"Oh, I have such a tearing headache!"

"Then you really should not drink," Findekáno observed mildly.

Lalwen crossed her forearms defensively around her brimming glass of wine. In the candlelight, it looked darker and thicker than it really was, like blood.

Nolofinwë, Anairë, Lalwen, Findekáno, Arakáno and Artelda were sitting around the large table in Nolofinwë's study. (Turukáno had gone to visit Laurefindë at the palace; Elenwë was upstairs in their room.) This table too had been transfigured by the uncertain light. It seemed much bigger and as if scored by the blades of knives.

Lalwen looked up and straight into Artelda's eyes. The younger woman was lounging in her chair, panther-like, as if trying to conceal the suppressed tension that ran through her body. Her eyes were blazing with a barely suppressed light.

"You are excited," Lalwen said in a tone of pained accusation.

Artelda did not bestir herself to reply.

"Aren't you even the tiniest bit ashamed of yourself, to be excited, now? You might as well be dancing on your grandfather's grave! Oh Artelda, my baby girl..."

Lalwen leaned forward on her elbows and looked around at the others. She was not especially surprised, although grieved beyond measure, to observe the same expression on the faces of Findekáno and Arakáno. She could not find the energy to condemn them, having wept more or less continuously for what would have been several Hours if the world had still been working. Her head felt as if a pulsing shard of evil glass had installed itself between her eyes. She would have liked to dig her fingers into the soft skin and rip out the offending spot.

Only on Anairë's face did she observe a faint shadow of her own terror and horror. The other woman was sitting very close to Nolofinwë, almost clinging to him as if for protection.

"Lalwen," Nolofinwë said suddenly, "you won't like what I am about to say, but I would ask you to consider this point: would you truly want us to remain here in fear and have Fëanáro carry off our people into Manwë knows what dangers? We would be condemned as cowards from every mouth. We would be cowards! The children of Finwë are not as private individuals, little sister. We have the great responsibility of continuing his unique care for those whom he led with such courage on the Great March."

Lalwen sat up straight and looked at her brother. As she did so, her even-coloured eyes, wider and more innocent than his, pierced his mask of dignity to perceive the flames that burned within him as well.

"No," she said. "No. No. You hate bloody Fëanáro, for Aulë's sake!"

"All the more reason why I as the Noldóran cannot abandon my people to his madness. Nor can I unsay the words spoken before Manwë."

Lalwen leapt to her feet. Her shadow, twice as big as herself, covered the wall behind her. Her tangled hair fell in disarray around her wild-eyed face.

She screamed, "YOU ARE NOT THE NOLDÓRAN!"

"Írien," Nolofinwë murmured soothingly.

"How dare you treat me like this? I was right about everything! I told you not to annoy Fëanáro. Do you think him some kind of wild beast? Not even beasts attack without provocation!"

Unwisely, Lalwen took a hasty gulp of wine. The chilly liquid intensified the pain in her head tenfold.

Anairë, meanwhile, felt that she was falling off a precipice. She knew that the enormity of the betrayal, the magnitude of Nolofinwë's heartlessness, would not sink in for some time. She was numb just now and could not yet feel the full horror of the suggestion that she should leave Aman altogether for the lands of bewilderment and nightmare. She did not look forward to the moment of realisation.

In another quite separate part of her mind, Anairë had noted down the fact that Nolofinwë did not consider her worthy of placation. His efforts had been aimed entirely at Lalwen.

All this left no thinking space for the proprieties. It was quite automatically that Anairë said what she knew was right to say, and she heard her own voice as if from a vast distance.

"If this is how you feel, Írien, then do not come! I will accompany my lord, for he is right. No true king would abandon his subjects."

"Nolofinwë is always right, is he not? Dear Aulë! If you had ever questioned his judgement, you little bitch, Father might be alive now!"

"How do you make that out?" said Nolofinwë.

Lalwen evaded the question.

"Do either of you realise at all that I was right? I said something terrible would come of you arguing with Fëanáro. Admit I was right there, go on, one of you admit it!"

"Your logic is erroneous."

"Erroneous!" Lalwen cried; and she hurled her glass of wine at the wall. It smashed. A terrible fountain of gore rose up like avenging justice to drench through her golden gown.

Lalwen laughed.