Archive of Our Own ^beta

There was a corpse in her apiary.

An unseasonably cool day had brought her down to her bees, a shawl about her shoulders, the overcast sky warning her of an evening storm. Summer storms did not rage in Withywood the way they had along the coast of Buck, but she wanted to prepare her hives regardless. As she’d weaved between her handwoven skeps, she fastened an additional dome over each with iron pegs and twine rope. It was a task she had done every summer for more years than she could count. And never once had she encountered anything strange or unusual while making her rounds through the hives.

Now, Lady Molly of Withywoods could have screamed something unholy. The curses sprung to her lips, and she swallowed them down with a shaky exhale, standing frozen in place as she stared at the poor wretch that had wandered into her little city of bees. The body was curled in on itself, life’s greatest irony etched into their very bones, as the dead returned to the same position held within the womb. A pale foot was visible beneath a ratty blanket, swollen and caked with dirt. A bee had landed on the gnarled sole and explored the valleys of broken toes carelessly.

The smell was pervasive, even through Molly’s protective coverings, her veil tucked into her heavy smock, and her mask providing a barrier between herself and the stench. It was a sick smell, she thought, but not the smell of death. She crouched beside the body, her hammer swapped to her left hand, and she reached down to tug the blanket from the corpse’s face.

A skeletal hand shot out and caught her hand by the wrist.

Molly gasped as the not-quite dead body flailed in the grass, the weathered, rough spun blanket falling away to reveal a gaunt and battered face. Fresh bruises kissed the scarred cheek of the poor woman, her lips cracked and split as they mouthed words that did not come. Her hair was brittle and dry, like cornhusks discarded in the sun, hanging at uneven lengths. She wore a twill dress, stained from muck and other unmentionables, girdled with a dirty piece of rope. Beneath the dress, she wore leggings that were worn out at the knee.

The undead woman’s other hand had found Molly’s left, and shaky fingers gripped her hammer.

“Please,” the woman croaked, her voice a low rasp, “please do it quickly.”

Molly’s knees gave out. She had been crouching all this time, and her knees protested as she sank into the soft grass. Bees whizzed around them contentedly, deaf to the horror that had been thrust upon their keeper.

After too long had passed, the undead woman released the hammer and Molly’s wrist. She laid there, her breath rattling in her chest like pebbles rattled in a box. There was phlegm in her lungs, certainly, and who knew what else. The woman was not only thoroughly battered, but gravely ill.

“Who did this to you?” Molly hissed, suddenly incensed. She was supposed to be the Lady of Withywoods! The people of Withy were her people! And a woman had been brutalized right under her nose!

The woman looked stunned. She laid there, her knobby fingers curling in on themselves, and she heaved a breath.

“Will you kill me?”

“Certainly not!” Molly set aside the hammer, shaking her head fiercely. Then she recalled what she looked like. “Oh! Oh no, have I frightened you? I usually only wear a veil, but I did not want to risk getting stung—here.”

Molly lifted the mask from her face and offered the woman her most disarming smile. Admittedly, it probably looked rather forced. The smell was worse than she had imagined, but she had smelled worse things in her life, having raised many sons, and she rolled up her sleeves beneath her heavy canvas smock.

“There,” Molly said, setting the veil and mask aside and smiling at the woman. “Better?”

The woman was quiet. She lifted her eyes to Molly, and then gazed past her face. Her pale lashes fluttered as her brow furrowed. And Molly recognized the cloudiness of her gaze, and how terrifying this ordeal must be for the beaten and blind woman.

“I am going to find someone to carry you back to my home,” Molly told the woman, watching her eyes widen. “There you might find some comfort. A warm bath and bed at the very least. And perhaps you might trust me enough to tell me what man laid his hands on you, and if he remains in Buck still. If so, I will not rest until you receive justice for what has been inflicted upon you.”

“You are far too kind,” the woman wheezed, tears crowding her milky eyes. “But I—please don’t leave me here alone. Or if you must, cover me in something. Twigs or—or brambles, leaves, anything, please. I do not want another passerby to see me and take note of my appearance.”

It was obvious that the woman feared that her assailant would find her again. Inside her, Molly felt a wave of fresh hatred boiling beneath her skin. If she had a man to fling her hammer at, she would fling it and some choice words as well.

“Is the man who did this to you your husband?” Molly asked the woman in a quiet voice that she knew was quite dangerous.

The woman did not answer. She laid very still, her tears staining her scarred cheeks, and mucus had crowded her tear ducts as she sniffled pitifully. Her pallor was concerning, certainly. She might not last very long. But Molly could not leave her out here to die in the dirt.

“Very well,” Molly sighed, taking a great effort to lift herself off the ground. She exhaled shakily and held her stomach with a wince. The baby was fitful, his little feet doing a little jig on her innards. Something was exciting him. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“Please!” The woman covered her face with her hands. “Please, don’t—!”

“I must!” Molly cut in sharply, watching the woman flinch from her tone. She took a deep breath to regulate her simmering rage. The woman did not deserve to feel the brunt of it. “I cannot carry you, miss. You cannot see, so I will tell you that I am not a strapping youth who might swoop you up and carry you to safety. If I do not find someone to help us, you will die where you lie, and I have decided that I will not let that happen, so you will do well to stop up those tears and those pleas, because I will be saving your life today.”

The woman’s hands dropped from her face, if only to gape up at Molly, and it was such a comical expression that it seemed to bring youth to her face. Molly had assumed, based on the sickly quality of the woman’s skin and her graying hair, that she was older than herself, but it seemed more likely that without the scarring, she would look more of a middling age.

“Thank you,” Molly said curtly.

“Cover me,” the woman begged. “My face, please—”

“Oh, alright!” Molly tutted softly, yanking off her smock and gathering her veil in mask. “I’m going to prop you up against a tree. You will have to help me some. Ready? One, two—”

The woman was far lighter than Molly had expected, and with some effort, she managed to lean the woman against a young elm tree. She tugged the smock over her head, veiled her hair, and secured the mask in place.

“There we are.” Molly wiped the sweat from her brow with a sigh. She cradled her stomach. The babe was doing somersaults, it felt like. Wincing, she tried to breathe through the discomfort. The woman took her hand suddenly, her callused fingers drawing over hers gently. Then, strangely, the woman placed her hand back to her stomach, folding both her own hands over hers.

“The baby is enjoying this,” the woman whispered.

Molly froze. She could not see the woman’s face, but she knew from her tone that she must have been smiling. How had this blind woman known that she was pregnant? A blind woman, a tattered, beaten beggar off the street, had known when her own husband had not.

“Yes,” Molly agreed in wonder, sliding her gloves over the woman’s hands. “He never moves this much. I don’t know what it is, honestly… well, perhaps he likes you. Will you be alright here while I run to fetch someone?”

“Please don’t run,” the woman sighed. “I am not dead yet. And I feel better now, thank you. This mask has helped. Thank you, truly, truly, I feel that you have already done so much—”

“And I shall do more!” Molly held her aching spine as she lifted herself back to her feet. Her knees protested, and she gritted her teeth and waved the woman off when she reached for her. “None of that! Sit here and try to rest a bit. I will be back shortly.”

She headed immediately to the stables. The woman required discretion, and so Molly needed a man she could trust. Certainly she could ask Revel, and likely she would, when they returned to the manor, but the stables were closer.

“Tallerman!” Molly knew she had startled the man as he whirled around, mouth ajar and eyes darting over her wildly. “I need help. Would you assist me?”

“Of course, m’lady,” Tallerman said, inclining his head swiftly before rushing to her aid. He tossed the brush in his hand to one of the stable boys, who squeaked as he caught it.

She walked as briskly as she could, leading Tallerman toward her apiary.

“Has something happened to the hives, ma’am?”

“No, no,” she muttered, waving him off. “They’re all ready to weather this storm. No, I need a bit of help bringing something back up to the manor, if you wouldn’t mind…?”

“Yes, of course, m’lady!”

She navigated the fortified skeps and ducked beneath the young elm tree. Tallerman had to crouch. He blinked down at the woman dressed in her beekeeper’s garb.

“Oh, Eda…” Tallerman swore, tugging his cap off his head and holding it over his heart. “I hadn’t a clue you’d taken on help with the bees, ma’am, else I’d have come by to check—poor wretch… I’ll take care of it, Lady Molly, don’t you worry.”

“She’s alive, Tallerman.” Molly sighed as the woman jolted at Tallerman’s suggestion of ‘taking care’ of her. Tallerman gasped at the sight. “Yes, she’s one of mine. A beekeeper I just hired on, but she’s been horribly mistreated, and she came here seeking refuge. Wouldn’t you carry her to the manor, please? She cannot walk, and I fear her sight might have been knocked out of her.”

Tallerman was quiet as he took in Molly’s words. The lies spilled out before she could stop them, but it would be so much simpler to keep the woman close if everyone believed that she had been handpicked by her to tend to her bees. Everyone knew that she was particular about it.

“Her foot…” Tallerman grimaced as he shot Molly a pitying look. Molly returned the look with a harsh glare. In an instant, Tallerman was crouching beside the woman.

“My stableman is going to lift you up now!” Molly gasped a warning, just as the woman twisted and flinched away from Tallerman with a horrible cry of pain and distress. “Please, he’s only trying to help! I know, I know, but he just needs to carry you a while, and then it will be over. Please trust me!”

The woman went limp in Tallerman’s arms, as if Molly had spoken some ancient incantation to turn her into a wooden puppet. Nettle had once had one that had danced a wondrous jig with its bendy joints, but when she dropped it, it collapsed lifelessly, as if a soul had been sucked out of it. Molly had not thought about it in decades, but seeing the woman’s body fall into Tallerman’s grasp, it called to mind the strange little toy.

The walk back to the manor was slower than Molly liked. Tallerman had slowed his pace so that he did not walk too many steps in front of her, which might have been admirable if not for the fact that he had been charged with carrying an ill and injured woman. Molly hurried herself, holding her stomach all the while, her hips aching with every step.

Once they were inside the manor, Molly got to work. She barked her orders for a bath to be drawn, fresh blankets and towels brought to her room. She asked for a soup of bone broth to be made and sent along with a heel of that morning’s bread. As she did this, she spotted Revel, and she could see his face as he took in Tallerman and the small, battered beekeeper in his arms.

“Revel,” Molly breathed, “thank goodness. You remember the beekeeper I brought on? Well, she has been horribly attacked.”

Revel stared at Molly uncomprehendingly. Molly’s jaw set as she glared back until the man nodded faintly.

“Yes,” he said, “of course, your beekeeper. How could I forget her? Attacked, you say? By who?”

“She’s not in any condition to say,” Molly sighed, “but I will be finding out, mark me. If any strange man comes sniffing about, alert me immediately. Tallerman, bring her to my room. I will take care of her myself.”

“Certainly a physician could be called, Lady Molly!” Revel shook his head. “I will send word to Cress immediately—”

Molly saw the woman twitch in Tallerman’s arms, and a noise of objection rose in her throat.

“Call the physician,” Molly said carefully, “but do not say why. Say you are calling for me, if you must. Thank you, Revel.”

She knew, of course, that she sounded mad. It was not anything new. Surely Revel was used to it.

It was stuffy in the bedroom she shared with Fitz, and Molly hurried to open her windows as Tallerman lingered in the doorway uncertainly. The tub had been brought in, and a young maid was filling it with heated water as Molly fussed about, gathering scented candles from her cabinet. The scent of lavender and lemongrass seemed suitable to inspire a calming environment.

“That will be all,” Molly said to the maids as another appeared carrying the blankets and towels, “thank you both. Tallerman, would you set her down on the bed for me?”

She would likely need to strip the bedding anyway. It mattered little if the injured woman soiled the blankets and sheets. And Tallerman seemed eager to release his charge, if only because he had no idea what to make of it all. Once he set the woman down, he glanced at Molly helplessly.

“That will do, Tallerman,” Molly said with a nod. “Thank you.”

“Are you certain, ma’am?” Tallerman blinked at her. “You mean to tend to her yourself?”

“That is exactly what I intend to do,” Molly replied curtly. Then she sighed and shook her head. “This is my responsibility. She is my responsibility. Imagine, well—well if it was one of your horses. You would not ask it of anyone else. You would take care of it yourself.”

She was speaking the man’s language, she knew. And she knew just how to twist the logic to get him to see it her way, because he had a way of thinking that aligned perfectly with Burrich’s. And, for that matter, Fitz.

“Alright, Lady Molly,” Tallerman sighed. “Alright. Just… if you need anything at all—”

“Of course,” Molly said, nodding furiously. “Thank you for all you have done. Thank you!”

She closed the door behind him and leaned against it with a great sigh. Her body sagged with the weight of the great undertaking of moving too hastily and lying too well. Massaging her stomach, she acknowledged that maybe she was going a bit mad, but not in the way that everyone thought she was. Perhaps she simply was going mad in the way that she had always been mad, but she cared less about hiding it now.

“Molly?” the woman uttered quietly from the bed. She sounded very small and very frightened.

“I am here.” Molly lit a few candles at her bedside table, pulling a box of herbs from the drawer. “I am adding lavender and sage to the bath. It should soothe some of your aches. Can you stand? Oh, pardon me, here.”

She lifted the wicker mask and set it aside. The woman’s battered face was twisted in pain. And wet from tears.

“Why are you being so kind to me?” the woman whispered, a sob biting off the end of her sentence. Molly placed a hand on her head and hushed her gently. She flinched.

“What was I to do instead?” Molly huffed. “Leave you to rot in my apiary?”

The woman sniffled and swiped at her face with shaky hands. They were gnarled and tremulous, her fingers stiff and knobby from what appeared to be old wounds.

“Someone else would have,” the woman said quietly.

“Well,” Molly said, rolling up her sleeves, “I am not someone else. I am Lady Molly of Withywoods. And you are a guest in my home. Can you stand?”

“Yes.” The woman took a deep breath. It rattled pitifully in her chest. “Just… please, give me a moment. I haven’t laid down on a bed in—oh…”

As horrible as the stench of her was, Molly could not imagine what she had been through to make her weep so violently at the sensation of lying in a bed. She covered her face with her hands to muffle the sound. Politely, Molly turned away and went to her wardrobe. The woman was tall and skinny, the opposite of herself. She selected one of Fitz’s cotton tunics, a fine blue one that she had embroidered herself with little clusters of white nosegays at the hem, a pair of durable leggings, and a plain linen undershirt. She hoped it would not be too warm for the woman.

“Come,” she said, returning to the bed and letting her hand hover over the woman’s shoulder, close enough for her to feel her presence, before she hefted the woman upright. She yelped in surprise. “Sorry. I don’t mean to push you, but the water will get cold, and it will be better for your injuries to get into the bath while it is hot. Let me get this veil and smock off you…”

Once her own clothing was removed from the woman, she helped her slip off the bed. She leaned heavily against Molly. Then, taking a deep breath, the woman straightened.

“It’s my foot,” she explained bitterly. “It’s still broken, I think. I can walk, though. I walked here, didn’t I? I can walk.”

“Let me help you get these rags off—” Molly was surprised when the woman flinched away from her fingers, tearing away from her touch and collapsing onto the floor. “Oh! Oh no, I’m sorry!”

The woman was quiet as she hugged her arms to her chest. She slowly sat up, her shoulders rising and falling raggedly. She stared at nothing as she sat there.

“I will step out of the room for a minute,” Molly suggested. She did not know what else to do. Clearly the woman was terrified of anyone touching her. “Let me just bring you to the tub. Could you climb in by yourself, do you think?”

“Yes.” The woman’s shoulders sagged. “Yes, please. Thank you.”

Molly led the woman to the tub. She set her hand upon the ledge gingerly. Her skin was leathery and dry as Molly ran her thumb along her knuckles. These things were fixable. A strong ointment would heal her skin and fade her scars. The broken bones had not set right, but Molly was sure that exercising the joints would help. Yes. And she would walk again. She would smile again.

“You are going to live,” Molly told the woman softly, gripping her hand and feeling a leap of excitement as she was drowned in the rush of knowing it was so. She could see this woman’s scarred face so clearly in her mind, peering down at her in wonder, her finger settling in her small hand as her mother called out to her—

“Molly?” the woman breathed. “Molly, are you alright?”

“Yes, Amber.” Molly patted her hand gently. She did not process how Amber stiffened under her touch. She felt quite faint suddenly, and she drifted away toward the door. “Call for me when you are done, would you? I think I might need to sit down outside for a bit. Soaps—there, on the ledge, you feel them? Good. Call for me, then.”

She was not sure how long she sat outside her bedroom door. At some point, she must have nodded off, because when she opened her eyes again, it was evening, and she was staring at the shadowy ceiling of her bedroom. Somehow, she had been brought back inside. Her back ached terribly. And there was a weight against her side. She turned and saw tufts of pale hair crowding her shoulder. Several blankets had been haphazardly tugged over her legs and shoulders. Amber was curled into her side like a cat.

“Oh,” Molly groaned, stretching her stiff limbs. Amber jolted with a start, skittering back. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you, dear. Are you alright?”

“Better now…” Amber’s sightless eyes seemed to bore into Molly’s own, and in the golden evening light, the illusion of color returned to them. “How did you know my name?”

“Hm?” Molly tilted her head. “What?”

“My name.” Amber took a breath. She wore Fitz’s tunic well, actually. Molly thought that they would be able to fix her up finely, and she would fit in well with their household. Hopefully she did have some instinct for beekeeping. If not, there were other things a blind woman could do. “You knew my name.”

“You said it, didn’t you?” Molly frowned at that. She was certain she had heard it said. Amber. Yes, someone had said that, and it was only the two of them, so it must have been Amber herself.

“I didn’t.” Amber reached out, and Molly thought she would touch her hand, but instead her fingers hovered over Molly’s belly. “The babe told you, didn’t he?”

“What?” Molly laughed weakly. “Don’t be absurd—”

“I’m sorry.” Amber retracted her hand in an instant. “I’m overstepping. It’s just—when you touched me—you said I’d live. And it just sounded—I am going to sound like a lunatic to you, and I feel horrible about it, because you have shown me kindness that I have not known in many years. But your baby… has he been long in the womb?”

Molly stared at Amber in wonder. How could she have known that? It was difficult enough for Molly to accept that she had been pregnant for as long as she had been, the miracle that it was, but no one really believed her. She knew that. Fitz put on a good face about it, and she knew that he trusted her, if nothing else, to be honest with him about these things. But a stranger?

Amber nodded gravely. Molly’s silence had spoken for her.

“He will be coming soon,” Amber said firmly. “He will be very small and pale at first and grow very slowly. You mustn’t be frightened. This is natural.”

“How do you know?” Molly asked desperately, clinging to Amber’s hands. “Who are you? Are you a hedgewitch?”

Amber laughed, and it was a surprisingly pleasant sound. She had a pretty laugh, and it brought youth to her scarred face.

“No,” she gasped, “oh, no… I’m a prophet.”

“A prophet.” Molly arched a brow. “You tell the future?”

“Well…” Amber shifted. “No. Not anymore. But when I was young, yes. I changed the world. Molly, is there a Lord of Withywoods?”

“My husband?” Molly blinked. “Yes. He is not home right now.”

“Where did he go?” Amber sounded anxious. Molly understood that she likely was anticipating the fallout of her appearance. The anxiety of wondering if the Lord of Withywoods would throw her out for being a beggar. Well, Amber did not know Fitz.

“He will be away for a month or two.” Molly sighed deeply. “I told him that my time was nearing, but I’m not sure he believes me. Well, I’ll show him, when the babe arrives. Perhaps we will show him together.”

A strange smile stretched on Amber’s lips.

“I think we will,” she said. She leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. Her fingers had found the embroidered hem of her tunic. “Thank you for providing me with clothing. Is this your husband’s?”

“Ah!” Molly clapped her hands obligingly. “So you are a prophet!”

Amber’s smile widened as she shook her head. Her fingers traced the flowers.

“This is beautiful,” she said softly. “Flowers. Let me try and guess. Daisies?”

“Daises and sweat peas and lilies.”

Amber’s smile faltered somewhat.

“They are all white,” she said with some quiet resignation.

“White nosegays,” Molly said with a shrug. “I embroidered them myself. It is my name, you know. Molly Nosegay.”

“But why did you not embroider molly, then?” Amber asked her desperately. That alarmed Molly as her mouth opened and closed confusedly. “Why a white nosegay?”

“I don’t know.” Molly rubbed her belly and sighed. “I’m hungry. I am going to get us both food.”

“Don’t leave me,” Amber breathed, catching her hand. “Please, Molly—”

“You haven’t got a thing to fear any longer, Amber,” Molly assured her. “I will take care of you. I promise.”

Amber clutched at her hand, trembling as she held it. There were tears on her cheeks again.

It was a pitiful sight, to be sure, and Molly could scarcely blame the woman for her caginess. Life had not been kind to her, and whatever she feared was beyond Molly’s own imagination. There was nothing to do for that. No salve or ointment could cure the wounds done to the mind. Only time spent loved and safe could do that.

“I will go only as far as it takes me to find someone,” Molly told Amber gently. “They will bring us dinner. I already ordered broth made for you. I don’t believe it would be good for you to eat anything heavy. Bread and soup until you are well enough to eat more.”

There was a moment’s hesitation before Amber nodded slowly.

“Alright,” she said, still gripping Molly’s hand. “Come back quickly.”

“I will. I promise.”

And she did. She relayed her order to the nearest maid and returned swiftly. Amber had fallen asleep again, curled into the blankets on the floor. Molly allowed her that small comfort, and stripped the bed while she waited for their supper. The soiled sheets made a small pile in the corner of the room, and she stretched the fresh linens over her mattress, smoothing out the blankets and fluffing the pillows.

“Amber,” Molly called. She did not want to shake the woman awake and startle her more. “Amber, come rest in the bed. I can help you, but you must help me, too. Wake up.”

Amber awoke groggily. She did not seem to have the strength to sit up. When a kitchen maid came to bring their food, Molly enlisted her help to heft Amber by both arms and bring her to the bed. She thrashed at them at first until Molly hushed her and assured her that she was safe.

“I’m never safe,” she whispered, staring into nothing as the kitchen maid hurried away. Molly was glad she had not lingered. “I’ve put you in horrible danger, Molly. I’m so sorry.”

“If you told me who did this to you,” Molly said with a sigh, sitting down on the edge of the bed, “you would have little to fear. I promise you that.”

“You cannot promise me that or anything,” Amber said breathlessly. “You cannot keep me safe.”

“I can certainly try my hardest,” Molly said firmly. She propped up some pillows behind Amber’s back and took her hand so she could feel the bowl of soup. “I will feed this to you. Don’t give me that look, I just changed the linens on the bed, and my hands are steadier than yours. Chin up, dear. You are not dead yet, and now that I’ve got you, I’d like to see Death try to take you.”

Molly took advantage of Amber’s gaping mouth and spooned some broth between her lips.

What Molly had learned is that she was quite a convincing liar after all. Whatever she said about Amber, everyone simply believed her. She wondered if it was because she had never given them a reason to doubt her before, or if it was simply because they thought she was too old to be scheming about. Well, she’d never been much of a schemer. But she did find it was fun to make up a story about Amber’s past and how she had come into Molly’s employment.

“Honestly, Revel,” Molly had sighed one morning after scrubbing a bit too hard at her stained fingers and leaving them raw. They were still stained such a deep red they were nearly black. “I swear I told you that I’d taken her on. She was to start last week, but obviously she was waylaid. Her recovery is more important, I think, than how she came to be in my service.”

“Of course,” Revel said uncertainly, “I understand that, Lady Molly. It’s just…”

Revel’s eyes traveled to her stained fingers. He had glimpsed Amber briefly, and he knew that Molly had dyed her hair using a combination of sage, walnut shells, and a particularly potent red powder that Fitz kept in his stores to make a vibrant red ink. It was imported from Bingtown, and it had left Amber’s hair bright orange before Molly had added in more earthy hues. Now her hair was a dull auburn color when it caught the light of day, but mostly it was a mousy brown, almost black. Amber was pleased when Molly relayed this information to her.

“That will be all, Revel,” Molly told the steward placidly, folding her hands in her apron and watching him bow his head hastily. He was the only one among the staff who seemed to know enough of Amber’s arrival to doubt the claims Molly made, but he was too loyal to call her out on her lies. Astonishing. And pleasant. She was grateful that he was helping run Withywoods.

The first week or so was difficult. Amber struggled immensely with trusting the household staff, and she would accept only Molly and Revel’s assistance. Once her hair had been dyed, she seemed a bit more open to the maids stealing glimpses of her.

“Tell me who did this,” Molly murmured each night as she rubbed a salve into Amber’s wobbly knuckles and scarred cheeks. By the hearth, her hair was so red that it was nearly gold. “Do you imagine it better that I do not know? You have sworn up and down that you are still in danger, that you have put me in danger, yet you refuse to tell me anything more.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Amber’s fingers trembled beneath Molly’s own. “I’m afraid, Molly. Afraid that if I speak of them, they might appear. And once they realize, well, they will take me back. And you with me. That cannot happen, Molly. Please. These are not brigands on the road cutting purses and dealing a passing beating. They are methodical. They will torture you, and me, and that child in your belly. They will use us until we are spent.”

It was the most that Amber had said about her assailants, and it chilled her to the depths of her. She gingerly wrapped Amber’s bony hands to keep the salve overnight.

“You don’t believe me.” Amber sounded bereaved. “I sound mad to you. Well, I am, I think. You ought to know that now. Turn me out, then. It will be better for you.”

“You are the only person who truly believes that I will bear this child.” Molly squeezed Amber’s hands. Then, spurred by a need to prove to the woman that she believed her as she had believed Molly, she kissed those bandaged knuckles gently. Amber retracted her hands, clearly startled. Molly stepped back with a faint flush, glad that Amber could not see the crawling rosiness across her cheeks. “No, Amber. You are not mad. Nor are you leaving. You cannot leave me. The baby…”

“The baby will be much safer without me near him.”

“I just don’t think that’s true.” Molly sighed deeply. When she looked upon Amber’s face in the light of the hearth, it was easy to see past the scars and recognize the beauty of the woman. Despite all that happened to her, she had lived, and it seemed incredible to Molly that anyone could survive such a thing. She walked with a limp, and she resented the cane that Molly had given her, but she did not say it.

“You don’t know me, Molly.” Amber became small in her chair, drawing her knees to her chest as though she were a small child, and she made herself small, her nightgown falling over her mangled feet. “I wish you did. It would make this easier.”

“Then let me know you!” Molly was frustrated with her friend as she closed her eyes and fell asleep in an instant. “Amber? Amber? Ugh!”

Sometimes Amber was so tired that she slept for an entire day. Molly went about her life as usual, as much as she could, but when Amber was awake and lucid, she stayed in her room and tended to the woman. She forced her to walk about the room with her, to breathe the hot summer air from the open window, to tie and untie knots with her twitchy fingers. She brought her to the writing desk and put her to work sorting herbs, holding a flower or sprig beneath her nose after warming it between her fingers, and asking her to name it. She did. With accuracy.

“You would do fine at candle-making,” Molly said after one such exercise, perhaps a month into Amber’s arrival. She was awake far more often now, and could navigate the bedroom with ease. Molly had a room ready for her, but she knew that Amber would be frightened to leave her.

“Teach me,” Amber said softly, her fingers sliding across the desk, which was peppered with lavender blooms and rosemary sprigs. Her fingers had grown a bit more dexterous, and they walked along Molly’s palm, feeling the callouses there, before she wound their fingers together and joined their hands tightly.

“We would have to leave this room,” Molly warned Amber, squeezing her hand. “And you would have to be very careful. You could get burned by the wax.”

“I think I can do it,” Amber sighed, “as long as you are there with me.”

“You don’t mind if others see you?”

“My hair is still brown, is it not?” Amber smiled faintly. “Brown hair and a simple dress—I believe this will work fine. Yes. Others might see me. I might even live, Molly.”

“That’s what I have been telling you!” Molly scowled as Amber laughed at her, her head falling into her shoulder. “Why are you laughing at me? Oh, you are just like my husband!”

“Am I?” Amber’s lips were close enough to Molly’s neck that they hummed into the skin of her throat, and a strange sense of warmth flushed through her as she turned over her own words and the closeness of her friend against her. Momentarily forgetting herself, she leaned into it, feeling Amber’s mouth against the column of her throat. She felt the woman tense against her in surprise. And then Molly remembered herself.

“Molly?” Amber whispered as Molly turned her face away sharply. She blushed like she had not blushed since she had been a girl in Buckkeep Town, secretly courting the bastard prince. What was she doing? Amber was a frightened, battered woman, a charge that Molly had taken in and saved, and she was taking advantage of her attachment to her. Why? Because Molly was lonely? Because her husband was away, and she longed to be touched but a familiar hand, a familiar mouth? Or was it something deeper than that?

“What is this?” Molly stuck a small, daisy-like flower between them, its white petals tickling Amber’s nose. Slowly, her friend took the flower, inhaled deeply, and closed her eyes.

“Feverfew,” she said.

Their fingers remained interlocked. Molly did not know if they remained so for Amber or for herself.

“How do you like your new room?”

Nobody quite understanded why the injured beekeeper had been given a suite. Molly did not care. She wanted Amber to be comfortable, and the Yellow Suite seemed perfect for her. She did not have any clothes of her own, though she had borrowed a handful of Fitz’s. Sometimes, Molly thought, when Amber was able to stand and walk with confidence, there was something strangely familiar about her. Her gait, perhaps, or the way she set her shoulders. When she wore that blue tunic and bound back her limp, dark curls, Molly was filled with a strange and confusing longing for a man who was not here, and yet appeared to be right in front of her.

“It is big,” Amber said quietly. She sat at her table, nursing a cup of tea. Patience’s old cane was leaned up against the chair beside her, its handle carved neatly into the image of a hermit thrush. That had delighted Amber, who had been able to name the bird simply by feeling the stout head of the round little handle. “I have had trouble sleeping, Molly, I must admit…”

“I’m sorry.” Molly sat down beside her friend and took her hand. Amber no longer jumped or flinched when Molly touched her. Instead, she squeezed Molly’s hand gently. “I know it’s difficult. I would keep you in my own bed forever if I could, Amber, but…”

“Your husband will be home soon.”

Molly flushed. What would Fitz think of her strange new friend? He would be suspicious of her, Molly knew. He would find it all very strange, and pretend that he was not nervous about the stranger, but he would sniff out every secret that Amber had that Molly had been too cautious to pry out of her. And Molly feared Fitz might break her friend to pieces without meaning to.

“Molly,” Amber said softly, her fingers drawing circles across the back of her hand, “I must tell you something. And I know you will be angry, for I should have told you sooner, but I did not know how. Well, it’s done now. I am going to tell you, because I know you, and you value honesty. You always have. I think I have a hard time, you know, being honest with anyone. It is difficult to trust people when you have been hurt as many times as I have.”

“Out with it, Amber,” Molly said tiredly. “I know you keep secrets from me. I have never blamed you for that. I have some experience dealing with this sort of thing, and I understand that when someone has been hurt as you have been hurt… the trust does not come easily.”

“Yes.” Amber exhaled shakily. There were tears in her eyes. “You do understand, don’t you? Oh, Molly. I see why he loves you.”

“What?” Molly laughed, unsure of what to say. A strange thrill had shot through her at Amber’s words. Did she mean to say that she loved Molly? As her husband loved her? At first the thought was so exciting that Molly felt like she might burst into giddy little giggles, like a girl whose hand had been kissed by handsome young man. Molly pressed her hand to her cheek and gaped at how warm it was. Suddenly the thought of it all became quite frightening. “Amber, what are you saying, exactly?”

“Fitz.” Amber’s sightless eyes found Molly’s, and it was as if she stared past the bounds of her flesh and bones, straight to the depths of her soul. “I see why he loves you. He always has, you know.”

“What do you mean?” Molly leaned back in her chair. Her stomach did flips—or really, the baby did flips, kicking and fidgeting madly. “How do you—wait a moment. Wait. You know who he is? Amber, how do you know that?”

“I knew him.” Amber retracted her hand from Molly’s, and she did not see how Molly floundered briefly to keep her. “I should have told you sooner. I am a horrible friend. You let me into your house, nursed me back to some semblance of health, kept me safe, made me feel—Molly, I know you hate to be deceived. I did not mean to do so. I know you will be angry with me, so I am telling you now, before your husband arrives and… well, I am not sure how he will feel when he sees me. We did not part on the best of terms. But he was my friend, you see. He was my friend, and I—I came here for him. For his aid. I thought—but I found you, and I did not expect to ever know you as I have known you these past few weeks. So thank you, Molly.”

“Well,” Molly muttered, her mind whirling, “what was I to do? Let you die?”

“A different sort of Lady might have.”

“I was not born nobility.” Molly crossed her arms stubbornly. “To me, there was no question what had happened to you. I have seen women abused and left for dead. Amber, I am not angry that you kept this from me. I’m not quite sure why you did, but I suspect you might tell me.”

“I did not want to say his name.” Amber frowned into her tea. “At first. I was afraid of who might be listening. I would rather die than put him—or you—in any more danger than I already have. I didn’t know who you were at first, Molly. I didn’t know you were you. That I had made it, that I had finally made it, and I could speak to Fitz. But he was not here. He’d gone to the Mountains. I thought about leaving and trying to find him. You don’t like that, I can tell. What is your face doing? Are you scowling at me?”

“No.” Molly scowled. “He will return soon. You can speak to him then. Where did you meet him? Were you close? He never spoke of you.”

“He wouldn’t have.” Amber closed her eyes and sighed. “I knew him at Buckkeep. We were friends, as I said.”

A strange, icy feeling coiled her insides as she thought on this revelation and Amber’s behavior.

“Were you lovers?” she asked quietly.

Amber’s eyes flew open, and she leaned back in shock. And then she laughed. Molly swatted her shoulder.

“Do not laugh at me!” she gasped. “It is an honest question! You have a lovely face, you know. Before they hurt you, I suppose you must have been a great beauty.”

“You do not need to say these things to make me feel better,” Amber gasped, though she grinned quite girlishly, her eyes alight and pleased. “You think I am lovely?”

“Of course you are!” Molly huffed indignantly. “Do you wish me to list the ways in which I find you lovely? I did not realize I had brought such a vain creature into my bed.”

“Your bed?” Amber lowered her cheek into her fist and batted her pale lashes while Molly flushed.

“You know what I mean, Amber!”

“No, no, please go on. Tell me of the vain creature brought to your bed while your husband is away.” Amber’s voice was brightly mocking in such a strangely fond way that it made Molly smile. Mischief twinkled in her glassy eyes. “And you worry that I was his lover?”

“Amber,” Molly gasped, straining to keep her laughter from spilling from her lips. “You are going to get me in trouble.”

“If Fitz wishes to fight me for your affection,” Amber teased, “I would throw down that gauntlet. Though I would lose. Would you kiss me anyway, Molly?”

It had seemed like pleasant, silly teasing, the way children teased each other. The way Molly Nosebleed and Newboy had teased each other. It suddenly felt more serious than that as Amber gazed at her. If she could see, would she know that Molly desired her kiss? Would she sense that her imaginings of her husband had begun to bleed into her imaginings of Amber?

Before she could stop herself, she leaned over and kissed Amber’s roughened cheek. Amber jumped.

“A kiss for my vain and deceitful friend.” Molly rolled her eyes as she stood slowly. It was not without effort. Amber was quick to lend her arm, and Molly sighed gratefully. “Thank you. Why did my husband never speak of you?”

“I don’t know.” Amber sounded small, then. “I would be afraid to ask him. I do not really want to know. You can, though. Oh, please do. Accuse him of being unfaithful to you, of harboring secret feelings for his strange, freakish old friend. Yes, that will go over quite well. He might kill me.”

“Amber,” Molly sighed, “you are not making much sense. Did you love him? Is that it?”

Amber was quiet. Molly was struck by how suddenly her shame and guilt over lingering touches and silly flirtations had been dashed. Instead of a burning jealousy, which she had expected to feel, instead she felt relief.

“How could you not?” Molly muttered, shaking her head. Amber blinked. “Hm. Well, Fitz was not with me then. I had children with another man, so I can scarcely fault him for loving another woman. Though he is a narcissist, and I shall tell him so.”

“What do you mean?” Amber asked, shrill in her disbelief. “You aren’t angry? Well—Molly, wait. He did not love me. We were not lovers. Don’t actually tell him that, please, don’t say any of this. Oh, what have I done? This is a mess. Molly, please, say nothing!”

“Oh.” Molly gazed down at the poor woman, watching her throw her head into her hands in distress. “Oh, I see. Amber, I am not angry. I might have been, a long time ago, but as I have said, I married another man. I cannot say I will share my husband with you, but I cannot imagine being your friend and not loving you. I love you, and I have only known you for two months!”

Amber raised her head to gape at her. And Molly flushed as she remembered herself and all that they had spoken of today.

“Molly—” Amber breathed.

“I think I must go lie down,” Molly cut in quickly. “The babe is restless. I will see you for supper, Amber.”

She fled swiftly and left Amber with all of her mismatched feelings.

Fitz returned. Molly was surprised when Revel came to her in the apiary, while she had been coaxing Amber’s fingers to flex and bend in increasingly difficult ways to weave a winter skep. Amber sat in the grass, two baskets full of cut autumn flowers beside her, and she did not mind the bees flitting around her head as she focused on her task. Their heads were bent together as Molly took her hands and guided her through the motions.

“Lady Molly,” Revel said. He had cleared his throat, Molly realized, but she had tuned him out. “Your husband and daughter have returned.”

Molly might have leapt to her feet if she had been ten years younger. Instead, she stared at Revel in shock, and felt Amber grip at her hands. Glancing at her, she saw that Amber had paled considerably, and she shook like a leaf. They helped each other stand very slowly.

“Go,” Amber murmured as Molly clutched her closer. “I cannot walk fast, you know this. I’ll clean up here and bring the flowers in.”

“And then you will come to meet us?” Molly demanded.

“I think,” Amber said carefully, turning away with a short sigh, “it would be for the best if I go back to my room. I would hate to intrude on a precious family moment.”

“Amber—”

“Thank you, Revel,” Amber called brightly, sliding effortlessly into the playact that she managed so wonderfully these days. Ever since she had begun integrating herself into the household staff, she had seemed to become another person entirely. She was an amicable, jolly old woman who tottered after Molly with the warmth of a familiar maid. She did not give out her name easily, so most of the staff of the manor simply called her "Beekeeper." More than once, Molly had heard Tallerman call Amber “New Lacey.” 

“What am I to tell him?” Molly demanded quietly, snatching Amber’s hand. She shook her off. “Amber!”

“I am sure you have more to discuss with your husband than what you are to do with me,” Amber huffed, waving her away. “Like the nursery, perhaps? I am nearly done with the blanket. It has taken me far longer than it would have years ago, but—”

“He will love it.” Molly reached to kiss Amber’s cheek. She dodged it valiantly. “Later, Amber, I will show off how wonderfully I’ve nursed you. The fact that you can weave at all is incredible.”

“Yarn is quite a bit easier than this,” Amber sighed, lifting the half-woven skep. She set it over her head, and Molly laughed. She could hear Revel chuckling too, which was a relief. “What? Do you not like my hat, Lady Molly?”

“You are so strange!” Molly lifted the skep and kissed her again, this time on the mouth. It was a quick peck on the lips, and Molly had done it unthinking, as she had so often kissed Amber’s cheeks and forehead and hair, but as Amber stepped back, she realized she should not have done it. Not in front of Revel. But Amber smiled at her indulgently and bent, feeling the air before hooking the basket of flowers over her wrist. She offered it out with both hands.

“For your husband,” she said warmly. Molly took the flowers and the rebuke with a smile and a nod.

Revel did not meet her eyes on the way back to the house. She knew he would pretend he had not seen what he had seen.

“Tom!” Molly embraced her husband eagerly, falling into his arms and inhaling the smell of sweat and smoke from his traveling cloak. He kissed her forehead as she held him, and his whiskered mouth was familiar as she lifted her face to kiss it. Then she moved on to Nettle. As she did, Fitz dismissed Cook Nutmeg’s concerns over dinner and fixed the three of them a platter of cheese and meats. Briefly, Molly considered Amber, and hoped someone would bring her dinner. 

Well, Molly could do that later, certainly.

The two of them launched into the details of their journey. Molly nodded and listened and laughed, and she was glad for their company. When they asked what had happened in Withywoods since their departure, she found a manner of different idle things to speak on, the crops and the wild pigs, the bees weathering the summer storms, and the flowers blooming wonderfully. Nettle had arranged the cut flowers in a vase, and she smiled at them fondly.

“And there is—” Molly did not know how to bring up Amber. She took a breath. “Well, would you like to see what we’ve done?”

Fitz smiled obligingly. Molly took his hand and brought him to the nursery, Nettle trailing behind. She had hoped that Amber would be there already, working on the receiving blanket that she had been toiling at, but the room was empty. Amber had been here, though. Molly walked around the cradle and stood by the rocking chair. The blanket and small loom were gone, but Amber’s scent remained. Often she left behind a cloud of lavender and sage from the salves Molly had made for her. Gripping the arm of the rocking chair, Molly put on a smile and looked at her husband and daughter.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she asked, watching their eyes dart away.

“It’s… beautiful. Such a peaceful room.” Nettle was forcing herself to smile. Molly smiled back at her warmly. She wished that Amber was here so she might not feel so alone.

Still, she and Amber and Revel had made the most of this room, and Molly wanted to show it off. She brought Nettle to the wooden chests and pulled out clothing. Fitz watched silently. There were so many things to say, and nothing came out, so she flitted around the nursery eagerly and spoke about the baby’s impending arrival without thought.

They had a real dinner after that. Amber was not present. Molly turned to whisper to Cook Nutmeg, but the woman shook her head before she even spoke. Molly frowned at that. Where was she?

They retired to the study. It was dark, and Molly glanced out the window nervously. Amber had obviously returned to the house, but it was difficult to recall spending so many hours away from her. Molly did not think she had been separated from the woman for so long since her arrival. And it was difficult. Molly always felt more confident when Amber was beside her, because Amber never doubted her. Amber believed her, Amber needed her, and Amber was not here.

“I am going to find that sharp cheese,” she said suddenly, easing herself up from her chair and smiling at Nettle and Fitz. “I won’t be long. Fitz, I would like to speak to you about something rather important when I get back, if that is alright.”

“Of course,” Fitz said. He could not hide the flash of worry in his eyes as she turned away.

It was dark in the Yellow Suite. Molly had knocked before entering, and she had needed to use her own key, as the door had been locked. She stood in the doorway a moment. The tray of cheese and meat had to be set gently on the nearest illuminated surface, a small table beside the door.

“Amber?” she called. She reached back and tugged a lantern from off the wall. She yelped when she saw Amber standing beside her, her tiny textile scissors clutched in her fist. Molly skittered back, her lantern creaking in her hand, and she glanced over her shoulder out into the corridor. Quickly, she closed the door. “Amber, it’s me! It’s just me! No one followed me. Come here, my darling, oh, I’m so sorry.”

Amber stared sightlessly at the opposite wall as Molly set the lantern aside and took her hand, gingerly prying the scissors from her fingers. She wrapped her arms around her and held her head as it fell into her shoulder. Amber grasped at her back and muffled a soft sob into Molly’s collar, taking fistfuls of her gown as she sunk to her knees. Molly went down with her.

“I cannot stay long,” Molly murmured, stroking Amber’s hair gingerly. Amber hiccupped as Molly lifted her face and wiped her tears. “I’m sorry. I know you do not particularly like being alone. Have you eaten? Cook Nutmeg implied you’d refused her.”

Amber shook her head. She took a deep breath, swiping at her face with trembling hands.

“One of the kitchen girls came,” Amber admitted hoarsely, “but I turned her away without opening the door. Oh, Molly… I am a coward. Tell me, is Fitz alright? Is he safe?”

“Of course he is.” Molly sighed deeply. They had made so much progress, and it seemed that all of that had unraveled in an instant. A few hours alone, and Amber had been reduced to a small and frightened thing that could not bear to be seen. Paranoia had its claws in her. “I am about to tell him about you. Would you come with me?”

“No.” Amber skittered back across the plush yellow rug and the rich oaken floorboards. She resembled a frightened moth more than anything. Her dark hair was in disarray. The scars on her face were particularly stark against the dim light. “I cannot—he will not—I’m afraid, Molly.”

“I know.” Molly knelt there, wincing at her baby’s restlessness. The babe was so sensitive to Amber’s moods. “I will speak to him. He will understand, I’m sure. Until then, lock the door behind me. Let us have a signal, so you know it is me at the door.”

Amber agreed. Knock twice and whistle.

“Like a hermit thrush,” Amber said, cupping her hands and blowing into the space between her thumbs. Molly was startled at the flute-like birdsong that filled the room. She locked her hands together and tried to whistle through her thumbs. The sound was not quite so pleasant. Amber laughed, and Molly began to relax as she cupped her hands and kissed them. “I will hear it if you try to whistle. Or you could simply announce yourself before you enter. Or I could make the hermit thrush song, and you can knock once more—”

“You know,” Molly said amusedly, “I do need to go back. How about two knocks and a pleasant, easy whistle?”

“Boring.” Amber sighed and rubbed Molly’s fingers with the pad of her thumb. “Fitz would agree with me.”

“Ask him to make that birdsong yourself, then,” Molly huffed. “Help me up, woman. You dragged me down here, when we are both hobbling old biddies. There we are, thank you. Are you well enough to stay here? I would like you to meet Nettle.”

“I would also like to meet her,” Amber whispered, tears crowding her eyes. She turned her face away. “Go on, Molly. Go to your family.”

Return to her family she did. She had no cheese to speak of, but she did not think they would notice. She was sure they would not notice, as she stood and listened to them discuss her madness.

She kicked the door closed. Fitz and Nettle jumped as they turned to look at her, guilt shining in their eyes. Taking a deep breath, Molly folded her hands over her stomach. Only Amber believed her. Only a woman who had stumbled into her life by chance trusted her mind. A blind stranger had known when her own husband and child could not see it.

“Molly—” Fitz started, his voice strained.

“No.” Molly stared at him dully. He flinched. “You both think me mad. That is fine. Really. I do not need either of you to believe me. I know that this child lives within me, because I have felt it. So when the time comes, you will both look very foolish. Well, I will have you know that someone does believe me, and if you both feel that I am mad, well, I will not speak to either of you about it any longer. I only need her.”

She left them with that. Oh, she had meant to tell Fitz about Amber properly, but she was angry and upset, and truthfully, he did not deserve to know. It was a pettiness that she had not felt in many years. To hold a secret and test his loyalty. Well. Her loyalty was wavering. She knew that. Yet he had failed where Amber had thrived. How could she choose his company when there was someone in this house who needed her and wanted her and believed her?

Knocking twice and whistling, she waited outside Amber’s door. It opened after a minute. Amber looked startled.

“What’s happened?” she breathed. Molly shouldered into the room as Amber closed the door and locked it. “Fitz? Is Fitz alright?”

“He is a bullheaded fool, that’s what he is!” Molly threw herself into the nearest chair. Amber stood there and gaped at where Molly had been, leaning heavily upon her cane. “And his daughter inherited that pleasant feature! Oh, are all Farseers so infuriating?”

“In my experience,” Amber breathed, leaning back against the door, “yes. What did they say about me?”

“You? Oh, no, I’m sorry, Amber, I didn’t get the chance to—” Molly winced as Amber’s face fell. She nodded, but she could not hide her disappointment. “Tomorrow, my dear. I will tell him tomorrow. I just—when I returned, they were talking about how mad I was to believe that I am bearing this child, and I—”

“They thought so about me as well.” Amber felt along the wall, her fingers gliding along the tea table, before she found Molly’s chair. She reached down and cupped Molly’s cheek, her thumb dashing her tears. Molly lifted her face in wonder.

“You went through this?” she whispered. Hope swelled in her heart. “You knew exactly—so you bore a child like this?”

“No.” Amber closed her eyes and turned her face away. “No, Molly, I—what I meant was that my own mother went through something similar before having me. My fathers thought she was going a bit mad. Well, one of them thought so. The other wanted to believe, but it was difficult. And my sisters were confused. But then I was born, and it all made sense to them, because I was… different.”

“Sit.” Molly pulled Amber onto the arm of the chair, and she loomed over her as she wobbled a bit, her legs brushing hers. “Explain it all. Now.”

“I can’t exactly remember how long I was in the womb, Molly,” Amber jested. She gazed at the wall. Molly wished she would look in her eyes. “It was a long, long time. Too long. And after, I grew very slowly. Very, very, very slowly. For a long time, Molly, I was a child. Your baby will be like that. I… don’t know how, exactly. It might be my fault.”

“How could it be?” Molly breathed.

“I don’t know yet.” Amber smiled down at her. “When I figure it out, you will be the first to know. Don’t—don’t tell Fitz of this yet. I think I should be the one to tell him. Perhaps I will not need to speak to him of it at all. Perhaps I am all wrong, and your babe will be nothing like me. I pray that is true.”

“Why?” Molly asked anxiously. “There is nothing wrong with you. You are a lovely person. Is it because you are blind? Will the baby—?”

“I was not born blind.” Amber closed her eyes. “I saw many things in my life, Molly. So many things. More things than ever came to pass. Lifetimes passed in an instant. I saw the very world turn over on itself, a thousand endings of a thousand songs that have never been sung, because I saw a path that I thought was good and righteous. A path where an unexpected son lives. A path where dragons dot the skies. And the world turns again. Molly?” Amber’s fingers found her face. They traced her nose and mouth. “You are frowning. I’ve upset you.”

“I am confused.”

“I am confusing,” Amber murmured, a smile on her lips. “Ask your husband. Oh, I’ve made a mess of your life, Molly.”

“You didn’t get me pregnant,” Molly laughed. Amber smiled thinly and slid off the arm of the chair. Molly reached after her. “Amber? Might I stay here tonight?”

Amber paused. Surprised, clearly, by the request. Yet she did not ask why Molly might not want to sleep beside her husband who had been gone for the summer and most of autumn.

They slept as they had been sleeping for the past two months. Together, Molly curling around Amber’s bony body protectively, warming her cold hands and feet.

Amber declined Molly’s invitation to come to breakfast.

“It would draw attention.” Amber sat at the hearth with her small loom. She had dressed in Fitz’s tunic, and she had bandaged her hands up to the tips of her fingers for dexterity. The smell of lavender was pervasive. “It’s sensitive, I think. I’m really not sure how Fitz will react. I want to see him, but…”

“Can’t you come with me?” Molly begged the woman. “For me?”

Amber chewed on her lip. She was considering it.

“It’s a bad idea.” Amber shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t—I cannot explain it. Just warn me, I suppose if you’ve told Fitz. I cannot go to him. I will not make a scene and ruin what we have built here.”

“Goodness,” Molly muttered, smoothing out her dress and tucking Amber’s hair behind her ears, “are you certain you were not lovers? I will not be angry, Amber, I promise.”

“Don’t joke about that,” Amber murmured, leaning into her hand. Molly sighed deeply.

She did not speak to her daughter or husband at breakfast. She ate quietly, then went to the kitchen to retrieve a tray for Amber.

“I added a bit of valerian to the tea,” Cook Nutmeg whispered to Molly as she handed off the tray. “I know your beekeeper is having a tough time of it again. There is extra honey on the cakes for her.”

“Thank you,” Molly sighed, “truly. You don’t know what this means to me, Nutmeg.”

“I would introduce new men to that one slowly,” Nutmeg warned her quietly.

“I agree.” Molly nodded. Not that Fitz was new to Amber, but it did fit in with the story they had crafted. “Thank you again.”

As Molly was exiting the kitchen, Fitz entered. They stared at each other. Fitz glanced at the tray in her hands and frowned deeply.

“Who is that for?” he asked sharply.

“Me.”

Molly rounded him swiftly and marched out the door.

When Molly returned to the Yellow Suite, knocking twice and whistling, Amber opened the door and shook her head.

“Go speak to your husband,” she said curtly. Molly pushed inside before she could slam the door on her. “Hey!”

“He can come speak to me whenever he wishes,” Molly said, setting the tray aside. Amber closed and locked the door. “Come here. There is a tray here for you, made by Cook Nutmeg. She is worried about you. The tea has valerian in it, I warn you.”

“Ah.” Amber moved slowly. Her cane had been left by her chair, discarded with the blanket she had been weaving. She felt around her until she made it to the table. Then her hands hovered cautiously until she grasped the teacup shakily. “I spilled a bit, didn’t I? Hm. Well, goodnight.”

“It’s morning, Amber—!”

Amber downed the tea. It spilled a bit on her chin. Molly pulled the cup away and used the tea towel to mop up her mouth.

“Eat something,” Molly demanded.

“I think you should go speak to your husband,” Amber said, “and stop worrying over me.”

“My husband is an idiot,” Molly huffed, “and you are not much better! Amber, honestly, that was unwise!”

“Was it?” Amber grinned down at her. Then she turned about, her face falling. “Could you point me to the nearest chair?”

“What is wrong with you today?” Molly sighed. Amber shook in her arms. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant, Molly.” Amber allowed herself to be held for a few moments. “I need to sit. I’m sorry. I know I am not… I do not know why you put up with me.”

“I love you,” Molly said. She felt Amber jump. “Is that difficult to believe? Why?”

“I have done nothing but disturb your peace since I arrived,” Amber whispered. A tear splashed onto her cheek, and Molly smiled as she wiped it.

“You have made me feel an immense amount of purpose,” Molly explained gently, “and relief. You believe me, Amber. You believe in this child.”

“Of course I do.” Amber shook her head. “I must. And that is part of it, you see. I know you will hate me when you realize what danger I’ve brought onto you.”

“Enough.” Molly shook her head fiercely. “Sit down. Eat your breakfast. I must go and attend to the estate, but—”

“I’ll be here.” Amber closed her eyes as she sat. “Not much else for me. Does the blanket look alright?”

Molly crossed the room and lifted the small loom. The blanket was small, oddly, and Molly doubted it would fit her infant. But it was beautiful. She had set aside the colors that Amber had asked for, and somehow she had woven a scene of cloudy blue sky illuminated by a bright crescent moon and pale white stars.

“I cannot imagine what talent you possessed before those evil men took your eyes and fingers from you,” she murmured, setting the loom down.

“I still have both,” Amber reminded her blithely. “They just don’t work very well. You have helped with that, you know, with your exercises and your salves.”

“Good.”

Amber fell asleep after that. She seemed smaller than she was as Molly tucked a blanket around her lap and shoulders, wedging a pillow behind her head. The pale roots of her hair were beginning to shine against the dark curls. Some color had returned to her gray face in the past few weeks, which made her scarring seem less severe. Still, she seemed quite a feeble thing.

Kissing Amber’s forehead, Molly smoothed her hair from her face and quietly left the room.

Her morning went on, her tasks never done, she and Revel spending a few hours going over the winter stores. Molly asked him if it was possible to add a few armed guards to their household. He stared at her quizzically before hesitantly admitting they could allocate the funds.

“I’ll speak with Nettle,” Molly said quietly. “I do not like the idea, Revel, no more than you, but…”

“The beekeeper.” Once, early on in Amber’s stay, she had begged Revel and Tallerman not to use her name. It was only Molly who called her Amber. “She still has not told you who is responsible for her injuries?”

“She has said that most of it happened outside of Buck.” Molly shook her head. “She is convinced that the assailants will come follow her, however, so I have been considering that some manner of protection on the estate might do us good.”

“Do you believe her?” Revel asked. Molly was surprised that the question. She had, she realized, believed Amber’s claims without hesitation.

As Amber had believed hers.

“Yes.” Molly took a deep breath. “I am going to speak to my daughter. Having soldiers here is not ideal, but perhaps… well, we can adjust.”

“Have you asked Holder Badgerlock what he thinks?”

Molly shook her head, ignoring Revel’s sharp glance. It was not his business if she and Fitz were in the midst of an argument. And as irritated as Molly was with her husband, she knew it would not last. He would find out, sooner or later, that she was telling the truth about their babe, and then he would feel awful. That, she knew, would be vindicating. And frustrating. He was going to feel terrible about all of this.

Nettle had been packing her things. She informed her, a bit awkwardly, that she planned on leaving tomorrow morning. Molly nodded. It only really made sense that she had to return to Buckkeep.

She sat and drank tea with her daughter and gossiped mildly. She teased the girl about her relationship with Riddle, and she felt somewhat at ease before she casually asked if she could possibly find some suitable guardsmen for Withywood.

“What?” Nettle’s brow furrowed confusedly as she set her teacup aside. “I mean—yes, I don’t think that’s a bad idea, actually. A handful of soldiers stationed here, perhaps with a Solo—but you don’t like soldiers. Ma, what is going on?”

“Nothing.” Molly waved the girl off with a huff. “It’s only that, you know, your father and I are getting old. We cannot be everywhere and see to everything.”

“Is this because of that beekeeper?” Nettle’s expression told Molly exactly what her daughter had heard about that. Her heart sunk in dismay. “It’s very kind of you to keep her on, when something so awful has befallen her, but I have to wonder if you are not investing a bit too much of your emotions into a woman you scarcely know.”

“I know her.” Molly said nothing more on that. “If you can spare a few soldiers, I would greatly appreciate it. If not, we will make do. Now, back to your man Riddle…”

True to her word, Nettle left the next morning. It had begun to snow as Molly and Fitz watched her depart. Molly had not gone back to their room the night prior. She had finished up sewing a simple dress for Amber, and she planned on giving it to her this afternoon.

“I’ve been hearing some troubling things the past few days,” Fitz murmured to her. She glanced at him with a frown.

“If something is troubling you,” Molly said, valiantly keeping her frustration from her tone, “perhaps you might consider speaking about it rather than sulking.”

Fitz bristled. He glanced down at her sharply. Then he shook his head.

“You asked Nettle to send guards,” he said. She nodded, ignoring his incredulous stare. “Molly, why? Who is frightening you this way? Is it—I have heard of your friend.”

Molly stood and waited in the cold, snow gathering on her shoulders and crowning his head of full curls as he bent to whisper to her fiercely.

“Molly,” he hissed. “Who is this woman? You took her in, and I would expect nothing less, but from all that I’ve heard, you have become dependent on her—have you considered that she might be deceiving you? That she is taking advantage of your kind heart?”

Molly could not keep her shock from her face as she looked up at Fitz. A spark of despair clutched at her as she recognized that someone had told him of Amber, and had very poor opinions of the woman indeed. How he could spin her ailments and her unflinching dedication to Molly’s baby into something cruel was beyond her.

And then she realized.

“You think I am being tricked by her,” she said quietly, “because she believes I am pregnant, and you do not.”

“You don’t know her!” Fitz’s voice raised and she shot him a warning look. He quieted himself. “Molly, this is a stranger. What has she been saying to you? Who is she? What is her name? Where did she come from?”

Molly’s jaw worked at itself as Fitz’s old paranoia came whirling to the forefront, an unpleasant and familiar thing. It made her sad to watch, and she realized why.

“You are just like her,” she said quietly. Fitz flinched as if it was a rebuke. “Who is she? Well, she says she is your friend. Yet all she has been for the past few days is afraid. Well, I don’t care what you think of her. I don’t care if you don’t remember her, or don’t care about her at all, but I care a great deal about her, and I will not allow you to upset her. So you can come with me to meet her, if you decide to open your heart to the possibility that you are wrong about a great many things, or you can leave us alone until this babe is born. I will be civil. I have no energy to fight you, Tom. But I am not mad, and she is not evil. If you met her, perhaps you would recall her, and you would understand.”

Fitz’s brow furrowed uncertainly. His shoulders sagged, and she knew that he was not fully listening to her, but that it was enough.

“Let me meet her,” he said quietly. Molly smiled and nodded. She hesitated a moment, and then took his hand, leading him back into the manor. “My friend, you said? She said she was my friend?”

“She came here looking for you.” Molly sighed. “It took a long time for her to admit that. Tom, you need to understand that this woman has been through things that we—well, I, at the very least—cannot imagine. You might be able to sympathize with her, once you’ve seen what was done to her. She has been better, lately, and I think I have found a good mixture of salves and ointments and remedies that she is beginning to heal rather nicely. The scars are not so scary anymore, and her foot is no longer broken. She has more dexterity in her fingers. But I warn you, she is blind. She will not recognize you. Be patient.”

“I…” Fitz frowned. “I’m not sure I follow. Tell me again, Molly, how does she know me?”

“She said she knew you at Buckkeep.” Molly led him up the stairs, toward the Yellow Suite. Fitz was silent, his head bowed and his expression difficult to interpret. “Well, let me go in first and warn her—”

“I need to see her.” Fitz looked disturbed, plainly, as they approached the Yellow Suite’s door. His face grew pale. “Do you have a key?”

“Amber does.” Molly felt his body tense up beside her as she turned and knocked twice before whistling. She waited. She chewed on her lip and sighed. “She is slow. Her foot was broken, and there is permanent damage. And she is blind, as I said—”

The doorknob turned. Molly heard a soft click. She waited. The door did not open for her. She blinked at it confusedly. Tapping on the door received no answer.

“Amber?” she called. Fitz was close to her back. “Amber, I’m coming in—”

Fitz pushed open the door, and Molly was forced to stumble inside so he could slip past her. He closed the door behind him in an instant. Molly went to the windows and threw open the curtains to bring more light to the dim yellow room. When she turned, she saw Amber sitting by the hearth, wrapped in blankets, her mouth pressed into the small mountain of them.

“There you are,” Molly sighed, relieved to see that Amber was awake and well. “What’s wrong? Are you cold? It’s snowed today. The first snow of the winter. Oh, you’re shivering. Give me your hands, dear.”

Molly pried Amber’s hands from the blankets and gasped at how cold they were. Her joints were stiff as Molly massaged warmth back into them. After a minute or so, Amber closed her eyes.

“Is that better?” Molly asked softly.

“You are not alone.”

Molly’s eyes flashed to Fitz, just in time to watch his face fall. He had been standing at the door, frowning deeply, his eyes roving around the room, certainly taking in every minute detail of Amber’s presence here. But the instant she spoke, something shifted in him. It was as though he had been holding a shroud over himself, and in an instant, dropped it to the floor to reveal something very raw. It was as though he had shed decades from his face.

The way he moved was jerky and dazed. He stumbled across the room and rounded the armchair by the hearth, looking down at Amber with wide eyes. His face twisted in confusion. Then, suddenly, despair.

“Fool?” Fitz whispered. His voice shook. Molly felt Amber’s fingers close around hers tightly, as if seeking reassurance. She squeezed her hand back gently, only to step back in alarm as Fitz sunk to his knees before Amber. She released her, only for Fitz to gather up her hands, staring down at them in shock in dismay. His eyes were almost comically large, and they glistened with unshed tears as he turned Amber’s hands over in his own, running his fingers over the gnarled digits of her left pinky, the roughened skin the pads of her fingers where it had clearly grown back wrong. The tears fell then, his mouth opening and closing. It was framed by two crooked trails of tears.

Molly did not know what to do or say. She had never seen her husband act like this, not in the entire time she had known him.

It was a grim revelation that there was a part of him that she had never truly known. A part of him that was, apparently, Amber’s. No wonder she had feared going to him.

Amber said nothing. She was weeping, Molly saw, silently as Fitz reached out to touch her face. She flinched away.

“Who did this?” Fitz breathed, a tinge of an old, dark rage crackling in his voice. “Fool. Fool, look at me. Who did this to you? Fool, look at me!”

Amber inhaled as if she could not breathe, a shaky sound that edged on a sob, and she smiled tremulously at the space in front of her, not quite where Fitz knelt.

“I cannot,” she murmured. She reached out for Fitz blindly, her fingers finding his face, and he caught her hand, clutching it to his cheek. Molly gaped. And then she shut her mouth. She had known. She had suspected. There was nothing to be done about it now. “You have a beard. You always did look handsome with one. And—ah. Don’t cry for me, Fitz, please. I’m alive. No small thanks to your wife.”

Fitz lifted his face, looking as though he had just been caught doing something unseemly as he gazed up at Molly in horror. He dropped Amber’s hand and skittered back, jolting to his feet. Amber shrunk in her chair, clearly sensing all of the horrible emotions that flitted across Fitz’s face without needing to see them.

“Molly,” Fitz gasped, dashing his tears, “I can explain—”

“You really do not need to.” Molly squashed her jealousy, unsure who she was more jealous of, and she leaned down and wiped Amber’s face with her sleeve. A sob spilled from her lips, and Molly caught her shoulders and clutched her close. “Do not weep, darling. Did I not promise you that you were safe? That I would take care of you? Well, do you believe me now?”

That only made Amber sob harder. Fitz’s hands spasmed against the air, clearly attempting to reach for Amber and deciding against it. So Amber turned her face into Molly’s shoulder and clutched at her sleeves, muffling her weeping into Molly’s collarbone. And Molly hushed her, cradling her as if she were her lover or sister or child. She cradled her face close and murmured her reassurance, that she was safe, that she could relax and rely on them to take care of her, that she would never be hurt like that again. And as she did, Fitz drifted away. He drifted away and watched silently. And then, after a while, he drifted closer. And closer. Until he sank to his knees again and stared up at the two of them, eyes wide and glistening with tears.

He let his head drop into Amber’s lap. And simultaneously, without hesitation, both Amber and Molly reached out and rested a hand in his hair.

Things changed after that, though not as Molly had expected. She had tried to prepare herself for a strange sharing of her husband with her friend, which felt as difficult as sharing her friend with her husband. She wanted them both to herself. She pretended she did not resent the long hours they spent together the day after the revelation that Amber was Fitz’s childhood friend. He explained it to her later that same evening after surprising her with a very needy kiss and even needier hands pawing at her dress. They’d laid in their bed for the first time in months, drunk off each other’s taste, and Fitz confessed the nature of his and Amber’s relationship.

“He was King Shrewd’s fool,” he said, earning a quizzical glance. “You must have seen him about the castle.”

“Certainly.” Molly remembered the little court jester and his long limbs and sharp tongue. She remembered hearing how he had embarrassed Fitz and thought it funny. She had also known, vaguely, that he and Fitz had been close. A thought occurred to her. “He came to visit once.”

“What?” Fitz sat up beside her, eyes searching her face hungrily. “Here?”

“No, no—me and—when Nettle was a baby. I didn’t see him, but Burrich had said something about him. He had brought Nettle a doll, and when I asked why he would do such a thing, Burrich had said that he had known you.” Molly blinked at the ceiling dazedly. “Why was she pretending to be a man?”

Fitz was quiet. He sat beside her somberly, his eyes avoiding her face. She glanced up at him in wonder.

“Did you not know she was a woman?” Molly could not believe that. She sat up, touching his shoulder gingerly. “Fitz. I fear we must have this conversation—”

“Nothing is happening between the Fool and I,” Fitz breathed. He turned sharply and kissed her mouth. She held his face gingerly before pushing him away. In the candlelight, she saw a flash of panic in his eyes. “Molly, you must believe me, you are the only—I do not know how to convince you. I cannot say that the Fool is a man. That is not entirely true, I don’t think, and I—but to me, to me he has never been—Molly, please—”

“Oh, alright,” Molly sighed, kissing him into silence. It was the only way she could think to shut him up. “Enough. I believe you. I can only pity Amber, I suppose. As much as I can pity myself.”

“What?” Fitz blinked at her. “Why?”

“Because loving you is not easy,” she said, watching him gape and flush and stammer. “And loving her, I suspect is not much easier. Oh, Fitz, close your mouth. Of course I love her. I adore her. How can I not? She is one of the most fascinating people I have ever known. And she reminds me so much of you. The way she speaks, sometimes. The way she wears her pain and makes up stories and roles and puts on masks to hide it. When you were away, I would dress her up in your clothes, and it was almost as if you were here beside me—”

“Are you in love with him?” Fitz demanded.

Molly gaped at her husband. While she had been prepared to make the accusation herself, she had decided to graciously not state the obvious. FitzChivalry had never been gracious or subtle in his life.

“Are you?” she countered, watching him gape right back at her.

“No!” he gasped.

“I don’t believe you.” Molly watched his expression shutter in panic and horror. She sighed deeply. “Fitz, it’s alright. Well, no, it’s not, but perhaps it can be. I’m too old to be worrying over losing you. I don’t imagine I will, but I can recognize that you love Amber. You spent the entire day with her. You did not leave that room once. What did you speak about?”

“I—lots of things, you know, the time we’ve spent apart—it’s been years. And I missed him. But I am not in love with him, Molly.”

Molly did not believe him, but she suspected that no matter how much she argued, he would not budge.

“I would not judge you for it,” she offered him quietly. Fitz said nothing, then, and she knew that this, these small words, might allow him to recognize what she had seen clearly from the instant he had heard Amber’s voice.

“I am going to go stay with her,” Molly declared, slipping out from their blankets and retrieving her shift from the end of the bed. Fitz gaped after her.

“Why?” he gasped.

“Someone should. You are free to join me, you know. Unless you intend to give her the same attention you have paid me, tonight.” She thought on it. “Well, you are free to join me regardless. I simply dislike leaving her alone. She gets so frightened, Fitz. You know what it’s like. Can you blame her? Can you blame me for wanting to comfort her?”

Fitz said nothing. Molly sighed and resigned herself to his stubbornness. They would never agree. That was their greatest downfall. They were both too stubborn to let things pass peacefully.

So she left him alone. When she got to Amber’s suite, she was allowed inside, but met with silence. She sat on the edge of Amber’s bed as she sat by the fire and weaved.

“He asked me if I was in love with you,” she said suddenly.

Amber dropped her weaving. She stared into the flames, unseeing, and her mouth opened and shut. Molly shifted against the bed. She was too old, she thought, to get these anxious feelings about rejection from a potential lover.

“Oh.” Amber tilted her head toward Molly. “What did you say?”

“I asked him if he was, too.” Molly smiled thinly as Amber gave a bitter laugh. “I think he is, Amber.”

“You are the one he loves, my dear,” Amber murmured. “I have known that all along. I do not begrudge you that. It is all I have ever wanted for him, the happiness you have given him, and I cannot thank you enough.”

“Could you not give him happiness?” Molly watched Amber shake her head furiously. “I’ve seen how he looks at you. How he speaks to you, holds you—he does so with tenderness that I thought I knew, but I am realizing I may have never experienced before yesterday. He has let himself be vulnerable with me, but not—not like that. You are something that he has been missing, I think. Something that I have been missing, too.”

“I’m… not sure what you’re saying, Molly.”

“I’m not sure either,” she admitted. “Come to bed?”

“Has Fitz not worn you out tonight?” Amber managed to tease her softly as she flushed. When she didn’t answer, Amber shook her head. “I’m jesting. If that was not clear. Sometimes it isn’t. For Fitz. Has this ruined everything?”

“Hardly.” Molly was strangely relieved. Fitz would not throw Amber out. They were united, finally, on a common goal. Protect Amber, help her heal, and find out who had done this. “Amber, I love you. Come here. Lie beside me. Let me hold you.”

“Would you?” Amber asked in a small, pained voice. “Would you, please?”

“Come, my darling,” Molly said, watching Amber make her way slowly to the bed, feeling along the end table and falling into Molly’s side. She kissed her brow. “My Amber. Fitz does not yet realize that he will need to share you with me. Especially when the baby comes.”

“The baby,” Amber breathed. “Our baby.”

Molly hesitated, shocked by the statement, but as she sat with the thought, she decided it was not wrong to say.

“Our baby,” Molly agreed quietly, clutching Amber close and stroking her hair.

“I’ll do anything for him,” Amber murmured. “Anything, Molly. I would give my life for our baby.”

“Why don’t we start with something simple,” Molly sighed, wishing she were not so similar to Fitz, “like giving him the blanket you made? If that works out, well, perhaps in a few decades we might revisit the whole life ordeal.”

Amber giggled into her shoulder. They were nearly asleep when Amber jolted upright. A knock followed. Twice. Then a whistle.

A very convincing mimicry of a hermit thrush.

“Fitz,” Amber breathed. Molly was already slipping out of bed and trudging toward the door. She opened it, rubbing her eyes, and she watched him shuffle from foot to foot.

“Come on,” she mumbled, tugging him by the front of his nightshirt. “We’re both too tired for this—lock the door, there you are, thank you. Amber, love? Are you alright?”

“Just startled,” Amber said quietly. The bed was big enough for the three of them. Molly climbed beneath the covers, pulling Fitz with her. “Fitz?”

“Fool.” Fitz sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Molly wrapped her arms around Amber’s waist and pulled her back down to bed. He watched for a long while. And then, strangely, he got up, rounded the bed, and climbed back in the other side. Molly glanced up at him as he laid down beside Amber, staring past her into Molly’s eyes. She smiled at him, and watched him smile back faintly.

For the first time since Molly had met Amber, she did not jolt awake from a nightmare.

It became a problem that they did not acknowledge. Well, Molly tried to, but Fitz evaded it, as readily as he evaded her pregnancy, and Molly complained about that to Amber. She smiled and nodded.

“He will never be comfortable confronting the things he cannot understand,” Amber sighed. “Like how I can be both a man and a woman, or how you can be pregnant for years.”

“Or how he can love more than one person,” Molly said quietly. Amber said nothing. “Well, he’s infuriating. How has it been for you? I know he comes to visit you when I’m not here. What does he say?”

“He mostly listens to me.” Amber set aside her weaving. It was nearly done. She had begun taking up other hobbies with her hands, such as woodcarving, and Molly had been delighted by a pair of earrings that Amber had crafted to look like a pair of nosegays. “I… have told him the things that I will not tell you. About what happened to me. Well, not all of it. There are some things that are too painful even for him to hear.”

Molly knew what it was she meant, but she would not speak more of it. She wondered if Fitz understood. Part of her thought he might. But it was difficult to tell.

“He believes me,” Amber continued quietly, “about the danger we are all in. He said you asked for guards from Buckkeep. Thank you. That does make me feel better. But it’s not enough. I’m not sure anything will be enough. They’ve already been here, you see. Fitz told me that they killed one of my messengers here, in your house, years ago.”

“What?” Molly was astonished. She would have known this! “When?”

“It was Winterfest.” Amber closed her eyes. “I don’t think I should go into details. But I sent a girl. Another life I’ve ruined. I sent them all into the world to warn Fitz, when I could have told them to go out and live their own lives and make their own paths. I wonder if that would be better. If those stones cast into the pond would make ripples that would become waves in a century or two. It doesn’t matter, I suppose. They’re dead. I’m not. You are having our baby. Nothing makes any sense, and the future is brighter for it. I should be happy.”

“But you are not,” Molly surmised.

“I’m blind,” Amber hissed, gripping the arms of her chair, “in more ways than one. I want to be happy. I want to sit here and love you and be loved by you. I want it more than I care to admit, and I think you know that. But when the baby comes… I should go.”

“No!” Molly caught Amber’s hand and clutched it tight. “No. That isn’t right. You need to stay. I just know it.”

“Of course you do.” Amber smiled sadly. “I wish I had stayed. Before. I did not think there was room in his heart for us both, and I thought that I would ruin it all if I remained near him. But if I had known that I could have this? I would not have gone, and none of this would be. I would not be this way. The Servants would not be hunting me, and you would not be in danger. I have always been a fool, Molly. More so as I age, I fear.”

“What has Fitz been saying to you?” Molly demanded. She touched Amber’s forehead, then her cheek. “You’re worrying me. I think the two of you together is worrying. You make each other more paranoid. It’s not good for either of you. Would you take walks with me again?”

“Have people begun to gossip?” Amber teased, ignoring her concerns entirely. Just like Fitz. “Who is having the affair? You or Fitz?”

“They respect me far too much to gossip about such things!”

“So Fitz.”

Molly swatted Amber’s shoulder while she laughed. She did not mention that she had some curiosities about Amber, and she knew that if she kissed the woman that she would not object to it.

“Walk with me,” Molly begged.

Amber closed her eyes. For once, she obliged her.

Weeks passed like this. Sometimes she caught glimpses of the people that Amber and Fitz were when they were together, alone. Fitz was a boy again. He laughed like a boy, joked like a boy, and the years fell away from him like rags off a rich man. Amber became more boyish, too. She felt as though she was experiencing a slice of the boy she had never known. When he had been Newboy to her, he had been this to Amber.

One day she caught them both in a trance. She had gone to Amber’s room to bring her lunch, and instead she found her hunched over in her chair, Fitz kneeling before her. It was a strange sight, and Molly was hesitant as she approached, but she saw, to her mounting horror, that Amber was wearing nothing but a pair of leggings. She was doubled over in her chair, clutching a blanket to her chest, while her back oozed. Molly screamed. Neither Amber nor Fitz paid her any mind.

As she struggled to determine what to do, one of her maids came rushing in. Molly begged her for clean water, soap, and bandages. When she pried them apart, Fitz collapsed into her arms, and she dropped him. He cried out in pain, and she stared at him before rolling him onto his stomach and screaming again in shock at the blood that soaked through his shirt.

The next hour or so was a blur. She tasked her maids to tend to Fitz while she dragged Amber out of sight, laying her on her stomach with her blanket still firmly in place. She knew the woman hated to have her body revealed in any sort of way. There were scars on her back that spoke of unbelievable agony. The oozing wounds were horrible, but beyond that were overlapping scars from whips, from knives, and then the abnormally large, dark swathe of skin that spoke of unimaginable pain. Her entire back was scar tissue.

She cleaned Amber’s wounds, washed them, dragged a rag doused in alcohol over them, and then bandaged them. She slept through it all. Fitz, on the other hand, awoke frantic.

“Beloved?” he gasped, flailing against the hands of the maids who hushed him. They were attempting to pin a bandage. “Beloved!”

“Ma’am?” one maid, Iris, called desperately. “Lady Molly, he’s calling for you!”

Molly hesitantly approached, wiping off her bloody hands on a rag. She was slow, and kneeling was a pain, but she did it.

“Fitz,” she said quietly, just a breath in his ear. “Fitz, enough. Wake up.”

He fell fully asleep instead.

Molly dismissed the maids and placed a pillow beneath both Amber and Fitz’s heads. She covered Amber up with multiple blankets. Then she scrubbed Amber’s chair until her hands were raw, and she began to cry.

Fitz came to first. By the time he was lucid, Molly had scrubbed her knuckles until they bled, and she grimaced as she wiped her cracked hands on a rag. He groaned and rolled onto his side, wincing and gasping in pain.

“Beloved?” he croaked. Molly watched him spot Amber, and his face transformed in panic. He dragged himself from the small pallet she had made for him, wincing and gasping in pain, and gathering himself up on his hands and knees as he made it to Amber’s side. He dragged her into his lap. “Beloved, wake up!”

Molly did not know why the confirmation that he called Amber beloved stung so deeply. She supposed it was because he had never called her that before.

“She’s okay, Fitz,” Molly said quietly. Fitz froze. He turned his head slowly to stare at her. There were tears on his cheeks, and he swiped them away anxiously. “Oh, Fitz. It’s alright. You don’t need to hide this from me. I’ve known the whole time, and it hurts more when you try to hide it. What in the world were you doing?”

“I—he—it’s not—” Fitz took a deep breath. He bent over Amber and lifted the blankets to glance at her back. Then he sighed in relief. “It looks better. Molly, he—her—the Fool’s injuries are worse than he lets you know. I’ve begun to undo it, but it will take a lot of time.”

“You are using the Skill.” Molly nodded. That made sense. She did not like it, but it made sense. “When Nettle does this, she doesn’t usually get the injury of the person she is trying to heal. Perhaps you could ask her? I’d rather you didn’t go blind.”

Fitz gaped at her. Then he touched his back and winced.

“I don’t know how that happened,” he breathed. He glanced down at Amber. “Only… I suppose he and I… we are as close as two people can be. We were each other, once.”

“That is not a story you have told me,” Molly said quietly. Tiredly. “I expect it is exciting.”

“No.” Fitz sniffed. “It is horrible. You won’t like it, Molly. I shouldn’t tell you.”

“And now,” she sighed, sitting down slowly beside him, wincing as she held her back, “you must.”

And so, after a moment, Fitz did.

And Molly understood. She began to cry when Fitz described how Amber had died, tortured and left to freeze to death. She cried when he told her, hastily, of a crown that held the souls of its former wearers, and how he had been able to retrieve Amber from death by putting her in his body while he reanimated her corpse from within. And she cried when Amber awoke with a scream.

“Beloved,” Fitz gasped, clutching her close as she thrashed against him, “it’s me. It’s Fitz. You’re safe.”

Amber trembled in his arms. Then she began to laugh shakily.

“Am I really here?” she breathed. “Beloved?”

“Yes. I promise you, yes.” Fitz paused his soothing gestures and glanced at Molly. “Molly is here as well. Remember? Molly? You’ve befriended her.”

“Oh,” Amber breathed, “yes. My Molly. And our baby. Yours and mine and Molly’s. She’s coming soon. Very soon. What is happening? Molly?”

Molly tried to stand. Her legs gave out.

“Good timing,” she hissed at her belly. “You’ve only waited two years. Thank you so much, baby.”

“Help me up, Fitz,” Amber gasped, clutching at the blankets around her and holding them to her chest. “Okay. I’ve done this before. Give me a moment. And a shirt. Fitz? A shirt?”

Fitz scrambled upright and rushed to Amber’s sparse wardrobe. Many of her shirts had been pilfered from Fitz’s own wardrobe. He grasped one and brought it back to Amber, helping her into it.

“We need warm water,” Amber told him urgently, as if she herself had not just been lost in a haze of pain on the floor. “Rags. Clean clothes for Molly and for the baby. In the nursery, there’s a chest full of clothing. A knife—”

“Twine,” Molly corrected through gritted teeth, rocking forward with a groan. Amber nodded dazedly. “Twine, another pitcher of cool water—”

“Brandy for me,” Amber said, a hint of humor in her reedy voice, “if you don’t mind.”

Fitz was out the door in an instant. He had not even put on a shirt.

“Nothing like an emergency to knock some sense into you,” Amber muttered, reaching for Molly. Molly reached back. They both hobbled to their feet, and Molly groaned. “I am going to touch you. Hopefully this eases some of your pain.”

Molly gasped as Amber’s fingers found pressure points in her back which released some tension. She began to cry as she sweated through her dress, and Amber spoke to her quietly of her daughter, how clever she was, how strong she was, how beautiful she was.

“I thought I was having a boy,” Molly gasped through a shudder of pain.

“As did I!” Amber grinned at no one in particular. “I could still be wrong. It is hard to tell. I suppose everyone thought me a boy as well, and you see how that turned out.”

“Hard to tell?” Molly grumbled. “I don’t understand you. Oh…”

She did not hear the wailing she expected to hear upon the baby’s birth. Amber, blind as she was, had knelt between her legs with a blanket ready. Molly held the babe briefly, and bit back a cry of dismay at how tiny she was. And she was a girl. Molly saw that well enough. She placed the tiny baby into Amber’s awaiting hands, and Amber sat frozen as she held the babe. Molly stared at her in tired confusion. She had a blanket waiting for the baby, but all she could do was hold the little baby in her scarred, knobby hands, and stare sightlessly down at her.

“Is she alive?” Molly whispered hoarsely. “Give her back. I want to hold her.”

Amber seemed hesitant as she stared at nothing. In fact, she did not seem to hear Molly at all. Molly did not have the energy to question it. After all that had happened today, she had to accept Amber’s odd behavior and move on. So she took the baby from her hands and found, to her relief, that she was breathing.

“Why is she so tiny?” Molly breathed, cupping the baby close. Amber knelt before her, and Molly knew the woman was in a daze. “Amber. Amber speak to me. You said you were a prophet. Will she live?”

Amber’s body shuddered. She sunk to the ground, and Molly watched her bloody fingers rake through her hair as she doubled over. Her heart sunk. She glanced down at her small daughter dazedly. Amber had warned her that her baby would be small and pale, but it seemed an incredible thing to hold a baby so small. She breathed, and she was a miracle.

As Molly tucked the baby to her chest, Fitz decided to make his grand reappearance. He staggered to a halt, gaping at the scene before him, Molly holding their tiny child and Amber curled into a ball on the floor. His eyes darted restlessly from Molly to Amber and back. Molly met his gaze, daring him. And his eyes dropped down to his daughter.

“A baby,” he said dumbly. Molly fought a smile and lost. “A real baby.”

“Yes, Fitz.”

He peered closer at the child, his eyes widening in shock as he gazed down at her. He shook his head in disbelief.

“Could you give me something to cut the cord with?” Molly asked weakly. Fitz nodded eagerly, dashing away. “Towels and warm water, too. Please.”

When Fitz returned to her side, she made quick work of the cord and the blood. Fitz stared at the small, pale baby girl, and as the near translucent fuzz of pale blonde hair was revealed on her tiny scalp, Fitz’s eyes darted down to Amber, who remained as still as the child.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Molly confessed.

“The baby?” Fitz asked, glancing at Molly with wide, panicked eyes.

“Oh. No. Amber.” Molly sighed and tucked the baby close. “I suppose the baby, too. She is so still. She breathes, and she—look, her eyes are open.”

Fitz peered over the baby and gasped. He backed away. He looked between Amber and Molly with horror and confusion in his eyes. Instinctively, Molly clutched the baby to her chest.

“What?” she gasped. “What is it?”

“I didn’t—” Fitz ducked his head, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry, Molly, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m surprised, is all. I wasn’t expecting her eyes to be so… pale.”

“They’re just blue,” Molly said carefully. It surprised her that he felt so put-off by the color of the baby’s eyes. “I’m sure they’ll darken—”

“Does she look like me?”

Molly had not expected Amber to cut her off. She had not lifted her head from the floor, and her shoulders still shook. Her voice was worse. It was small and reedy, half a prayer whispered into the stained rug beneath them.

When Molly looked at Fitz, she saw that he was staring at the baby again. The horror had gone away, but the confusion remained.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

A sob rattled Amber’s thin frame. Her shoulders shook, and Molly could not comfort her, exhausted as she was, holding the baby. She looked down at her baby, and she tried to understand what either of them had meant. Fitz thought that their daughter looked like Amber? Well, she was pale, like Amber, but that meant little, really. Molly did not really see a resemblance.

“Fool,” Fitz said quietly, “stop. Enough. Please stop crying. I need you to answer some questions.”

“I can’t see,” Amber murmured as Fitz hefted her upright by her shoulders. Her head lolled back, and she stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Molly glanced down at the baby and saw her doing the same.

“That is not a new development,” Fitz told Amber dryly.

“No,” Amber sighed, her body sagging into Fitz’s arms. Molly felt a pang of jealousy, though she could not name who she was jealous of. “I was—for a moment, I could see. I could see more than I have seen in a long time. A thousand paths set before me, and the roots of each choice coiling in my heart. I saw the future, and the past, and I saw now, unlike I’ve ever seen the present, as if I have only ever lived for an instant, and today is the first day I have drawn breath.”

“Amber,” Molly said quietly, “you need to lie down.”

“Yes.” Amber blinked as she lowered her head. “You too. Molly, she is going to live. I promise you that, she is strong, and she is healthy, and though she might seem strange—”

“She is not strange to me,” Molly said curtly. “Just different, I… I suppose…”

“She is perfect,” Amber said firmly. Molly did not miss the resigned look that Fitz shot him. “Perfect and ours.”

Finally, Molly thought, something she could understand and agree with.

“Yes,” she said, smiling down at the tiny baby girl, “she is.”

The next few days were strange. Now that the baby was here, Molly thought things would become easier, but she only had more questions. Amber had done her best to explain it all to her, between the baby’s naps. Since Bee’s birth, Amber had kept her distance from the babe. She would not say why.

“She’s a White,” Amber explained quietly one morning. She seemed to be in the throes of a melancholy, and when Molly had brought the baby to her door, she had told Molly to give her to her father. Something had happened, Molly knew. Fitz had not been to Amber’s room since that fateful night. He had been busy about the manor and the nursery and tending to Molly. But now Molly saw clearly. She tucked the thought away for later.

“What does that mean?” Molly asked quietly. Amber’s fingers plucked at a stray thread on her skirt. Molly snatched up her hand and squeezed it. “Amber, please! I know you fear my reaction to these things. I know it is magic. You have said it enough times, and I believed you from the start, because you believed me. It’s illogical. It goes against all the things I ever thought possible. But this baby exists, and she is wonderful and miraculous, and you understand that. You know why her existence makes no sense.”

“Because I was the same.”

“Yes,” Molly sighed, “you mentioned.”

“A White,” Amber sighed, “is someone like me. We are born from an ancient bloodline. I was an anomaly, born outside the realm of the Whites, a school called Clerres. I had a loving family. But yes, I was long in the womb, and I came out strange. Pale and small. I grew very slowly. Fitz can attest to that. When he met me, I was… much older than I looked. The baby will be like that. Slow to age, but very clever. Her mind is far more developed than an infant’s should be. She will be slow to show progress, and then seem to know how to do everything at once. But she’s always known how to do things. She dreams things that seem at first to be wild imaginings, but she will know that the dreams are true. Even now she is dreaming futures outside the great turning of the world. She has done it since the womb. She told you that my name was Amber. You want to object to that, but truly, Molly, I never told you my name. One day she will look back on the things she saw as a newborn and recognize the truth in them.”

“You’ve lost me,” Molly said quietly. “Could you put that in plainer terms?”

Amber’s head swiveled toward her. She barked a laughed.

“You and Fitz,” Amber muttered, “are truly a perfect match. You are alike, you know.”

“So are you,” Molly retorted. “Is that why you two have quarreled and put you both in wretched moods?"

"We have not quarreled.” Amber straightened in her chair. “Fitz came to tell me that you named the baby Bee. And to tell me that she is his daughter, not mine.”

Molly was quiet as she chewed on the revelation that Amber had become a strange and reliable third partner in her marriage, and she had not thought twice about it. She had welcomed it, even.

When Amber had referred to Bee as ‘our daughter,’ Molly had not thought to object.

“She is his daughter,” Molly said cautiously. She frowned. “She is our daughter, his and mine. But you have—Amber, I could not imagine all of this without you. You have been here for me these past few months, and I know that you might not be Bee’s blood relative—”

“I think I might be.”

Molly stared at Amber as she looked past Molly, her sightless gaze heavy. As the silence stretched, so did her rueful smile.

“This is why Fitz is displeased with me,” Amber admitted. “I told him that the baby might be mine. A little. Oh, you will think me mad. It sounds mad.”

“I’ll admit,” Molly said hesitantly, “I’m not sure I’m following any of this. Are you and Fitz…?”

“I haven’t the words to explain what Fitz and I are, Molly.” Amber’s eyes fluttered closed. “He is me. I am him. We became one person, briefly, many years ago. He can tell you the tale, if he wants. But in that mingling of ourselves, it’s become apparent to me that not all of me has left him, and not all of him has left me. You saw him in me. You said it yourself.”

Molly turned the words over in her mind, processing them slowly.

“Is this about the Skill?” she asked tiredly.

“Yes, sort of, but also the Wit, and also me, as a White, with all that comes with it. Molly, the baby is yours, and Fitz’s, but she is also mine. And that has put her in danger. Fitz doesn’t believe it. He won’t acknowledge that she is a White, like me, and he denies that she has anything of me in her. But he knows it’s true. As do you, I expect. I cannot see you, but I feel your resignation.”

“I find it very difficult to believe,” Molly admitted faintly. In truth, her blind faith in this woman had been easy to fall into. This was the first time that Molly was unable to bring herself to believe Amber outright.

“I don’t blame you. However, as unbelievable and impossible as it may seem, your unbelievable and impossible daughter is also my daughter. I knew it when I held her. It is why I have not… I want to hold her, Molly, more than anything. I want to see through her eyes and experience the futures unfolding. But they are hers. I could use her. I might have to. But as much as I yearn to hold her and mold her into the next White Prophet, I find myself frightened of… it is her job to decipher her prophecies. I can teach her, and if you allow me, I will, but I will not sway her. She is the White Prophet, not me. The future of the world is hers to weave. I don’t want to influence her, as so many other Whites have been influenced.”

“Amber,” Molly said quietly, “I don’t understand. But I know you love her. So I will make this decision, and you can put your mind at ease. Bee is yours to love. Hold her, kiss her, teach her what you must. You understand her, and you recognize that she is perfect as she is. Every other woman who has laid eyes on her has looked away in pity. You look at Bee and you see someone who can one day change the world. So! Is she your daughter? I don’t know! Perhaps she might be, and if I have a say in it, she might as well be.”

Amber flinched as Molly leaned forward to kiss her forehead. She paused, and kissed her temple, and then her cheek. Amber turned her face away sharply.

“I do not want Fitz to hate me, Molly,” she whispered.

Molly’s heart broke for the woman.

“I will fix this,” she promised.

Unfortunately for her, Nettle was coming. So Molly did the rational thing. She took Bee to Amber and forced the baby in her arms.

“You are going to be introduced as Bee’s governess,” Molly said brightly as Amber’s mouth fluttered open and closed, her eyes wide. Bee shifted in her blanket, the blanket that Amber had made her, and Molly’s eyes darted between their faces.

No, she chided herself, no, it was all a coincidence. Wasn’t it?

“I…” Amber took a deep breath. She cradled Bee gently in her arms, looking faraway as she stood there in silence for a minute. Two might have passed. Amber set her finger in Bee’s tiny hand. And Bee’s small fingers closed around it.

“Amber,” Molly said, touching her arm. Amber gasped in shock.

“Sorry,” she murmured, “sorry… she’s just… when she has me, she has all of me, and I cannot… focus.”

“You will have to learn to.” Molly smoothed Amber’s hair back behind her ears, and she took her chin, raising it up and examining her scarred face. “You’re beginning to look sickly again. Is it because Fitz is putting all that Burrich taught him about stubbornness to good use again?”

“I fear it’s in his blood,” Amber murmured. “We are unlucky. She is going to be worse.”

“Worse?” Molly thought about Nettle, and she groaned. “Eda help us.”

Amber laughed. And that made Molly happy enough that she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed the corner of her mouth. Amber stood very still.

“Will you wear the dress I made you?” Molly asked eagerly.

“I…” Amber ducked her head. “Of course.”

The presentation of Bee did not go as Molly had hoped. Amber held her while Nettle apologized profusely for doubting Molly’s pregnancy. Fitz had kept whatever comments he had to himself, but Molly saw his eyes wander back to Amber with a frown. The more he looked at Amber, the more he seemed unable to stop looking at Amber. Molly was irritated. It was the first time Amber had allowed herself to be seen in public in weeks, and Fitz was drawing attention to it.

Amber had offered Bee to Molly, who had taken her and offered her to Nettle. Then, Amber had stepped back beside Fitz. Molly watched her husband focus his gaze straight ahead.

She almost missed how Nettle’s face had fallen at the sight of Bee.

“She’s blind, isn’t she? Oh, Ma, I’m so sorry. Will she live long, do you think?”

Molly snatched Bee back from her elder daughter, gripping her tightly to her chest and realizing, suddenly, why Fitz had been so reluctant to tell anyone about the babe. It had seemed only natural to Molly that they all might celebrate Bee’s birth, but no matter how much Molly wanted to deny it, Bee was strange. People found her strange. Only Fitz and Amber seemed to look at her with love in their eyes.

“She is not blind.”

It was Amber who spoke, and Nettle glanced at her in confusion. She had likely dismissed Amber’s presence entirely as that of a servant. Amber, who stood in her simple dress, her hair neatly combed back from her scarred face, stared past Nettle and folded her gloved hands before her, lifting her chin defiantly. She had decided to wear gloves to minimize the contact she had with Bee. Apparently, whatever it was that passed between them was more intense when they touched skin to skin.

“Her eyes are merely blue,” Molly explained to Nettle hastily. “I have no reason to suspect she is blind. But even if she was, I would not love her less.”

“No,” Nettle gasped, flushing, “no, of course not! I just… she is so small… I only have to wonder what the old queen will think of her?”

It took Molly a moment to realize who she meant.

“Queen Kettricken?” She glanced back at Fitz confusedly. He looked unsurprised, and beside him, Amber’s mouth had fallen open. She reached out for Fitz’s hand. He took it.

“She’s come only just behind me,” Nettle explained hastily. Molly noted that her eyes had not missed the exchange between her father and the apparent servant. “A day or so—sorry, did he not tell you? Da, honestly! Well, I will help you prepare as best I can.”

“Thank you,” Molly said mildly. “I think I will put Bee down for a nap. Amber? Fitz? Join me in the nursery?”

Nettle’s mouth opened to question it. Her eyes were flashing between the three of them hungrily. They settled on Amber, and suspicion burned hotly in her gaze, a reflection of her father if Molly had ever seen one. To be expected. Molly could handle that later.

She led the way. Fitz guided Amber along. They made it to the nursery, albeit slowly, and Molly set the baby in her cradle, thumbing her cheek before turning and watching Amber and Fitz. Fitz still clutched Amber’s hand.

“I was going to tell you,” Fitz offered lamely.

“Yes,” Molly said tartly, “I’m sure. Do you know why she comes here?”

“I…” Fitz blinked. “I assumed to visit.”

“You are going to make her angry, Fitz,” Amber murmured, closing her eyes. She reached out for Molly, and Molly stepped away from the cradle to whisk her friend to her side. “Kettricken comes as a representative of the Farseers. There are traditions. I know this. I was there when Dutiful was born.”

“Were you?” Molly asked curiously, noting how Fitz paled. He looked away from them, choosing to focus on the baby in the cradle. Bee was very still. As always. “You remained at Buckkeep for that long?”

“I remained long enough to see the end of the war,” Amber said carefully, “and to see Kettricken bear an heir. I… well, I don’t imagine Fitz has told you this, but when Kettricken escaped Buckkeep, when King Shrewd died, I was with her. We traveled to the Mountains together. When I said I had done it before, helping a woman give birth, it is because I had helped Kettricken. Both times.”

Molly was stunned. Had Amber ever spoken about the queen? No. Yet it made sense that she had known her, if she had been Shrewd’s fool. There were so many things that Molly had missed! Well, there was no use in regretting it now. Buckkeep felt like a faraway dream. Another girl had walked those halls and lit those candles. Maybe, Molly reflected, she was still there, deep within her. Perhaps it was that girl who had become so infatuated with Amber.

“I will speak to her,” Amber said firmly. Molly blinked. “She will likely… I cannot blame her for it, but I know how she might judge the baby. If I explain to her that Bee is like me, she will not think of her as stunted or crippled.”

“She would think that?” Molly demanded sharply. Fitz winced beside the cradle as her eyes swung to him. “Fitz?”

“It is the Mountain way of things,” he muttered. “The Fool is right about that. I—we—can explain it to her. Somehow. Though I… am reluctant to say that Bee is like the Fool—”

“This is what you two quarreled about.” Molly scowled between them, though only Fitz could see it. Amber ducked her head. “You cannot do this, Fitz. Honestly. I haven’t any idea how this magic works, and I scarcely like the idea of magic dealing our child such a heavy hand, but if it is true, and I think it must be, for it is the best explanation we have, then we must believe Amber. When she says that the baby will grow, but slowly, I believe that. When she says that she will be strong and smart and change the world, I believe that. And when she says that Bee is her daughter, too, well, I have believed her in all else, so I will believe this, too. What does it change?”

Fitz said nothing. He gaped at her in shock, and Amber seemed just as startled. Molly took a deep breath, holding Amber tightly to her, and she met Fitz’s eyes across the cradle. He looked stunned, and a bit confused, as he looked between her and Amber desperately.

“Fitz,” Molly breathed, offering out her hand, “stop thinking so hard about it. Why can’t you see that we have been given a gift? If Amber is the reason that this baby exists, against all reason and against all logic, then I accept that, and I will not deny her a chance to know and love our daughter. Especially if she can help her in some way. She understands her, Fitz. She doesn’t see her as strange the way the rest do. Don’t you see? Amber was meant to come here to us. To Bee.”

“Is this something that three can share?” Fitz asked hoarsely.

“That is a question,” Amber said woefully into Molly’s hair, “that I wish I could ask Nighteyes.”

Something flashed within Fitz’s eyes, a spark of understanding that transformed his entire face. Gone was his confusion and his wariness, replaced with a slow smile that warmed his rugged face. There was a glint of his teeth as he shook his head in disbelief, a laugh falling from his lips as he rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“He’d say yes,” Fitz said, his voice quiet yet sure. “He would think me an idiot for not seeing it so simply sooner. That you have always been part of us.”

“It was us three,” Amber sighed, and Molly looked up at her, reaching out to dash the tears from her face. “I think it is us three, still. Us three, and Molly.”

“Us three,” Fitz agreed dazedly, his eyes flitting to Molly’s face in amazement, as if he expected her to suddenly dissent, “and Molly.”

“Us three,” Molly corrected, “and Bee.”

Neither of them objected to that.

As they stood there, Molly felt emboldened by their sudden peace, and she took hold of her courage and looked at Fitz. He frowned at her.

“I know that look,” he said tiredly. “What are you planning?”

“I only think it’s fair,” Molly said, lifting her chin, “to be entirely honest with each other. I have always been so with you, though you cannot say the same. Yet I have never found Amber to have lied to me.”

“Really?” Fitz glanced at Amber incredulously, and Amber, who could not see him, held onto Molly tightly.

“I have learned from your mistakes, Beloved,” Amber said blithely, a tinge of humor to her thin voice. Fitz scoffed at that.

“So!” Molly held out her hand over Bee’s cradle. “Let us be entirely honest, shall we, my love?”

Fitz’s expression betrayed his reluctance even as he took her hand without a thought otherwise.

Molly smiled up at him. She pulled him closer, and she kissed him sweetly on the mouth. He exhaled softly, his hand squeezing hers gently. Then she pulled back, meeting his eyes and watching him watch her uncertainly. She caught a brief flash of his shock as she turned and lifted her head to Amber’s face, taking it in hand and pulling her down to meet her. Amber gasped as their lips touched, and Molly cradled her cheek gently, her thumb caressing a scar on her cheek that overlapped perfectly with the one on Fitz’s.

How strange and wonderful things could be, Molly reflected, when one was open to impossibility.

Amber pulled away first. She stepped back from Molly, her fingers trailing over her lips as her sightless eyes grew wide. Turning her head about, she took a deep breath.

“Fitz—” she began, her voice strained.

“No,” Fitz cut in. He rounded the cradle, and she waited for him to let go of her hand as he reached for Amber. He didn’t. “No, Fool, it’s—don’t cry. I am not angry with you. Either of you. I think… I think I understand. When Molly told me of you, and… and this… she said it was difficult not to love you. And don’t I know that better than anyone?”

Amber was quiet even as the tears came steadily down her cheeks. She hugged her hands to her chest and made herself smaller than she was.

Molly turned and kissed her husband’s cheek. He leaned into her, and then froze as she turned her mouth to his ear.

“Kiss her,” Molly whispered.

Fitz looked down at her briefly in shock. And yet, his body moved of its own accord, and despite his incredulity, he turned toward Amber and reached for her hand. It was gloved, still, and she blinked as she was pulled closer.

“Fitz?” Amber breathed, her brow furrowing. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Fitz said, just as breathlessly. And then he leaned forward and caught Amber’s mouth in a surprisingly passionate kiss. Molly gaped at how Fitz’s body seemed to bend forward, taut as a string on a loom, and how he tugged the glove from Amber’s hand, just for her to slowly wind her fingers around his wrist. She had squeaked in surprise when he had kissed her, but now she sighed into his mouth, and he seemed to unravel with that sigh, the tension in his body releasing.

Molly wondered how long he had held that kiss within himself. She knew that Fitz and Amber had never been intimate, because Amber would have admitted it to her if they had, and Fitz still believed Amber to be a man. And Molly had considered that, in her midnight wonderings over her dear friend, and she had decided that it did not change much, except perhaps, a few minor things that she was certain they could all get around.

When Amber and Fitz parted, they pressed their foreheads together. Amber was still crying, and Fitz wiped her tears gingerly with one hand. His other hand was still clutching Molly’s.

So Molly took Amber’s free hand. She gasped and turned her face toward her, eyes wide and bright.

“Is this truly what you want, Molly?” Amber asked.

Molly let her mouth answer wordlessly.