"I need you to loan me as many Swan-knights as you can spare for the next few months." I spoke the moment the door of my father's study closed behind me, the words tumbling out in a confused jumble.

I had come straight from the party, and still sweated slightly from my brisk walk in the heat. My gown clung to my body, my armpits were decidedly damp and I felt as if there was a thin film of grit over the exposed surfaces of my arms, neck and face. I tapped the parcel I'd brought with me against my leg nervously, feeling uncomfortable that the Prince of Dol Amroth should see me so dirty and vulnerable. My father, stunned into silence by my outburst, sat imposingly at his enormous desk which was made of almost black wood and as long as a man and nearly as wide. Finally, after a momentary, gaping pause he managed, "Lothíriel? I thought you would be out on a fine afternoon like this. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I need some riders to send south with a message. As many as you can spare. Five at least please."

"What? Why?"

"I need to find the father of Lady Windweld's bastard."

At the word bastard, disapproval began to cluster on his brow. He frowned and considered his next words for several minutes. Finally, he said, very carefully, "You and I have always allowed each other not to speak plainly about the way in which our relationship has changed since you came to Minas Tirith. Many times I've wished to, but you have not become a woman who invites or respects blunt communication. I do not blame you for this of course, for it was cowardly not to say what was on my mind. But for me the subject has always been too painful to insist upon."

He paused, waiting for me to reply.

I lifted my chin. I had expected something like this but the words struck more painfully than I could have imagined. The sweat from the walk suddenly became clammy and cold instead of warm. "I think that a fair assessment. And, I suppose a signal that now you wish to have this plain conversation?"

He moved some papers around on his desk, as if thus arranging his thoughts before speaking again. "I am not unaware of the kind of... mischief you and your brother create in the court."

"I haven't..." I began quietly but he continued over me.

"I had hoped, however, that when you went to Edoras you had left all that behind you. Erchirion seemed sure that you had, and he spoke more warmly than you know about you, insisting that I had no right to look down on the kind of woman you'd become. But if you are planning to torment that unfortunate young woman in any way, for any reason..."

"I'm not..." I began again.

"I really began to hope when you came back. You seemed so different and those maps that you drew and the stories Erchirion told... But I suppose that change is a slow process and returning to the court must have presented countless temptations. Still..."

"I don't want to torment her!" I exploded. The sharp look of disapproval might have silenced me on any other day but now I found the words poured out of me without thought or volition on my part. "I want to help her!"

He pressed his lips together. "Really, Lothíriel..." he began.

"Why can't you believe me? A father should love his daughter enough to overlook a few faults!"

"A few faults!" Now it was his turn to shout. "Is that what you would call your complete lack of honor or generosity? Perhaps it's hard of me but I will not lie to myself about who my children are, Lothíriel! Particularly at the expense of some poor, honor-forsaken girl!"

"Oh? I see you've discovered that the court of Minas Tirith is a somewhat hostile environment for the vulnerable and located the corresponding paternal instincts! Who let you in on that so closely guarded secret? And how absolutely lovely for Winweld. I only wish I had enjoyed that same concern when I was a child!"

"Lothíriel I will not be spoken to in this manner!" he roared.

It was enough to make me start crying – a visceral response to his face contorted in rage left over from childhood – but not enough to make me stop talking. "So then by saying that you wished to speak plainly I can only assume that you meant you wanted to chastise me about all my bad habits while I sat in silence? But when will we ever talk about your wrongs, Father? When will I ever be allowed to ask why I was sent away as a child? If you... if you... if you don't like the woman I've become maybe you should have spent a little more time shaping me into someone a little more noble!"

I slammed my fist down on his desk, which seemed to break the back of the argument. To my total surprise my father's complexion paled and he drew his long, slim fingers up to his lips, pressing them together and looking almost ill. He swallowed hard and looked at me for a long moment silently. Erchirion would tell me later that he'd seen our father cry twice – once at my mother's funeral and again when the war ended – but at that moment in his study he was as close to tears as I would ever see him.

Finally he said, very quietly, "I know."

If I'd slammed my foot down on solid stone and felt it crack and shift beneath me I would not have been more terrified than I was by the look on his face. I swallowed deeply in my throat. "Forgive me, Father. I didn't mean..." I began to apologize, but he silenced me with a raised finger.

"What you said is fair. You deserve an explanation I suppose, but the truth is that there isn't one. Not just one anyway. I've thought about it for years of course, why I sent the two of you away, I mean. There was some trouble on our borders and there was almost no female companionship for you in Dol Amroth. And I had no idea how to raise a girl... particularly not one so stubborn and fierce as you were becoming. I was scared I suppose."
"Father really... I didn't mean to be unkind."

He smiled. "I believe you." He continued with his explanation uninterrupted by me. "And you were beginning to look so like your mother." He laughed a little wan chuckle. "Not that I would have wished you to look like me, not for anything! But it was difficult for me to have you around. I loved your mother very deeply and you were such a sharp reminder... As for the court, I assumed Amrothos would protect you. He was such a solemn, wise, studious child. But I guess it was a different kind of wisdom you need to grow up here..."

He came around the desk and sat on it, leaning down and cupping my face gently with one hand. "I never meant to harm you. Please, Lothíriel, you must know that. But I made a mistake and I ask your forgiveness for it."

I had to swallow back the heart-pounding fear and some other emotion that was breaking open in me like nausea and elation mixed in equal parts. "Of course, Father, of course. It's silly to ask. Of course... of course."

He smiled and kissed my forehead gently. "I am glad. Perhaps now we can begin to make amends to each other. Starting with these knights of yours... Why do you need them exactly?"

"I've been unkind to Windweld in the past. I wish to find the father of her child to repay a debt." It wasn't strictly a lie. I had been unkind to her in the past and I couldn't explain the whole of my plans to my father. "I think I have an idea of how to do that. Something that hasn't been tried yet."

He took my hands in his. "And you will be responsible? You give me your word?"

I nodded. "I promise, Father."

"Then they are yours."

I would have leapt from my chair if I hadn't felt so weak with emotion. I satisfied myself by kissing both his hands and beaming my thanks up at him. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

I was so overwhelmed with emotion—not quite joy but something as excruciatingly cathartic—that I almost left without showing him the parcel I'd fetched from my room. But as I stood to leave he saw it. "What is that you have in your hand?"

I blushed, but dutifully lifted it onto his desk and unrolled it. It was the tapestry Gænwyn had given me to give to him. I struggled for an explanation but found none forthcoming.

He looked at the tapestry for a long moment, saying nothing. "Who gave this to you?"

"Her name is Gænwyn. She is a great friend of mine in Edoras. She said to thank you for sending such an intelligent and kind daughter to help the people of the Mark in a time of need."

He traced the curve of the face on the tapestry. "This is you, isn't it?"

"Not yet. Maybe someday."

I have heard the feeling of relief described as being like "a weight lifted off one's shoulders" but the reprieve I found leaving my father's study was of a different kind. I didn't know if my plan would work and even if it did there was no reason that Éomer, Erchirion or anyone else should forgive me. The truth explained what I had said but the lie had just as well. Proof would be impossible without a confession from Amrothos, something I felt unlikely to be forthcoming given what I was planning to do next. And it was plausible that, given time to consider Éomer's offer to be Queen of Rohan, I had found some motivation to accept him. A crown was a crown after all. Doubt hung over me like a dark cloud.

And yet I felt good. It was as though a long fever had finally broken and I'd woken sweating and weak, the memory of a nightmare still lingering in my mind, but with the luxuriant feeling of excruciating pain vanished. The conversation with Amrothos the night of Beltane seemed now like an ill spell cast upon me but now broken. The dim glow of hope drew my agency back to me slowly.

I didn't visit Harra right away. The next step of my plan was the one I was least sure of and once the move was made there would be no going back. Before I made any bargains with a spider I needed to be sure that I had something that she couldn't resist. And to procure that particular thing would require crossing more than a handful of lines that, at another point in my life, would have appeared un-crossable.

At the back of the garden adjoined to our house in Minas Tirith was a high stone wall that enclosed my father's estate. Along the top of the wall broken glass had been worked into the mortar to deter thieves, except at one place. One sunny afternoon when he was sixteen years old Amrothos had chipped the glass off the mortar with his dagger. No one had ever noticed the bald spot in the wall because a small oak tree bent over it, one branch providing an almost perfect foothold to hoist a stealthy traveler over.

For how long I stood on the garden path looking out at the tree that hid the secret egress I cannot say. I hadn't brought a lantern but the full moon was so bright over the scene that it wasn't necessary. I'd never gone over the wall without Amrothos to accompany me before. Walking through the unlit streets of the lower city without an escort simply wasn't done by a lady of my birth. But who was there I could ask to escort me? I had done everything I possibly could—including climbing out my bedroom window and shimmying down a decorative trellis like a common serving wench – to keep Amrothos from finding out my intentions. Erchirion was back in Rohan and Elphir would probably lock me in my room if he knew where I was planning to go.

I am ashamed to say that I was scared to leave the safe haven of my father's high walls. I'd always thought of myself as unconcerned with conventions, if not outright daring, but climbing over that wall meant that I would leave behind the privilege afforded by my birth, the protection of my class. On the verge of actually, factually, physically and irreversibility doing it, I found myself scared. Little Lothi, brave enough for anything as long as she doesn't have to leave the library, I taunted myself.

I will never know where the unexpected courage to set out on that path came from. My body felt heavy with dread but somehow I managed to force it to take that crucial first step. And the next one, after that was somehow easier.

Without Amrothos there to give me a step up with his cupped hands, going over the wall was harder than I remembered. I had no idea how I would manage to pull myself back over by the method of irregular stones we had managed to slightly work out of the wall to make ourselves a method of climbing back, without him giving me a boost. But the walk through the city wasn't as bad as I had expected. It was well past midnight and the men and women of the lower city were well into their cups. Everyone I knew would likely be as well, but they were several thousand feet above me in the gardens of a southern prince whose son had just taken a bride. Light and drunken noise spilled out of every tavern and my heart beat frantically as I hurried past, cloak wrapped well around me and collar turned up as high as I could. A young princess of one of the richest realms in the land would have caused a stir, but I passed unnoticed. With my hair loose like a commoner no one would ever mistake me for the only daughter of the Prince of Dol Amroth.

In fact, the only person who looked twice at me was the girl who greeted me at the door of my destination. She was nervous, obviously not used to women coming here.

"I've come to see Marie."

She let me in and hurried me into a small room at the back of the building. Until she was sure of whom and what I was, there was no reason to let the customers see hide or hair of me.

Marie was a lithe woman in her forties, still with some of the fading lines of the great beauty of her youth, gone a soft with fat and wrinkles. She was dressed in a simple black dress of silk, cut very provocatively, and she showed me into her small sitting room with a small smile. She quickly appraised me with an obvious professional eye. "Well, you certainly are pretty enough..." she began. "A thin little slip of a thing, but with a good completion and noble features. I allow you will do more than tolerably well with the upper city set. I imagine that they'll pay any amount of money to debase a girl who looks so like one of their sisters or cousins..."

"I'm not here to ask for a job."

She smirked. "Of course you aren't. Maybe none of the drunk peasants you crossed on your way down from the spire noticed the quality of your clothes or carriage but I know the difference between a girl who is here to offer to do me a job and one who has come to ask me to do her one."

"So you intend only to insult me?"

"If you consider that an insult, I suppose I do. I put up with prim, mincing little heiresses for the first twenty-five years of my life and then I found that my patience had run out."

"I can relate to that." I didn't often take to people on such short notice but I liked Marie already.

"Oh?"

"A story for another night."

"I suppose I should offer you some refreshment. A cup of tea or a few biscuits? That is the habit of your class, isn't it?"

"I will have whatever you are having."

"I'm having spirits in water. A very little water."

I knew a test when I saw one. "Oh... forget the water then."

She threw her head back and laughed at that. But she went and fetched us glasses with a pungent, dark amber liquid almost to the brim. I tossed off a third of it without remark, fighting the almost irrepressible urge to shudder violently. For a long moment Marie considered me, sipping her own drink occasionally. For my own part I considered the room, allowing her to form whatever judgment she was drawing about me fully.

The room was opulent but done in darker colors than would ever be chosen for a living space. The couches we sat on were a dark burgundy and the carpet was a rich purple. Even though there were abundant candles the space had the sense of an unlit cave.

"So, who are you then?" she asked finally.

I didn't hesitate. "Lothíriel of Dol Amroth. I'm Amrothos of Dol Amroth's sister."

She clearly hadn't been expecting that answer. Her eyebrows shot up dangerously close to her high hairline. "You look like him I suppose. I should have known."

I said nothing. I let her mull over my identity for a moment.

Finally she said, "But what could you possibly want?"

"I want to tell you a story."

"I'm delighted. There is nothing I love as much as a good story."

Though I hadn't thought even briefly of what I might say the words tumbled out as if rehearsed. "When I was twelve years old my brother, my only friend in Minas Tirith, fell in love with a woman who was completely unsuited for him: married, older and wicked as could be believed. As a child, if I had seen her for what she was, I don't think I would have understood how he could love her as completely as he did. Now I think I understand the... consuming nature of love a little better. If we are lucky our lovers are merciful and the things they take from us they replace with things more priceless than anything that could be born of our own souls."

My audience smiled wanly. "But more often than not they simply rip away the handfuls of flesh they think sweetest to devour." Long, thick fingers played lightly over her own lips as if thinking of some feast she had enjoyed long ago.

"Perhaps. It was certainly the case in this particular attachment. Though my brother paid it willingly, the cost of her attention was high. To entertain her he became as cruel as she was, perhaps knowing that the only thing that could interest her for long was a mirror. But even then it ended, as it had to of course."

"Of course," she intoned.

"But for a summer it worked. He loved her and I think perhaps in her own way she loved him. Perhaps if circumstances had been different, had she not been married or been quite so callous, they could have made each other happy. At the beginning her intentions could not have been... what they were at the end – to destroy him and everything around him. And it is that summer that I've come to talk to you about... do you remember the last time we saw each other?"

She grinned. "Of course... a knock-kneed little colt of a girl with a flat chest and practically reeking of book learning. I would have never guessed you would have grown into such a beautiful woman. Your brazen demeanor however comes as less of a surprise. Your brother was almost a man grown – certainly with a man's appetites— and yet you dragged him out of my door with a few haughty looks and a few words that shocked even me. As I recall you told him that 'whining like a whore to a whore was surely futile as if anyone would know how to resist wheedling it would be a woman who spread her legs professionally.'"

"If I caused any offense..."

She cackled. "I laughed about it for weeks."

"It was difficult for me to see him debase himself so."

"Particularly to a whore I imagine."

I waved her comment away with a hand. "Some of my closest friends and almost all of the most powerful noble ladies of the court are whores of one kind of another. Often for something less sensible than coin. But to hear him beg someone who was so obviously dead set against giving him what he wanted... that was difficult."

Her mouth twisted and she took another sip of her spirits while I waited. Finally she sighed. "I assume you're not an idiot. You haven't come to tell me a story I already know, one that happened in my own house. I remember your brother and his...coldhearted seducer well enough. You've come for the letters, haven't you?"

I nodded.

"What makes you think I'd be any more inclined to give them to you than I was to your brother?"

I considered my answer for a long moment before replying, running a finger along the edge of my glass and not looking at her. "Because I am willing to pay you handsomely for them. Name your price and it will be yours."

She laughed. "You think me willing to do anything for coin?"

"It's a gesture of respect. You've made clear what you value. I am trying to bargain well with you, that's all."

"And what are you planning to do with them?"

"I am going to put right some past wrongs."

"Are they going to become public?"

"I don't know yet."

"So you're planning to use them as leverage? To do what with them?"

"Does it matter to you?"

"Yes."

I considered her for a long moment. She was a difficult woman to read because she'd spent so much of her adult life living as a fantasy for the men who came to pay her for it. This laughing, slightly menacing, older woman facade she'd adopted was for my benefit – a reflection of my own expectations about the madam of a brothel. I had to decide whether or not she would be pleased at the idea that I would use the letters to wreck vengeance... or would the truth do?

Finally, slowly, the words coming out gradually, I said very deliberately, "I won't hurt anyone with them who doesn't deserve it twice over."

"You mean Saeril?"

"Yes."

She considered for a second. "Ten gold crowns," she said. "And your necklace."

I took out my purse and counted out the crowns and then added my necklace, a silver chain with a beautiful amethyst pendant. I had sold two other pieces of jewelry much nicer than that for the gold but she'd undervalued the letters by tenfold. I had thirty more gold crowns in my purse and had been ready to get as many more as she asked.

But the price wasn't a mistake, simply a token. She was making a gift of the letters to me, or at least as much of a gift as a woman in her profession ever made. She went to her dresser and pulled back a layer of dresses in the top drawer and came back with a small silk purse. From it she pulled a sheaf of papers and handed them to me. "Your brother never offered to buy these."

"He is usually much better at seeing the best path. But he never was quite rational where Saeril was concerned."

She shrugged. "Men never are in their first passion."

The next morning I slept late. By the time I'd managed to climb back over the wall the gray light of dawn was already creeping back into the city. I breakfasted alone and then left promptly. When I called at the gate of the Winweld house I was greeted by a grim looking housekeeper who let me into the sitting room and then went to call the Lady down. Lady Winweld looked wary as she entered. Under her gown her belly was enormous and she put one hand reflexively to her back before lowering herself onto the couch. "Hello, Lady Lothíriel."

"Hello, Lady Winweld."

"This is an unexpected surprise."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"In my present condition...well, I get very few visitors."

"You should let them know it isn't catching."

She looked shocked, almost about to protest my impropriety, but then instead she laughed. "Yes, perhaps I should," she agreed.

I didn't waste any time. "I need to know everything there is to know about this knight."

She reacted as if I had slapped her. She drew herself up in the chair and pressed her lips together. "If you think to gather information for that brother of yours to mock me with..."

I cut her off. "I want to help you find him."

For a long moment she was silent. "Why?"

Finally, I thought, a little promise. The old Winweld would never have thought to be suspicious of someone offering her help, even me. I was glad for her. She would need a little cunning to protect her baby, but there was something almost like the dull stab of sorrow in my breast when I thought about the blank, sweet, naive girl who was gone forever. She hadn't deserved to get burned quite so badly.

"Selfish motives. It doesn't matter which ones."

"It matters to me."

Though I had hoped to avoid it, I had expected Winweld to have some questions for me in this vein. I met her wide, blue eyes completely and said, with as little flourish as I could, "I am in love with a man who is being blackmailed by someone who is threatening to spread a rumor that he is the father of your child."

"Who..."

I didn't wait to find out if she wanted to know who was my lover or my blackmailer. "It doesn't matter who. All that matters is that I am willing to help you. And the only question is, are you willing to help me?"

She considered for a moment, though not so long as I might have expected. The knight's name was Daeron from Landis. He was a hedge knight of no real repute but according to Winweld, also one of the noblest men in Middle-earth. His family lived in a small dwelling outside of Landis but they had already been contacted and didn't know where he was. She hadn't been allowed to talk to him before he was forced to leave the city so she had no idea where he might be. A dead end.

As I stood to leave Winweld rose to her feet and we curtseyed to each other even though it seemed somewhat painful for her. I had just put my hand on the door to leave when I thought of something, "Would you... would you do anything to get him back, Winweld? Anything at all?"

"Yes... well actually no, I suppose not."

"What would you stop at?"

"I wouldn't do anything that would change either one of us into something that was... less than the people we were when we fell in love. What use is love if its objects are deformed past recognition?"

I swallowed hard in my throat. What use indeed? "What about your reputation? What about his reputation?"

She laughed, gesturing to her swollen belly. "What reputation?"

I nodded and to my surprise I said, "I am going to make this right for you, Winweld. I promise. And... and I apologize for what I said to you in the past."

"You don't owe me anything, Lothíriel."

"Not just you, no."

The next visit was one I wanted to make even less but I wanted to do it before the noon meal.

When Lady Harra was ushered into her sitting room and found me waiting for her she must have been surprised but her expression showed absolutely nothing. Even I was impressed. "Ah, Lady Lothíriel," she cooed. "You are looking so very tanned and muscular from your little sojourn to the north. How unbecoming."

"Hello, Lady Harra."

"Please do sit down and let me find something edible for you. Though I'm afraid we are all out of horse meat pies or whatever you're accustomed to these days."

"I'm sure I'll enjoy whatever is convenient."

When the tea and biscuits were arranged and served we sat in silence for almost three full minutes. But finally Harra laughed and said, "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Your brother wants something, I assume?"

"Quite the opposite. I am going to destroy Amrothos and I want your help doing it." I spoke as flatly as I could. Harra was clever and if I tried to play a part there was a good chance she would see through it. By keeping my voice and demeanor neutral I was counting on her malicious imagination to project into my actions whatever motivation she would find most plausible.

Her eyes jerked up at that, raking over me for a long second, before she said, quite calmly, "I see. Any particular reason you feel like doing this?"

"Do I need one in particular?"

She let out a little laugh and broke off a piece of a biscuit with long, elegant fingers. "True enough. He's been quite the little bastard recently and I should know better than anyone. A master should know her disciple after all. But why come to me? If you have something on him, take your shot."

"I've been away from the court too long. I need you to arrange everything."

"And why would I do that?"

"You don't have to play coy with me, Harra."

She gave a little tinkling laugh. "There is something tender and sincere in him that just makes you want to wipe him off the bottom of your shoe. It must run in the family. But your point is well taken... my motives in the venture you propose would be obvious. But what about yours? You seemed quite sure after the war that you were done with schemes, the court, and certainly with me. What could have changed your mind?"

"This is my last act. I need to make a clean break and Amrothos is the last string tying me to the world of the court."

"Oh? Your last act? Well... I suppose we'll see. But that doesn't answer my question. You said some fairly... unmitigated things about what you thought of me and my ways. How can I be expected to trust you after all your little tantrums?"

"If you don't trust me then don't. You don't have to do anything specific until I bring you what I have on Amrothos," I said. "Oh, except that I want you to send some knights from Castle Harra south to find the hedge knight who got Winweld with child." The more looking over the huge area of Gondor the better, he would be found quicker. "Until I know his fate, I can't act on Amrothos. But that's a trifle of a thing compared to what I am offering you..."

"Winweld? What has she got to do with it?"

"Just do it."

She ate the other half her biscuit, considering for a long moment. "Valar!" she said finally. "You aren't joking are you!"

"No. I'm not."

The next month was a waiting game.

I tried my best to fill my days. There were the usual endless string of balls and parties, get-togethers and sowing circles but I found the time I spent at them almost as agonizing as the sleepless hours I spent staring out into the dark while tumbling over and over my plan, looking for a misstep or a flaw.

My father and I took to having dinner together often, which had never been our habit before. At the beginning it was awkward – stiff and punctuated by long, strained silences and interminable lectures about sailing techniques, knots and the resultant commerce in Dol Amroth. But eventually we found common topics: horses, war stories, Erchirion's impending nuptials and Rohan. It wasn't exactly enjoyable eating with him — I was still excruciatingly aware of both our past and my undiminished awe and terror of him—but it was a small sign of approval and I cherished it.

Amrothos and I went along as we had before. It was an odd, languorous torture to be so close to him and keep silent, all my instincts crying out to warn him of what was planned (what I was planning!) for him. But whatever discomfort I may have displayed he must have attributed to what he had done to me for his attitude towards me didn't change one jot.

I sometimes went to see Winweld and there grew between us an odd kind of affection, something between sisters and acquaintances. With our respective temperaments we could never have been friends. But though she still irritated me with her simplicity and I still scandalized her with my candor, the undeniable similarity in our situations— both in love with men who for one reason or another had gone out of our lives— was appealing. That, in addition to the intimacy of a shared conspiracy and our isolation from the court at large, was enough to draw us together.

I was coming back from visiting Winweld, almost back to my father's house, when I saw my cousin Faramir for the first time since that fateful picnic. He was coming down the hill in the gathering gloom of dusk and he greeted me with an uncomplicated, unfeigned smile. So Éowyn didn't tell him what I did, I thought, wondering if that should encourage or worry me.

"Hello, Cousin," I greeted him.

"Hello, Lothíriel." He kissed my fingers lightly. "I'm glad to see you. I thought to miss you. Your father said you might not be back until dinner."

I laughed. "I'm as bad as cat, coming and going just as I please with no regard to anyone else."

"Éowyn likes her independence as well."

We exchanged some few pleasantries but the dusk was rapidly falling and it was a brief exchange. We parted ways, me going up the street and he going down.

I passed through the arch—that same arch where I had asked Éomer to kiss me – was halfway to the house when the gate guard called after me, "Lady! I forgot! There was a note that came for you while you were out!"

I went back to the gatehouse and accepted the note tiredly. He stepped out to let me have some privacy while I read it by the light of the candle in the gatehouse. I recognized Lady Harra's beautiful, flowing script as I ripped it open.

Sir Daeron is dead. I still expect you to hold up your end of arrangement. Meet me in the library tonight.

TBC

Someone stop me! I've started with the cliff hanger endings and I just can't stop! As usual LBJ did a fantastic job editing this and keeping me from me traipsing my muddy feet all over Tolkien's world. She is such a rock star. Also thanks to everyone who reviewed. It really does mean a lot to me. Just as one small example it kept me motivated to write this chapter, which was unexpectedly difficult to get right (enough to cause the delay in posting, which I apologize for by the way). So drop me a line? Let me know what you think?