'If he thinks he's going to keep me out of this, he's got another thought coming.' Firana marched up the rest of the stairs and burst through their door. Sam was crossing another name off that infernal list of his. She would never have gotten it for him had she known its purpose. She'd finally heard of it from Tayle this morning. Or last night...The watch did have a terrible way of making time run together.

"Isn't it awful?" She'd had to go and ask what was so bad. "Why, how Sameth is going to repair the Ice, of course," the girl had replied. "At least he crossed me off the list." Tayle must have taken in the mix of confusion and horror on her face. "Don't worry, I'm sure you've been crossed out too."

Oh, she was sure she had been. That was certain, with the way he kept her from knowing about it for so long. And then she'd realized she didn't even know what was going to happen. Or what the list was for. She'd had to ask Tayle about that too. The man was going to get it, that was as certain as death and visions.

At that moment, the Sight hit her like a run away horse. She saw herself, with a dagger piercing her heart and another coming towards her throat. Her vision-self didn't look to be much older than she already was, either. It faded, and she stumbled forward a few steps before catching herself by slamming her hands onto Sam's desk.

"Firana! Why are you back so soon? I'd expected you to be gone for at least another day."

"I'm back because I couldn't focus my visions. Do you know why that is?"

"Because of the broken ice?" Sam gave her the innocent smile she had fallen in love with, but even that would not calm her now.

"No. It's because my husband has been planning to kill one of us for days, and hasn't even had the good grace to tell me about it!"

Inside, Sam wanted to cower under the desk and weave a diamond of protection around himself. But that would only result in her becoming even more angry. All he could do was sit there and take it. Standing might be an advantage, but she would see it as a challenge. He would just be perfectly still and silent. She had to run out of breath sometime. Unless she started in on questions. He had to hope she would not begin with the questions.

She sighed. Something was wrong. Firana couldn't possibly be done yet. Unless...oh, boy. It was going to be a long night. Then she spoke, in a voice as tired as he'd ever heard her. "How are you going to do it?"

"Do what," he asked, wondering at this sudden change.

"Kill them, get the blood, everything. Just tell me how."

If she was still on that subject, she should still hold at least a note of anger in her voice. Yet there was only the fatigue, and perhaps a hint of worry. "I suppose I'll use a spell to end it painlessly," he replied. "And them I'll have to hang them over a large basin with the other ingredients in it. I'll likely need to cut open both their throats and heart to get the blood in any decent amount of time. "Wh--"

"Oh Charter," she cut in. "It's me."

"What's you?"

"The blood you need. It's mine."

"You can't know that."

"It is a grace, or perhaps a curse, of the Sight to show us our time and way of death as one of our last visions. I saw myself die just as you have described."

Sam couldn't help but admire how she sat there, so ready to give everything she had for her people. But he couldn't let her do it. "No."

"You must use me. The death visions are never wrong. If you don't I'll surely be murdered like that. You would spare me such a fate, wouldn't you?"

As always, she had a new excuse just when he thought he'd heard everything. And he couldn't deny her of that. Not when everything he had heard agreed with what she said. But he did have one last card to play. "What about our daughter?"

"You and Alina will be fine without me. She can go with you when you leave, then return when her visions begin. Until then, I'm sure you'll make a fine father."

"It would be better if she had both of us."

"She can't, and you know that as well as I."

A knock at the door made them both jump. A girl no more than eight poked her head in. "I have your powdered drill grub tooth, Prince Sameth."

"Bring it in," he replied. In the next room, Alina wailed.

†††

Lirael stepped onto the ribbon of night that marked the Fifth Precinct. She took a few more steps before opening the mirror again. "I would see why Torrigan was more powerful than his elder brother, when the brother should have had the upper hand."

As time rolled backwards, Lirael got the feeling that she was going father back than the last time. It was something she'd started noticing after viewing the original Binding. It was likely just a gift of Remembrancers, but she couldn't remember the book saying anything about it...

Her attention snapped back to the mirror when she noticed a distant figure striding across a lawn. "Over here, Leum," called someone from out of her field of vision. "Under the apple tree." The image swung to show a woman in her early thirties. She was quite lovely, with light brown curls cascading to her shoulders. It swung back to the man, Leum, and she noticed the fine house behind them. All three stories were made entirely of stone, stone that glimmered with millions of charter marks. Then Lirael took a better look at his surcoat. Sure enough, it was the same as Sam's, with a golden trowel, the symbol of the Wallmakers, embroidered on it. She didn't need to see any more. This Leum fellow was clearly Touchstone's father, and the woman she knew to be the Queen. Lirael closed the mirror and left Death. The other viewings could wait.

A/N Gosh, I'm almost kinda sad. Not just that my had is being forced to destroy another character, but that this tale is mostly over. Only another ten chapters, and one of those filler! Then again, look at how much has happened in the last ten...