A/N: I've been having a lot of trouble with the last chapter of my long AU fic, and this is by way of an attempt to clear the decks. You'll notice that in this instalment the titles are all song titles, which some readers may find cheesy -- you have been warned.

Disclaimer: I did not invent Daine, Numair, Sarralyn, Rikash, or Alanna, who all belong to Tamora Pierce. The titles of these pieces belong to John Davenport, Blue Rodeo, Lennon & McCartney, the English folk tradition, Leonard Cohen, U2, Billy Joel, and U2 again.

33. Fever (When You Hold Me Tight)

Rikash is sick in bed, shivering, and Ma fusses around him, wrapping him in blankets and tucking hot bricks at his feet. She sends Sarra to fetch a healer, and Sarra comes back with Aunt Alanna: "I ran into her in the corridor," she says. Rikash is worried—Aunt Alanna can be a little scary—but when she talks to him her voice is soft and kind, and her callused hand on his forehead feels soothing. He feels a little warmer, and finally his teeth stop chattering. Ma smoothes his hair back from his sweaty forehead and holds his hand. She looks sad and worried, and he wants to tell her he is fine, as long as she stays with him, but he is too sleepy to form the words.

When he falls asleep, he dreams of strange monsters and falling into deep water. Then a voice he loves whispers his name, and he dreams of running and playing with wolf cubs.

34. Lost Together

Daine dismounts and turns slowly on her heel, surveying their surroundings in the dying light. Numair studies the map; his puzzled frown deepens into a scowl. She makes her eyes a lynx's and her ears a bat's, so that she can see and hear farther, but still, nothing is familiar.

"We're lost," she says.

"What?" he is still focused on the map, as though, independent of reality, it is going to tell him something.

"I said, we're lost," she repeats.

"We're not lost," he says patiently. "We're right here, together. We just don't know where we are."

Daine can't help it; she should be worried, should be figuring out a way to solve their problem, should be remembering that they should only have been away three days and the children will be upset, but instead she gets the giggles. "Isn't that what 'lost' means?" she asks him, in a sort of chortling gasp. "When we don't know where we are?"

He lets the map roll itself up and slides down from the saddle. "No," he says, coming closer and putting his arms around her. "'Lost' is when I don't know where you are."

35. Strawberry Fields Forever

Near the Tower there is a place where strawberries grow wild, ripening small, intensely flavourful fruit beginning in early summer. Rikash and Sarra find this spot when Rikash is still quite small and guard the secret jealously, even (perhaps especially) from their parents. Whenever they return to the Tower, this is the first place they go. It is reassuring, each time, to find that this, at least, is still the same.

36. Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Hair

There is a certain boy who looks at Sarra in a certain way, the winter she is fourteen, and one day he sings her a song:

Black is the colour of my true love's hair;

Her lips are like some roses fair.

She has the sweetest smile and the gentlest hands,

And I love the ground whereon she stands.

She scoffs at him for talking of true love, not to mention of sweetest smiles and gentlest hands—if he knew her better, she thinks, he would understand that she has neither, and likes it that way.

Still, the incident makes her think, and her thoughts are not unpleasant.

37. Dance Me to the End of Love

"I thought you hated extravagant parties, sweet," Numair murmurs into Daine's hair, as they drift around the dance floor in each other's arms.

"I did," she replies.

"Did?" His voice inquiring, tinged with amusement.

"I used to spend them watching you do this with beautiful ladies of the court," she explains, lifting her head from his chest to look up at him with dancing eyes. "Now I don't. It's different."

"Oh," he says, remembering that he never used to enjoy parties so much, either.

38. (She Moves in) Mysterious Ways

A person shouldn't have to resort to shape-shifting to keep track of her children, Daine grumbles to herself as, in golden eagle shape, she skims the treetops of the Royal Forest searching for her wayward offspring.

At last she catches a glimpse of a colour that doesn't quite belong—a bright kingfisher blue, much like the shirt Rikash was wearing when she last saw him—and, shaping herself into a starling, flutters down to investigate. There is her son's shirt, sure enough, but (just my luck) he isn't in it. In fact, two full sets of child-sized clothes are strewn about the clearing just here, at the edge of a burbling stream.

Daine becomes a wolf, a comfortably familiar shape, and gives herself her own head. "Sarra!" she calls. "Rikash! Come out this instant! I've been looking for you all afternoon!"

She goes wolf again to listen. There is no reply, and for a long, heart-stopping moment Daine is sure her children have drowned. Just as she is about to succumb to panic, she hears splashing just downstream. Her ears catch snatches of a whispered conversation on the predictable subject: Can she see us? How much trouble will we be in?

They emerge from the trees, naked but for their loincloths, and manage to look shamefaced once they spot her. "Sorry, Ma," Sarralyn says, not sounding it in the least. "We lost track of time."

Daine growls disapprovingly and directs a pointed look at the scattered clothing. As the children hastily dress themselves, she hears her daughter mutter, "'S'not fair. I bet nobody else's Ma could find them all the way out here."

39. Shades of Grey

It is difficult to be the son or daughter of a saviour—worse, two saviours—of the realm. Even more so when everyone insists that your parents' lives have been full of heroic and glorious deeds, while your parents themselves contend that none of it was glorious or heroic—only necessary.

40. Even Better Than the Real Thing

The most infuriating thing about her parents, Sarralyn decides when she is about twelve, is their utter lack of subterfuge. They're old—well, Da is, anyway!—and should be experienced in these matters, but a baby could tell a better lie than either of them.

When she runs into the sitting-room, out of breath with excitement, to tell them she has been invited to spend the whole summer at Dunlath, it is clear that they are not happy to have been interrupted. But she can also see through their attempts to seem pleased by the invitation: they will miss her, and would rather she didn't go.

She is surprised by how happy this makes her.