“What’s happened?” I asked him as I went to him.
He stared at me, and then said overloudly, “I can’t hear you.”
“What’s happened to you?” I asked again, more loudly.
I don’t think he heard those words, either, but he explained, “It blew up. I was working on that same mix, the one I showed you at your cottage. This time it worked too well. It blew up!” He lifted his hands to his face, patting at his cheeks and brow. His face was tragic. I immediately knew what troubled him. I went and got him a looking glass. He stared into it while I fetched a fresh basin of water and a cloth. I wet it for him, and he held it against his face for a moment. When he took it away, some of the flush had gone from his skin, but most of his eyebrows had, also.
“It looks as if a great flash of fire hit you. Part of your hair is singed also.”
“What?”
I motioned to him to lower his voice.
“I can’t hear you,” he repeated plaintively. “My ears are ringing as if my stepfather had boxed them for me. Gods, I hated that man!”
That he spoke of him at all was a measure of his distress. Chade had never told me much of his childhood. He lifted his hands and fingered his ears as if to be sure they were still there, and then plugged and unplugged them with his fingers. “I can’t hear,” he repeated yet again. “But my face isn’t too bad, is it? I’m not going to be scarred, am I?”
I shook my head at him. “Your eyebrows will grow back. This”—I touched his cheek lightly—“seems no worse than a sunburn or wind scald. It will go away. And I think your deafness will pass, also.” I had no basis for saying the last, save that I hoped it so devoutly.
“I can’t hear you,” he agonized.
I patted his shoulder comfortingly and put my cup of tea in front of him. I touched my mouth to draw his attention to my lips and then said carefully, “Is your apprentice all right?” Well I knew he would not be conducting such experiments alone at such an hour.
He watched my mouth move, and after a moment he seemed to comprehend my words because he said, “Don’t worry about that. I took care of her.” Then, at my shocked look at his use of the feminine pronoun, he exclaimed angrily, “Mind your own business, Fitz!”
His irritation was directed more at himself than at me, and if I had not been so worried about him, I would have laughed. Her. So I’d been replaced with a girl. I reined my mind away from considering who she was, or why Chade had chosen her, to giving Chade what comfort I could. After a time, I ascertained that Chade could hear me, but not well. I dared to hope his hearing would recover, and tried to convey that to him. He nodded and waved a hand dismissively, but I could see the haunting worry in his eyes. If his deafness remained, it would severely compromise his ability to counsel the Queen.
Nevertheless, he bravely tried to ignore his injury, asking me loudly if I’d seen the scrolls on the table, and then asking me what on earth I’d done to my face. To keep him from shouting more questions, I wrote down brief answers to his questions. I dismissed my injuries as the result of accidentally getting involved in a random tavern brawl. He was too preoccupied with his own problems to question that. Next he wrote on the scrap of paper we were using, “Did you speak with Burrich?”
“I judged it best not to,” I inked in reply. He pursed his lips, sighed, and said nothing, but I could tell that there was much he wished to say. He’d save it for later when conversation might be easier. Then we went over the spy scrolls, pointing out interesting bits to one another even as we agreed that there was nothing there that was immediately useful. Chade wrote that he was hoping to hear soon from a spy that he’d sent out to Aslevjal Isle, to see if there was any scrap of truth to the legend.
I wanted to discuss my progress with Thick and Dutiful, but deferred that not only on account of his dampened hearing but because I was still trying to sort out how well I was doing. I’d already decided that I’d take my efforts with Thick further tomorrow.
It was then that I realized tomorrow was nearly upon us. Chade seemed to realize the same thing. He told me that he would seek his own bed, and plead a stomach affliction when the servant came to wake him.
I had no such luxury of bed rest. Instead, I retreated briefly to my room to put on fresh clothing before I made the trek to Verity’s tower to await both my students. I am sure I dreaded the day’s lesson more than either of them, for my head still pounded. I clenched my brow against it as I built a fire in the tower hearth and kindled some candles on the table. Sometimes I could not recall the last time I had been completely free of Skill-pain. I briefly considered going back to my room for elfbark. When I rejected the notion, it was not because I feared it would damage my ability to Skill. It was that I connected the drug too strongly with my stupid quarrel with the Fool. No. No more of that.
