“Well, then, I shall,” the Fool declared almost gladly. He pulled out a chair and sat down expectantly. I wondered if any of the others could see the darker tides running behind the placid affability he presented to them. Chade and I took the chairs on either side of him while Dutiful persuaded Thick to come and join us at the table. When he was settled, four of us simultaneously took a deep breath and reached for that state of openness where we could all reach the Skill. As we did so, I had an insight both affirming and alarming. The Fool was an intruder here. In our short time of striving to become a coterie, we had achieved a unity. I had not perceived it until the Fool interrupted it. As I joined my awareness to Dutiful's and Thick's, I could feel Chade fluttering like a frantic butterfly at the edge of our union. Thick reached a reassuring hand to draw him into firmer contact with the rest of us. He belonged with us, but the Fool did not.

He was not so much a presence as an absence. I had noticed years ago that he was invisible to my Wit-sense. Now, as I deliberately reached toward him with the Skill, it was like trying to lift sun dazzle off a still pond.

“Lord Golden, do you avoid us?” Chade asked very softly.

“I am here,” he replied. His words seemed to ripple softly in the room, as if I felt them as well as heard them.

“Give me your hand,” Chade suggested. He set his own, palm up, on the table, outstretched toward my friend. It seemed as much a challenge as an invitation.

I felt a minuscule tickle of fear. It quivered along the Skill-bond between the Fool and me, letting me know that link still existed. Then the Fool lifted his gloved hand and set it in Chade's.

I could feel him then, but not in any way that is easy to describe. If our combined Skill was a quiet pool, then the Fool was a leaf floating upon it. “Reach for him,” Chade suggested, and we all did. My awareness of the Fool's uneasiness grew stronger via our bond, but I did not think the others could sense that. They could almost touch him, but he parted before them and joined after them, as if they dragged their fingers through water. It disturbed his presence without making it accessible to them. His fear intensified. I reached along our bond surreptitiously, trying to discover what frightened him.

Possession. He did not wish to be touched in a way that might let another possess him. Belatedly I recalled what Regal and his coterie had once done to him. They had found him, through the link I shared with him, and taken a bit of his consciousness and used it against me, to spy upon me and gain knowledge of Molly's whereabouts. That betrayal still shamed and pained him. He still carried that burden of guilt for something that had happened so long ago. It stabbed deeper that soon he would know that I had betrayed him, as well.

It wasn't your fault. I offered him comfort through our link. He refused it. Then, as if from a distance and yet clear, his thoughts reached mine.

I knew it would happen. I'd foretold it myself, when I was a child. That the one closest to you would betray you. Yet I could not believe that it would be me. And so I fulfilled my own prophecy.

We all survived.

Barely.

“Are you Skilling to one another?” Chade asked testily. I both heard and felt his words.

I took a deeper breath and sank deeper into the Skill. “Yes,” I breathed. “I can reach him. But only just. And only because we have been Skill-linked before.”

“Would you have more than this?” The Fool's voice was less than a whisper. I discerned a challenge in his words, but could not understand it.

“Yes, please. Try,” I bade him.

Beside me at the table, I was aware of the Fool making some small movement but my vision was unfocused on the room and I had no warning of his intentions until his hand settled on my wrist. His fingertips unerringly found their own faded gray fingerprints, left on my flesh so many years ago. His touch was gentle, but the sensation was an arrow in my heart. I physically spasmed, a speared fish, and then froze. The Fool ran through my veins, hot as liquor, cold as ice. For a flashing instant, we shared physical awareness. The intensity of it went beyond any joining I'd ever experienced. It was more intimate than a kiss and deeper than a knife thrust, beyond a Skill-link and beyond sexual coupling, even beyond my Wit-bond with Nighteyes. It was not a sharing, it was a becoming. Neither pain nor pleasure could encompass it. Worse, I felt myself turning and opening to it, as if it were my lover's mouth upon mine, yet I did not know if I would devour or be devoured. In another heartbeat, we would be one another, know one another more perfectly than two separate beings ever should.

He'd know my secret.

“No!” I cried before he could discover my plot against him. I wrenched myself free, mind and body. For a long time I fell, until I struck the cold stone floor. I rolled under the table to escape that touch, gasping. My time of blackness seemed to last for hours, yet it was only an instant before Chade dragged my curled body from under the table. He propped me against his chest as he knelt beside me. Dimly I was aware of him demanding, “What happened? Are you hurt? What did you do to him, Fool?”