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there, reeling in the aftershock of what he had just learned; only that, the next thing he knew, he was not alone on the Portal.
    He sensed Evaine’s presence before she could even touch him, before he opened his eyes to see her standing before him, all in black, her two hands catching up his wrists, her blue eyes snaring his as she softly commanded him to relax, to release the medal that was biting into his clenched fist.
    â€œYou’ve cut yourself,” she murmured, as he numbly opened his palm to blood. “I’m sorry. It was harsh to tell you that way, but I thought that getting it over all at once would be kindest, in the end. I’m all right,” she added, as she sensed his concern shifting to her grief.
    He blinked, forcing himself to draw a slow, stabilizing breath, then let it out in a whoosh as he absently wiped his blood off the medal and handed it back to her.
    â€œI am so sorry, child,” he whispered. “I wish I could say that I brought better news—though at least it is no worse than yours.”
    â€œRevan?” she asked, with dread in her tone.
    He shook his head, not yet ready to contend with his own grief again.
    â€œNo, Revan was well, when I left him a fortnight ago. This is other news. But, let us go wherever it is you are to take me, before our presence puts the good brothers of Saint Mary’s more at risk.” The wound in his hand was slight, he discovered as he spoke, and he cupped his hand over it and Healed it with hardly a further thought.
    â€œVery well,” she whispered. Drawing a deep breath, she took his free hand and moved closer beside him.
    I’m taking you to the Camberian Council chamber , she went on, in his mind. In light of what’s happened, you’re certain to become a full member, so I’ll give you the Portal location as we make the jump. Ready?
    He had been ready for that for as long as he had known of the Camberian Council’s existence, though he had never dreamed that so many violent deaths might open the way. But Evaine’s instruction had not invited further speculation at this moment. Best that they be on their way, as he had already urged. Closing his eyes, he dropped his shields and opened to her, feeling the fine controls surround his, balancing all in readiness. In less than the space of an indrawn breath, they were elsewhere.
    The great, octagonal council chamber was essentially as Queron remembered it, from his several visits there as an unofficial observer, but the people were not the same, even the ones who were left. As he and Evaine entered through the great, hammered bronze doors in the north facet, Joram rose to give him silent greeting from across the ivory table; but it was a quiet and subdued Joram, showing every one of his thirty-nine years. Part of it was the dull, dusty black of the monk’s robe he wore, instead of the customary blue of a Michaeline cassock, but the lines on his handsome face had not come from a mere change of habit. Nor could Queron remember the silver dulling Joram’s coin-bright head at the temples.
    And Gregory, rising more slowly in the place to Joram’s left, had weathered the past few months even less well. Though Queron knew that the former Earl of Ebor had moved physically out of harm’s reach the previous October, when he abandoned his Ebor estates and took his family westward to a new, hidden stronghold in the Connait, the forty-two-year-old Gregory looked old. To Queron’s practiced Healer’s eye, Gregory appeared to have dropped perhaps a quarter of his weight from a frame that already had been lean. Now he looked gaunt. His thinning hair, far less of it than Queron remembered, had gone from reddish blond to nearly colorless, and the pale blue eyes burned with an almost feverish brightness beneath the high, noble brow. Queron made a mental note to make Healer’s Reading later on, for Gregory did not look well.
    Gregory’s son