Chapter 3

It took the better part of ten days for Wilhelmina to catch so much as a glimpse of the young male, and longer than that before she actually spoke to him. Days of irregularly scheduled trips to the alley where they left their few discards for the ragpickers to take and sell, leaving generous amounts of food carefully altered to look like refuse. The young male would have taken anything more straightforward as a trap and fled, and Wilhelmina wasn't willing to risk his disappearance.

"If you went once a day, you'd have an easier time feeding him," Mairin said, as Wilhelmina stole a few minutes to linger in the kitchen and chat. The hearthwitch eyed that day's offering critically; she'd thrown herself wholeheartedly into the game when Wilhelmina explained what she needed, and had been gleefully finding ways to bake loaves with a burnt-looking crust hiding hearty bread, and using Craft to "bruise" fruit without leaving anything other than surface discoloration. Privately, Wilhelmina wondered just how long it would be before she found a way to sneak cookies into the mix.

"If I went once a day, he could just come snatch it in the dead of night. This way, he has to watch us to figure out what we're doing next." And if he was watching, he might actually come to believe they posed no threat to him.

Mairin snorted. "Glad I'm not supposed to be the sneaky one around here."

"I am not sneaky!"

"Not exactly, no. But you think in corkscrews sometimes."

Corkscrews or not, when Wilhelmina caught a sudden note of cautious resolve in the young male's psychic scent, she smiled to herself, waited for evening, and dressed as carefully as she would have for any other important meeting. Then she cadged several fresh loaves from Mairin, tucked them into a basket, and set out for the ragpickers' alley.

Or tried to. When he saw her leaving alone, Jhaliir sat down in front of her and rumbled at her. She snarled at him; he blinked, settled down more comfortably and coiled his tail around his forefeet. Strange male. You are not going alone.

"Mother Night. I wear the Sapphire, and I can hardly feel his Jewel at all. I'll be fine."

Not alone, he repeated, and somehow looked even more immovable. She wondered if he was using Craft to make himself heavier. An appeal to Diccan produced nothing but a mute, maddening smirk, and Wilhelmina sighed. When both her males got this stubborn, it wasn't worth arguing about.

So she only fumed a little as she walked down to the alley, accompanied by an unreasonably stubborn tiger. When she got there, she set the fragrant, neatly covered basket in the center of the alley - as much a dare in its way as a duelist's challenge - and waited.

Jhaliir grumbled about her search for another cub to take care of. Need more adults, to tend to so many cubs.

"There aren't any more adults." Not with the whole territory reeling from years of Hayll's subtle assaults. Those who could spare any attention from their own scars were few, and most of them already served in Elinor's court. "If we hold things together for a few more years, some of the males and witches may be able to form strong Courts. But right now we're just scrambling and hoping for a few days between emergencies."

Jhaliier sent her an image of drought-stricken land, the streams at a trickle and the game thin and scanty. She sighed and twined her fingers in his ruff. "Pretty much."

"Um. It's not enough."

The voice was a light tenor with a touch of harshness - to cover up a quaver, Wilhelmina suspected. Whatever she'd expected, this wasn't it. She schooled her face and her psychic scent to calm, leaving the outermost of her barriers down. "Well. There's three loaves of bread and a handful of apples in there, and I suspect my friend slipped in some leftover nutcakes as well. Should I start packing extra baskets?"

He scowled and backed away - a thin, half-grown boy with a shock of dusty-black hair and amber eyes that hinted at Hayllian ancestry. She'd expected the White Jewel - in an old, tarnished setting, but proudly displayed on a braided cord around his neck - but not the caste. A young Warlord Prince, all ferocity and predatory focus, and precariously balanced between fear and anger.

But not at her. She could reach him, if she could find a way past the suspicion. "We've fed you, we might be able to feed a few more." She flicked her eyes over him, and let him see it. "You're not eating what we leave-"

"I eat some!"

And do what with the rest? she wondered but didn't ask. Triggering the protective part of a Warlord Prince's nature would destroy any chance she had of connecting with the boy.

He eyed her suspiciously. Took a step closer and settled himself, arms crossed, at a safe distance. "I had to try some first, to make sure it was safe."

She raised one eyebrow, broke off a piece of bread, and ate it.

He huffed impatiently. "I know it's safe now. But it's not enough for - it's not enough." Protective hostility flared in his psychic scent, and Wilhelmina began weaving psychic tendrils of calm through the air.

"We don't have much to spare," she said evenly. "But if you're hungry, come to the back door - I know you know where it is," she added with a touch of tartness. He didn't smile, but the wariness ebbed just a bit, and he met her eyes for a moment. "My name's Wilhelmina. Ask for me or for Mairin, and we'll find a way to help."

Not that she believed for an instance that food was at the root of the young male's problems...

He made a noncommittal noise.

She said nothing more for a moment, unwilling to tip that balance further in one direction or another. Instead, she used Craft to float the basket within easy reach and gave the boy a shallow bow - scrupulously correct Protocol from a senior witch to a less powerful but high-caste male. He couldn't possibly be educated enough to recognize the nuance, but some part of him would know she took him seriously. "Try us," she said simply, beckoned to Jhaliir, and turned to leave.

She was almost to the corner before she heard an uneasy shuffle where she'd left the boy. "M'name's Shad."

And he was gone.

"Sit there. Eat that." Diccan met her in the sitting room of the small suite they shared, pointing her to the couch and handing her a small, covered tray.

She took it, but not meekly. "I'm fine."

"You missed supper, and Mairin will thwack me if I don't make sure you eat. Worse, she'll stop making those things with the sausage and the eggs and the fluffy dough and no one will want to wake up for breakfast any more." He plopped down comfortably beside her and helped himself to a roll. "Any luck? I thought surely you'd have our young stray bathed, fed and tucked into bed by now."

"It's not going to be that simple. This is more like...like taming a barn cat. It'll be some time before he does anything more than hiss and run away, I think."

"So we have a houseful of young males and witches with any number of problems, and you're running yourself ragged to take on another boy with more problems?"

"Well, yes." She swiped at him with her fork as he eyed the second roll.

"I see." Diccan nodded sagely, but the corners of his mouth quirked upward almost unnoticeably. "Is this one of those things that will make sense after you explain it, or one of those things that will never make any sense whatsoever because you're a witch and I'm a male?"

She pondered. "A little of both."

He gave an irritated rumble that would have done credit to Jhaliir.

"It's...complicated." She spoke slowly, trying to reason it out as she went. "Dorothea tried to kill every Queen and Warlord Prince she couldn't corrupt, and then the witchstorm killed the ones she did corrupt. Jaenelle didn't think about what she was doing - maybe she couldn't, not and do what needed doing. But now...there's a few young males and witches who can eventually form strong courts, but there's hardly a single Warlord Prince or Queen among them. Sometimes I wonder if this Realm won't just fall apart in the next few decades, no matter what we do."

"So a lone Warlord Prince could be a danger to Chaillot if he were allowed to grow up - well, feral. I see what you mean."He made a thoughtful noise and shifted deeper into the sofa, brushing a suspicious drift of tawny hair off the cushion next to him. The sofa, while still comfortable, had seen better days. Most of them before Jhaliir decided it had clearly been intended as a tiger bed. "I don't know if this stray of yours-"

"He said he's called Shad."

"-if Shad's any likelier to trust a male than a witch, but I'll keep a watch out for him and try to look friendly. Meanwhile, it's late, I think the various youngsters have run out of mischief for the day-"

"Don't say that. The last time you said that, the little witches figured out how to float their pillows with Craft and had sledding contests down the back stairs."

"Yes, and you helped."

"I only slid down once or twice."

"And helped them clean up the feathers before Mairin woke up the next morning."

"That's not mischief, that's charity."

He tipped his head in acknowledgement. "You have a point. Either way, we'd best get our own rest and hope no one discovers a new and exciting use for Craft - or the kitchen, come to think of it, or the gardening supplies or the library - before morning." He held out his arm; she took it with a not-too-weary smile.