“Only if killing Spark does not matter to you. I will not allow that girl to enter a portal for at least three more days, and even then I doubt she will be ready. If I can Skill to Buckkeep tonight, I will ask Nettle to send someone here, someone strong in the Skill, to take all of you back.”

“Well, that is not going to happen,” the Fool observed sweetly after a stretched moment of silence.

Spark turned her head toward us and then spoke. “The dragon? The red dragon?”

“She’s not here,” the Fool replied comfortingly. “We escaped her. And when we return to Kelsingra, I will see that we go first to Malta and speak with her. She is a friend, Spark. If I could have gone to her first, we would not have been attacked.”

“And I think it is time we talked about that attack. Why did you go so swiftly to Kelsingra, why were you attacked, and how did you get Skill all over your hand?”

The Fool made a small sound in his throat. I already knew he was dancing around the edges of the truth. He cleared his throat. “As you know, my friendship with both Queen Malta and the dragon Tintaglia goes back many years, so I decided—”

“You are friends with a dragon and a queen?” Perseverance broke in, astonished.

“It’s news to me as well, lad. Though I had an inkling of it years ago. But no, Fool, we will not be sidetracked with a story about how all that came about. We accept your peculiar alliances, while reserving the right to demand that tale at a later time. Go on.”

The Fool had moved to sit beside Spark. He felt for her hand to hold and when I saw her struggling, I stooped and unwound the butterfly cloak enough that she could get her arm and hand free. “Do you think you would like some hot tea? Or something to eat?” She looked at me, her gaze still vague, but managed a nod. I ventured a tendril of Skill toward her, fearful of being pulled into the vortex of the portal, but I sensed nothing from her. I suspected she had been battered by the Skill but not shredded. I dared to hope she would recover.

The Fool drew a breath. “Well, it was night there, and although the streets were dark and deserted, they did not seem so to me. They seemed wide and lit for a festival, the buildings themselves gleaming with a toadstool light that made the torches seem wild and bright. Yet sometimes I stumbled as we went, over fallen stones that the city did not show me, and once our way was blocked and we had to find a different route.”

“But you knew where you were going.” I allowed silence to take a breath. “Fool, had you ever been to Kelsingra before?”

He hesitated. “Not … not in person. Not as myself. But there is a dragon-sense in me now, Fitz. And from it, I’ve had dreams. Dreams that are more like memories.” His brows drew together and abruptly I allowed myself to see how much he had changed. His skin had the same fine texture you’d see on the belly of a tiny lizard. His eyes gleamed gold and yet anxious in the dim light from the fire-pot. “I remember things. Flying over the ocean. The musky smell of an elk when it knows it cannot escape and turns to fight. The taste of hot blood over my tongue. Dragons are made of hungers and lusts that are beyond even human imagining. You others will not understand what I speak of, but Fitz will. I dreamed of silvery Skill, filling a well to brimming and flowing over. I dreamed of it rising to the surface of the river like an undulating silver ribbon after an earthquake. But most of all, I dreamed of drinking. Of plunging my muzzle into it nearly to my eyes and sucking it in, in long draughts.” He gave a short, breathless sigh as if even speaking of it inflamed his hunger. “And I remembered where once I had drunk it. From a well in Kelsingra. So I went there.”

He still held Spark’s hand but he turned toward me. “That was how I knew the dragon blood had Skill in it. All dragons crave it, with every fiber of their beings. And why I believed the blood would carry me through the Skill-portals as it did.”

The pot of snow-water finally reached a grudging boil. Perseverance tended it, preparing cups of tea for each of us. For a time, the story was halted as we helped Spark to sit and hold a steaming cup and sip from it. I saw with relief that she was coming back to herself. She presented a thorny problem for me. I needed to be on my way, and the next step of my journey demanded that I go on to Kelsingra, unless the Fool had left it as stirred as a poked hive of bees. Spark sat up, the butterfly cloak draping her shoulders and a second cup of tea warming both her hands.

“I meant to go first to Malta, to find her and greet her, and gain her assistance. I dared to hope that Tintaglia would be there and would recall my service to dragons and actually show her appreciation. A thin hope, that, I will admit. Dragons regard us as we might regard gnats. One is much like another, and our deeds matter little. Still. That was my resolution, and Fitz, I truly believed I was clinging to it as I led the way through the streets of Kelsingra. But then I came to a part of the city that was dark. Lifeless. No Elderling memories shimmered there to guide me, and yet I still knew where I was going. I could smell it, Fitz. I could taste it in the back of my throat with every breath I took. And suddenly I could not think of anything else except that brimming Skill-well. And how it would strengthen me and sate me.”