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“Why not?”

Pen put in, “Temple demons are almost always handed down to riders of the same sex.” At Oswyl’s questioning glance, he added, “My case was unusual, as Learned Ruchia had her fatal seizure of the heart unexpectedly, on the road near Greenwell as I was passing by. Her demon was supposed to have been handed off to a female physician-aspirant, waiting at her deathbed.”

“And that’s another thing,” Hamo burst out. “I thought Mags might become my successor, in some few years, and at the end of her life have a demon tamed enough to grant to a physician. It’s… the waste goes on and on. Utter waste.” Hamo increasingly had the look of a man who needed to go apart to cry, or rave, or both, as the enormity of the loss to both himself and the Temple sunk in.

Oswyl, with a list of people to tax growing longer than his arm, looked as though he wanted to let him. But Hamo himself turned to Penric.

“And you found no sign at all of where her demon went?”

The missing demon was as much Hamo’s task to manage and regulate as the late woman; in its own way, it, too, had a Temple career. Pen wasn’t sure if Oswyl quite grasped this yet, though Inglis, with his experience of Great Beasts cultivated over decades, surely did. Inglis had been very silent throughout this interview, possibly daunted by glimpsing what his own disastrous misadventure must have been like for the people trying to follow after him.

“None, sir,” said Pen. “It was very disquieting.”

“It could not have got far on its own without seizing on some being of matter to sustain it,” said Hamo.

“Yes. A person, either accidently or on purpose, or an animal, likewise—”

“An animal,” faltered Hamo, “would have its own dire consequences to such a developed demon.”

“Yes, sir, I am very aware. Or the third possibility.” They both grimaced.

“Which is what?” prodded Oswyl.

Hamo answered, “If there is no creature whatsoever in range capable of absorbing a demon when its host-creature dies, even a small bird, it… I suppose you could say dissipates. Returns to its elemental chaos, losing all the knowledge it used to hold. Even the ability to be an elemental capable of starting over with the next animal along. Just… gone.”

“It sounds a lot like sundering,” said Oswyl, his eyes narrowing as he tried to picture this.

“Very like,” agreed Pen. “Only faster.” Within him, Desdemona shuddered.

Hamo regarded Pen intently. “Did you have any sense of that, in that clearing?”

Pen hesitated. “It’s not something I’ve ever encountered before, so as to immediately recognize some trace.” Nor I, Des conceded. Such instances are, by their nature, never witnessed.

“Our stray demon must be sought, and I can’t leave here with all the rites to arrange for Mags,” said Hamo, with an agitated swipe of his hand through his hair. “My own people are scattered, or unsuitable.” He glanced across at Oswyl, who held up his palms in a fending gesture, and Pen tried unsuccessfully to remember the name of that Easthome sorcerer Oswyl had so definitely clashed with last winter. He, too, must be one of Hamo’s flock. Hamo’s gaze circled back to Pen. “Learned Penric…”

Penric, seizing the hint, nodded. “I’d be very pleased to assist you in this matter, if I can beg leave of my superior the princess-archdivine.” Which he likely could. Inglis shifted, but said nothing. Yet.

Oswyl looked very relieved. “I’d be pleased to accept your assistance.” He glanced more hesitantly at Inglis. “And yours, Shaman…?”

“I’d like to take another look at that clearing,” said Inglis slowly. “Before it has a chance to rain. There were—I’d just like some more time to cast a wider search.” For what, he did not say, but Pen recalled that mysterious third arrow, and the bit of fox-fluff it had caught. And wondered what tracking abilities Inglis’s wolf-within might lend him, even beyond the hunting skills of Pen’s canton-mountain youth.

“Wherever Magal’s demon is now,” said Penric, “it had to have started out from that point. We should go together. Tomorrow morning.”

“Early,” agreed Inglis, earning an approving nod from Oswyl.

Oswyl went on to Hamo, “Does—did—Learned Magal keep a chamber here, or live elsewhere?”

“Yes, she lived in.”

“I’ll need to look through her things, if you can undertake to keep her room undisturbed till I get back. Probably also tomorrow morning. We must go to the next-of-kin tonight, before it gets any later.” He added a bit wearily, “And then report to my own superiors.”

Everyone present having a hundred new chores pressing down upon them, Oswyl extracted his party with more condolences, assuring Hamo that this tragedy would have his inquiry office’s utmost attention.

* * *

By the time Pen had made it back to the Temple guest house reserved for the princess-archdivine and her train, hastily washed up, donned his best and cleanest white robes, and dashed down to the courtyard, he was running very late, as well as just running. Well, more of an awkward skipping, as he tried to blend the dignity due from a learned divine with his need for speed. But his superior was still being loaded into her sedan chair when he came puffing up.

“Ah, Penric,” she greeted him. “And Desdemona, of course.” The smile on her aging lips was dry, but not actually annoyed. “At last. I was preparing to send you to bed without any supper at all, if you missed this one.” Llewyn kin Stagthorne was dressed tonight as princess and royal aunt, not Temple functionary, though her gown showed off silks of Martensbridge manufacture, one of the more lucrative enterprises of the Daughter’s Order that she oversaw there.

“My apologies for my tardiness, Your Grace,” he replied, bending to kiss her archdivine’s ring held forgivingly out to him. The hand went on to flick at her bearers, who hoisted up her chair and began to cart her along downhill towards Kingstown.

“Walk beside me, then,” she said serenely, “and tell me all about your day off. I take it the fish were either very good or very bad?”

“Neither, as it turned out. Locator Oswyl was called out on an inquiry in the early morning—”

“Oh, that’s a pity. I know you were looking forward to a visit. I quite liked him, during his brief sojourn in Martensbridge last winter. And your shaman friend was… interesting.” She paused to consider this. “So good he wasn’t hanged.”

“I must agree. It would have been a pointless waste. Among other things. But we spent the day with Oswyl despite all, because he came to ask us both to help with his inquiry. And so some innocent fish were spared.”

Her glance aside was sharp. “Really. And thereby hangs a tale?”

“Yes, Your Grace, but not one for the street.” The bearers allowed the honor of transporting her, sturdy dedicats in the blue and white of their goddess and hers, were not the only prick-eared listeners within range.

Her eyelids lowered in understanding. “After, then. I am too old to stay out late, even for the sake of my Stagthorne kin.”

“And I’ve undertaken to go out early tomorrow, so our steps will match on that.”

“Hm.” She digested this, then set aside her curiosity for dessert. “In any case, you will gratify me tonight by introducing yourself as Learned Lord Penric kin Jurald of Martensbridge, instead of your usual contraction.”

“Too wordy, Your Grace. It offends my sense of literary economy.”

She sniffed. “There are places where a pious humility is a suitable thing. Tonight’s venue is not one of them. You are my sorcerer; your status reflects on my own.”

His conceding nod was undercut by his grimace. “Jurald Court is little more than a fortified farmhouse in an obscure mountain valley, and I am its portionless younger son, as you and I both know.”