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now.”
    That got my full attention.
    Still beaming, he explained, “Quite a number of us on the Council were knighted this autumn.” He nodded at the long-nosed, long-chinned man sitting across the table from him. “Including Sir Isaac.”
    Isaac Oldville gravely inclined his head in greeting to me. He looked abstracted, as if he were doing calculations in the back of his mind—a great improvement, I thought, on the irritable expression he’d so often worn when we were fighting Scargrave.
    Of madness, I saw not a single sign, either in him or in Sir Samuel. Again my doubts stirred about Nat and his account of the Court.
    But I had other questions too.
    “Why wasn’t Nat knighted?” I asked Sir Samuel. “Or Penebrygg?” They were both on the Council—and no one else in the Invisible College had done more to help me defeat Scargrave.
    Sir Samuel’s face clouded. “Well, that was rather awkward. They were offered the honor, you know. But they turned it down.”
    Why? I wanted to ask. But the question caught in my throat as I glimpsed a sandy-haired man coming into the room.
    He was an unmistakable figure, built like a Viking warrior, with vast shoulders and eyes the cold, pale blue of a winter sky. I wanted to dive for the floor. It was the Earl of Wrexham: Marcher Lord, guardian of the borderlands—and Scargrave’s chief Chantress-hunter.
    The King had long since forgiven him. Having been deeply in thrall to Scargrave himself, no one believed more in the possibility of reformation and repentance than the King. Fruitless to point out that when Scargrave had first come to power nine years ago, the King had been a small boy, while Wrexham had been twenty-three years old. In those dark days, people much older and wiser had found themselves powerless to resist Scargrave’s fearsome magic—and Scargrave had brought great pressure to bear on Wrexham, holder of one of the oldest titles in the land.
    If Wrexham had aided Scargrave more than most, he had also rejoiced when Scargrave was deposed. He was Henry’s man now, one of the very first to swear an oath of fealty. The King had told me I had nothing to fear from him.
    Nevertheless, there was something about Wrexham that mademy blood run cold. Even the beautiful symmetry of his face—so compelling to others—was unnerving to me, perhaps because I feared what lay behind it. During those brief weeks at Court last year, I’d felt those pale eyes stalking me as they’d once stalked other Chantresses. Even worse, I’d overheard him telling other courtiers that I was poisoning the King’s mind, using my magic and my wiles to my own wicked ends. I’d been relieved to leave him far behind when I went to Norfolk.
    “What’s Wrexham doing here?” I murmured to Sir Samuel.
    “Why, he’s head of the Council,” Sir Samuel said.
    My stomach lurched. Head of the Council? No wonder Nat’s visits and letters to me had been curtailed. “I—I didn’t know.”
    I watched Wrexham cross the room, speaking first to this man, and then to that one, while others waited their turn. It was as if he were holding his own small court within a court. For sheer presence, no one in the room could match him. Arrayed like royalty in cloth-of-silver and jeweled trimmings, he stood nearly a head taller than the others, and his massive hands were studded with glittering rings.
    “He was the obvious choice after Sir Barnaby fell ill.” In a very low voice, Sir Samuel added, “Not that some of us didn’t suggest other candidates, of course. But Sir Isaac was about to leave for France, and Sir Christopher Linnet had just agreed to serve as ambassador to Spain. So when Wrexham came back to Court, fresh from his victory against the rebellion, it was clear to us all who Sir Barnaby’s successor would be.”
    “The rebellion?” What had I missed?
    “You don’t know about that, either?” Sir Samuel looked a little surprised. “It happened at the beginning of October. It was that old