylan."

He nodded. "Yes. I… brought… I brought my flute. Would you like me to play something?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I came for you. I came to bring you home."

The promise was supposed to help. He thought she would like that, to come back to her rightful home, live with her family. There would be some awkwardness, he imagined, if she recognized Jesper, but at the moment he wasn't sure that was a risk.

Instead she yanked her hand away and slapped him.

Wylan could only stare. She had never slapped him. She had never so much as smacked his backside when he was a child. He wanted it to be an accident, but he knew it wasn't. Maybe she didn't believe he was who he said he was. Maybe she thought—

Maybe she thought what he had thought.

Wylan remembered how he used to feel the chilling fear when someone looked too long at him. He remembered ducking his head and hurrying around the corner as quickly as possible, whether or not he needed to turn. Attention might have meant someone his father sent to finish what they started that day on the boat.

"Get out!" Marya shouted. "Get out! Go back to Jan, tell him I believed your lies! You're not my son! You are not my son! You are not my son!" Well—she shouted that, and a few more colorful words as well.

Wylan was too startled to resist when he was pushed out of the room, watching and wishing he could stop watching as his mother's hand was once more restrained. Part of him respected the way she kept fighting. Even half-gone, she was still holding on—but what to? He had thought… maybe he thought he could heal her.

"Stop," he said, softly, not sure if he wanted Marya to stop shouting at him or the rather less cheerful of the asylum's employees to stop holding her down. He saw that she was violent, but they were hurting her. She was scared. Louder, "Stop! You're hurting her!"

"Mister Van Eck—"

"LEAVE HER ALONE!"

"Mister Van Eck!"

The nurse pulled him back from the door. Wylan no longer saw his mother, but he heard the sounds. She was still fighting a losing battle.

He looked into the nurse's eyes. Angry as he wanted to stay, Wylan saw that the young woman truly felt for him now. She visibly cared. The people looking after his mother, in general, wanted to help her, they just didn't understand.

He felt his lip quiver and forced it to stop.

"She's my mother."

"I understand," the nurse said. "She's not well, Mister Van Eck—"

"Please call me Wylan."

He couldn't hear that name anymore.

"Wylan, your mother is sick. She still loves you, but sometimes other thoughts make her forget that."

Wylan nodded. He wanted to believe that. Would anyone really say different, though? Would any nurse tell a patient's teenage son—she's beyond even knowing who you are?

He took a breath. Again. He wished Jesper were here and immediately felt guilty for wishing that. Jesper had known what to do last time, but Wylan needed to learn to stand for himself. It wasn't fair to Jesper to expect him to negotiate these situations, or to be the shoulder Wylan constantly leaned on.

"How… how long…?"

"The past couple of days have been difficult ones, but it's not always this way."

Wylan nodded again. He liked nodding right now; he was grateful for nodding. It gave him time to put the anger inside him into words.

"Your father sent a couple of clerks to visit with her and it was very taxing for Marya. She can't answer too many complicated questions. Her mind isn't what it was."

He tried to make sense of all of those words. He tried and he failed. All he heard was that she had been this way after he and Jesper visited.

Then he heard his father's voice.

Moron. Disgrace. Fool.

Traitor.

You stay away from her.

You'll destroy everything.

He had. His father meant his merchant empire, but Wylan barely cared about that—hadn't, at the time. Though he hadn't destroyed it, he had destroyed the person who mattered most to him. She had been vulnerable; he had seen it. Why hadn't he been more careful? Why hadn't he… why… he didn't know. What to do, what he should have done.

The corridor seemed to lurch. Wylan placed one palm against the wall for a sense of steadiness, only a glimmer. His stomach and lungs followed the lurching. Wylan could take a lot. He had learned to take sharp words from Kaz without looking away. He had learned to take a beating from whichever goons his father had on hand, and he had learned from his friends to take it without breaking until he needed to for their scheme to work.

He didn't know if he could take this. He didn't know if he could bear losing her again.

Wy, listen to me. You have to pull yourself together.

Jesper's directive from their last visit cut through the swirl of panic in his head. He was right. Wylan focused on the floor. He focused on breathing, on pulling air into his lungs, forcing it out.

After a few moments, he was able to focus on the nurse again. She still looked sympathetic, but it was a measured sympathy. Wylan wondered, if he couldn't pull himself together, would he become a patient here himself? He couldn't allow that to happen. Everything everyone had done to put him here would fall apart if Wylan appeared insane now.

"I apologize," he told the nurse, his voice thin, "seeing my mother that way—I find myself rather shaken."

The measure on her sympathy broke, a flood of relief that she was talking to a sensible person.

"That's quite understandable. It can be a shock."

"I'd like to visit again tomorrow. Unless that would be detrimental to her health?"

"It's good for our patients to have visitors. We'll look forward your return. It's very good of you to come and see her."