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  　The ghost of a 【创建和谐家园】ile passed across her face. ‘My eyes, though, did not grow better. I be blind. Grandmother Lindel not be as strong as me, but she be old, and had seen many a trick with the gift. She taught me to see without my eyes. She taught me to see with the gift. It not be the same as eyes, but in some ways, it be better. In some ways, I see more.

  　‘After I be healed, Grandmother Lindel wanted me to leave. She not be fond of living with one who had broken the oath, even though I be of her blood. She feared I would bring trouble. Whether from the Keeper, for breaking my oath, or from the Blood of the Fold, she did not know, but she feared trouble would come because of me.’

  　Zedd leaned back in his chair, stretching his tense muscles a bit. ‘And did trouble come?’

  　‘Oh, yes,’ Adie hissed, raising her eyebrows as she leaned forward. ‘Trouble came. Mathrin Galliene brought them: twenty Blood of the Fold. Ones paid by the Crown. Professionals. Battle-hard men; big men, grim-faced, savage men, all pretty on horseback in neat ranks with swords, shields, and banners, every spear held just so, at the same angle. All pretty in their chain mail and polished breastplates shining with the embossed crest of the Crown, and all wearing helmets with red plumes that flicked as they rode. Every horse white.

  　‘I stood on the porch and watched with the eyes of the gift as they spread rank before me with perfect precision, like they be performing for the king himself. Every horse put every foot the same, stopping in a line at the lifting of a finger from the commander. They be spread out before me, ready, eager, to do their grisly duty. Mathrin waited behind them on his horse, watching. The commander called out to me, ‘You be under arrest as a baneling, and are to be executed as such.’’

  　Adie lifted her head from the specters of her memory, her eyes meeting Zedd’s. ‘I thought of Pell. My Pell.’

  　Her expression hardened into an iron mask. ‘Not one sword cleared a scabbard, not one spear be leveled, not one foot touched the ground, before they died. I swept the line, from left to right, one man at a time, everything I had, into each in turn, quick as a thought. Thump thump thump. Every one, except the commander. He sat still and stone-faced upon his white horse as men in armor crashed to the ground to each side of him.

  　‘When it be finished, when the last shield had clattered into silence, I met his eyes. ‘Armor,’ I told him, ‘be of no use against a true baneling. Or a sorceress. It only be of use against innocent people.’ Then I told him he was to deliver a message to the king for me, from one sorceress named Adie. In a calm, firm voice, he asked the message. I said, ‘Tell him that if he sends another of the Blood of the Fold to take me, it will be the last living order he ever gives.’ He looked at me for a moment without a hint of emotion in his cold eyes, and then he turned his horse and walked it away without looking back.’

  　Her gaze sank to the table. ‘My grandmother turned her back to me. She told me to leave the shelter of her roof and never to return.’

  　A little wince touched Zedd’s face before he caught it, at the thought of a sorceress with enough power to kill men in that fashion. It was exceedingly rare for a sorceress to be that strong in the gift. ‘What of Mathrin? You didn’t kill him?’

  　She shook her head. A humorless 【创建和谐家园】ile played across her lips.

  　‘No. I took him with me.’

  　‘Took him with you?’

  　‘I bonded him to me. Bonded his life to mine. Bonded him so that he always knew where I be, and so that every new moon he was compelled to come to me, no matter where I be, no matter what he wished. He had to follow me, at least close enough so that he could come to me every new moon.’

  　Frowning, Zedd studied the dregs in his tea cup. ‘I met a man, once, in Winstead, the capital and Crown seat of Kelton. His name was Mathrin. He was a beggar, missing the fingers on one hand, as I recall. He was blind. His eyes had been ...’ Zedd’s eyes suddenly fixed on hers. She was watching him. ‘His eyes had been gouged out.’

  　Adie nodded. ‘Indeed they had.’ Her face was iron again.

  　‘Every new moon, he came to me, and I cut something off him, letting his screams try to fill the emptiness in me.’

  　Zedd leaned back, his hands pressed to the tabletop. Iron indeed. ‘So you made a new home in Kelton?’

  　‘No. I made no home. I traveled, seeking out women with the gift, ones who could help me in my studies. None knew very much of what I sought, but each knew at least a little that others did not.

  　‘Mathrin followed, and every new moon he came to me, and I cut something else from him. I wanted him to live forever, to suffer forever. He be the one who beat me, down there, with his fists, so I would lose Pell’s child. He be the one who killed Pell. He be the one who blinded me.’

  　Her white eyes shone red in the lamplight as she stared off again. ‘He be the one who made Pell believe I had betrayed him. I wanted Mathrin Galliene to suffer forever.’

  　Zedd gestured vaguely with his hand. ‘How long did he ... last?’

  　Adie sighed. ‘Not long enough, and too long.’ Zedd frowned. ‘One day, a thought occurred to me: I had never used the gift to prevent Mathrin from killing himself. Why would he still come to me? Let me make him to suffer like I did? Why would he not simply end it? So, the next time he came, and I cut something else off, I also cut the bond. Cut his need to come the next time. But I did it in a way so as he would not notice, so he could simply forget about me, if he wished.’

  　‘So that was the last you saw of him?’

  　She gave a grim shake of her head. ‘No. I thought it would be, but he returned with the next new moon. Returned when he needn’t have. It made my blood run cold, to wonder why. I decided that it be time for him to pay with his life for what he had done to me, and Pell, and all the others. But I resolved that before he gave me his life, he would give me the answer.

  　‘In my travels, I had learned many things. Things for which I thought I would never have use. That night I found use. I used them to learn what torture Mathrin feared above all others. The trick be used to learn fears, but be useless to learn other secrets. Against his will, the words tumbled out of him, his fears spilled out.

  　‘I left him to sweat all that night and the whole next day while I went in search of the things I needed: the things he feared above all else. When I finally returned with them, he be nearly insane with fright. His fears be well founded. I asked him to confess his secret. He said no.

  　‘I dumped out the sack, put the little cages and the other things in front of him as he sat naked and helpless on the floor. I picked up each, held it before his sightless face, and described it, told him what be in each little cage or basket or jar. Again I asked him to confess. He be sweating and panting and shaking, but he said no. Mathrin thought I be bluffing, that I did not have the courage. Mathrin be wrong.

  　‘I steeled myself, and brought his worst fears to life for him.’

  　Zedd’s brow bunched up into wrinkles. Curiosity won out over dread. ‘What did you do?’

  　She lifted her head to look into his eyes. That be the one thing I will not tell you. It not be important anyway.

  　‘Mathrin would not talk, and suffered so much that I almost stopped several times. Each time I wanted to stop, I thought about the last thing my eyes had seen before he blinded me: Pell’s head held in Mathrin’s fist before me.’ Adie swallowed, her voice so low Zedd could hardly hear her. ‘And I remembered Pell’s last words: ‘I will not say that of her to save my life. Even though she has betrayed me.’’

  　She closed her eyes for a moment. They came open and she went on. ‘Mathrin be on the edge of death. I thought he was not going to tell me why he came to me. But just before he died, he became still, despite what was being done to him. And then he said he would tell me, because he be about to die, because this, too, had been by plan. I asked him again why he had come back.

  　‘He leaned toward me. ‘Don’t you know, Adie?’ he asked me. ‘Don’t you know what I be? I be a baneling. I have been hiding right under your nose all this time. You have kept me near you all this time, and the Keeper knew right where you be. The Keeper lusts for those with the gift above all else.’ I had thought that that be it, that he be a baneling. I told him he had failed, it had done him no good, as he be about to die for his crimes.

  　‘He 【创建和谐家园】iled at me.’ She leaned forward. ‘【创建和谐家园】iled! And he said, ‘You be wrong Adie. I have not failed. I have done the Keeper’s bidding. I have fulfilled my task. Perfectly. All this be by plan. I have made you do exactly as he wished. I shall be rewarded. I be the one who started the fire when you be little. I be the one who did those things to Pell. Not because I thought him or you a baneling. I be the baneling. I did it to make you break your oath. To make you welcome the Keeper’s hate into your heart.

  　‘‘Breaking your oath be the first step, and look what you have done since. Look at what you be doing right now. Look at how far you have slipped toward him. You be within his grasp now. You may not have given him your oath, but you do his bidding. You have become what you hate. You have become me; you be a baneling. The Keeper 【创建和谐家园】iles upon you, Adie, and thanks you for welcoming him into your heart.’ Mathrin slumped, and fell back, dead.’

  　Adie dissolved into tears, her head sagging into her hands. Zedd unlocked his joints and swept around the table, holding her to him as he stood next to her, holding her head against his stomach, stroking her hair, comforting her as she cried.

  　‘Not so, dear lady. Not so at all.’

  　She wept against his robes, shaking her head. ‘You think you be so 【创建和谐家园】art, wizard? You not be so 【创建和谐家园】art as you think. You be wrong about this.’

  　Zedd knelt beside her chair, holding her hands in his, looking up into her stricken face. ‘I’m 【创建和谐家园】art enough to know that the Keeper, or one of his minions, would not let you have the satisfaction of knowing you had won a battle against him.’

  　‘But I ...’

  　‘You fought back. You struck out from your hurt, not for a lust of the things you did. Not for a want to help the Keeper.’

  　Her brow wrinkled together with her effort to stop the tears. ‘You be so sure? Sure enough to trust one such as I?’

  　Zedd 【创建和谐家园】iled. ‘I’m sure. I may not know everything, but I know you are no baneling. You are the victim, not the criminal.’

  　She shook her head. ‘I not be so sure as you.’

  　After Mathrin died, did you go on killing? Seeking vengeance against any innocent?’

  　‘No, of course not.’

  　‘Had you been an agent, you would have given yourself over to the Keeper, to his wishes, and gone on to hurt those who fought him. You are no baneling, dear lady. My heart weeps for the things the Keeper took from you, but he did not take your soul, that is still yours. Put those fears aside.’

  　He held her hands and gave them soft squeezes. She didn’t try to take her hands back, but let them stay in his, as if to soak up the comfort as they trembled.

  　Adie wiped the tears from her cheek. ‘Pour me some more tea? But no more powdered cloud leaf, or I will fall asleep before I can finish the story.’

  　Zedd arched an eyebrow. She had known what he had done. He patted her shoulder as he rose to his feet. He poured her tea and then pulled his chair forward and sat again while she sipped.