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Watching over his brother is a part of who he is, just like you watching over me is part of you. There are some things it’s just not worth arguing about, Maralt, and this is one of them. What about the orbs?”
    “The same. No worse. No better.”
    “What are we going to do?” Carryn asked.
    “I could get to Dynan, and find out if he has the talisman, but I might not be able to make him forget the intrusion. Dain will be all over me so I’ll have to make him forget too. It would hurt them both to force it, quite a lot.”
    “I can’t believe we weren’t warned,” she said.
    “It isn’t your fault, Carryn. You haven’t ever had any control over what you see.”
    “I feel like I’ve let everyone down.”
    “You haven’t,” Maralt said, looking down at the High Bishop. “He would say the same thing. Go get some sleep. If things change, I’ll need you here.”
    “Don’t try to reach Dynan,” she said when she reached the doorway, and nodded to Gradyn. “He wouldn’t want you to.”
    “The alternative is to wait for him to tell us. In this case, I’m not so sure waiting is a good idea.”
    “I think until we know who’s gone, especially since it isn’t Dynan or Dain, we don’t have a choice,” she said.
    “You sound just like him,” Maralt said.
    “I do not.”
    He nodded instead of answering and she rolled off the door, leaving him to the watch.
    “I do not,” her thought reached him, and Maralt laughed over her stubbornness. She would argue if he answered, so he blocked his thoughts from her until she let it go.
    He settled back in the chair by the High Bishop and waited until Carryn was asleep in her room. Maralt thought about not reaching Dynan for a moment or two, but didn’t listen to the internal arguments for long. He concentrated. It was a little like tiptoeing up behind someone, hiding back in the shadows of other thoughts.
    It wasn’t quite dawn yet so he didn’t expect either of the twins would be awake, but Maralt found Dynan looking out one of the windows of his rooms. He was dressed for the day. Dynan wore a cloak over a coat and gloves. Maralt knew their schedule. There wasn’t anything on it to suggest they would be going out at this hour.
    Again, being this close to Dynan was like standing in a pool of liquid flame, not quite being burned but not entirely comfortable either. The eddying glow was distracting. It was intoxicating being inside it, throwing Maralt into a state of near euphoria that made thinking clearly difficult.
    Dynan turned around sharply, searching his room. Too close, Maralt concentrated on the wall paneling, studying the way the grain of the wood ran in lines and loops, the shade of stain and how it saturated one area and not another. It was difficult but not impossible to hide this way, invisible to Dynan by making him see what was familiar instead of Maralt.
    The Prince was sensitive, but untrained. Maralt managed the visual cover for a moment or two. Dynan frowned over it, staring hard at the wall, but then went back to looking outside.
    Maralt meant to look for the talisman in Dynan’s thoughts, but found he couldn’t get any closer. A palpable wall kept him out. He couldn’t get by it without using force and making Dynan aware of him. The shadow was still there and Maralt wondered if it was self-propagating. He shook his head at the thought. The talisman was an object, not a living thing.
    Sensing Dynan was about to discover him, Maralt backed off. He realized too that he was using a huge amount of energy to stay hidden. He felt himself shaking. Fatigue flowed through him. He couldn’t stay much longer and remain unseen.
    Dynan pulled a comboard from a pocket and looked at it briefly before setting it down on the table by his bed. Everyone carried one, so leaving his behind was deliberate. Without it, he couldn’t be traced.
    Dynan turned from the window then and left his bedroom. He moved down the hall toward the kitchen, but stopped about