“Today,” said Master Fiore, “is about defense.”

We were at the piste once more, having evidently outstripped the lessons the orchard had to offer. The fencing master had insisted on having it cleaned thoroughly before resuming our lessons within; generations of spiders were driven from their ancestral homeland in a single afternoon, and had no choice but to escape to the calmer isles of the buttery, the herb garden, and the privies. Our lesson was punctuated by the occasional scream of a maid, and the subsequent thwack! of a shoe.

But the entire armory now looked distinctly less haunted. No doubt Francesca would be disappointed.

There was a sudden jab on my sternum. “Ow!”

“Pay attention!” barked Fiore. He deftly evaded my clumsy reflexive riposte and dealt another touch to my shoulder. “No woolgathering on the piste!”

I issued a more coordinated sally, forcing him to leap backwards. “Good!” he roared, then lunged. I parried. The crashes of our blades echoed off the high ceiling with a strangely soothing clatter. There was no time to think; only stimulus, response, stimulus, response.

“Defense,” grunted Master Fiore, disengaging from my latest thrust, “is the most likely scenario for drawing your sword off the piste.” He stomped a balestra, trying to startle me, but I held my ground and parried again. “For a Lord, at any rate. And if I ever catch you brandishing your weapon like a churl for intimidation purposes, I will beat you myself. The Lady Renella gave me preemptive permission to do so.”

I was sure she had, but I had no breath with which to agree. I retreated quickly, then sprang forward in a low lunge. I could see Master Fiore’s smile through the mask as he made a retreat of his own. “Good! Fast! Watch your lines!”

Back and forth we went, until at last he called a halt for water. Only then was I able to catch my breath enough to speak.

“Have you ever had to defend yourself?” I asked.

“Of course.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I was in the Queen’s First.”

“I mean off the battlefield.”

He capped the waterskin, slowly and carefully. “Yes,” he replied at last. I got the sense that he was debating how much to share. He thought for another moment, then continued, “several times, in fact. Taverns are not the most upstanding of establishments.”

“You’ve been threatened in the tavern?” I asked, startled.

He flapped his hand at me dismissively. “Not this town’s tavern. Far too small and sleepy. But others, yes.”

“What happened?” I asked eagerly.

“Alcohol,” he replied succinctly. “Put your mask back on, if you’re done drinking. We go again.”

But I had clearly set him onto a line of thought. He no longer spoke as we sparred, only barked a correction every now and again. Finally, when the lesson was over, he raked his hand through his thinning, sweat-soaked hair and sighed. “Sometimes,” he said, voice low, “you’re not just defending your life. And I don’t mean your honor, either. Sometimes you’re defending someone else.” His eyes darkened. “And whether your defense is considered by others to be righteous, or traitorous, is outside your control.”

I stared.

“But listen well,” he continued, and turned to face me fully. “Defend them anyway.”

I thought of my father—of the image I had of him in my mind, the image I had painted and repainted behind my eyelids over the years, locking himself and my mother in the Observation Tower, stuffing the ripped-down curtains in the doorjamb to deaden the threats against him and his love and his unborn son, sliding his glasses up his nose every so often.

I looked Master Fiore in the eye and nodded solemnly.

He sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Forgive me,” he muttered, “Now I’m the one woolgathering. I’m mawkish today. You must be getting better, to tire me so.”

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With that somewhat awkward praise buoying my step, I went upstairs for a bath.

That evening was warm; spring was well underway. Every window and door had been thrown open, not only to encourage the displaced spiders outside, but to bring the fresh air in. My own windows were wide open; I often slept with one at least cracked, even in the dead of winter. I simply endured in silence the scolding I got when it snowed inside, and did it again. I disliked the banging of the swinging windows when the wind picked up, however, so once the rest of the household was abed, and I myself was preparing to turn in, I went from one to the next, latching them securely.

I had just reached the last one, and reached out my hand to push it shut, when a figure came hurtling through with a slam and thudded with a sickening crunch onto the middle of my floor.

I leaped back with a shout, barely avoiding the window as it caromed against the casement. One of the panes shattered. Glass shards tinkled to the floor.

There, lying in a heap of ragged feathers, was Sheshef.

I gaped, then whipped my head around to look out the window at what I was sure must be deadly pursuit. But the night sky was empty.

I rushed to her side and knelt down, hands hovering desperately, afraid to touch her. I didn’t know what to do. She was breathing, and her eyelids fluttered, so at least she was still alive, but there were long scratches across her face and arms, bleeding freely.

“Sheshef?” I quavered.

Her wings stirred feebly, and her eyes slitted open.

“Help,” she croaked. Her voice was more hawk than human, shrill and serrated. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

“What happened?” My hands were still hovering, darting this way and that over her body, never making contact.

“Fight,” she replied. She tried to sit up, and failed. Pain drained the blood from her face.

“Are your bones broken?” I asked, terrified.

“I think so.”

I leaped to my feet. “Wait here!”

“No!” Her scream was pure anguish. “No one can know I’m here!”

“But I need to get you help!”

“You help me.” She was panting now, and her voice hitched with pain on every word.

“I can’t!” I cried. “I don’t know how!”

“Bind the broken bones,” she grunted.

Inspiration struck. “My father—he can help! He fixed my mother’s bones all the time!”

“No!” Her scream this time was strangled down to nearly a hiss. “He will tell them!”

“Tell who?”

She used some word then that I didn’t understand, and broke off into an avian keen.

“Please,” I babbled, “please, he’ll know what to do!”

Sheshef did not reply. Her head had sunk back down to the floor, and she was panting shallowly.

“Wait here!” I ordered, unnecessarily, and ran out the door.

I took the spiral staircase three steps at a time and jumped the last five to the ground, landed lightly, and darted through the door. I ran as quietly as possible, nearly silently, and prayed that none saw me as I pelted across the courtyard to the Observation Tower and hauled open the door.

It was unlocked, as always. I wasn’t able to join my father at his telescopes as often now that my afternoons had to be spent on extracurriculars rather than napping, but I still went when I could. So Father left the door unlocked for me. Nobody else bothered to go in.

He wasn’t on the ground floor. I raced up the spiral staircase and burst through the opening to the next level, startling him badly enough that he jerked, blotting the star chart he had been working on with his eye to the telescope. “Leo? What’s wrong?”

“There’s a Winged One in my tower!” I gasped. “She’s hurt!”

“What?” But he was already on his feet, lurching for the stairs. I ducked down them just ahead of his pounding feet.

“She says her bones are broken,” I said urgently, as we ran across the courtyard together. “And you can’t tell anyone she’s here.”

“She told you this?”

“Yes.”

He cursed.

“Why?” I demanded. “Do you know why?”

He didn’t answer. He just hurtled up the stairs, three at a time. I charged up after him, struggling to keep pace.

Sheshef was completely unconscious by the time we reached her. The red of her blood was bright against the alabaster of her skin and soft gray-and-buff of her wings. Father knelt down by her side and, more gently than I had ever seen him move, began to check her for injury. He tilted her head to and fro, feeling her neck, then eased her wings out from beneath her and checked her limbs. I stood and watched helplessly, feeling sick.

“Broken rib,” he said at last. “At least one.”

A modicum of relief lightened my heart. “Oh, that’s not so—”

“It’s worse for them,” Father said tersely.

My heart sank again. “Oh.”

Father stood. “Wait here. I’m getting some supplies.” He strode out swiftly.

I looked at Sheshef lying there, tawny hair straggling around her head like a shredded halo, wings quivering slightly with each labored breath, then looked out the window again, deeply uneasy. It was still wide open, creaking a little as it swayed in the breeze. The broken glass glittered in the firelight.

I walked over to the window, swung it shut, and latched it firmly.

And then, for the first time since I had moved out of the nursery and into the tower, I drew the curtains.