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“That isn’t entirely true. Numair is still looking for you.”
Alys's head jerked up. “He is?”
Clare nodded.
“Idiot man,” Alys muttered with long-suffering affection.
“There is a simple solution. If you aren’t worried about Numair, just tell him you’re fine. He can quit looking.”
“It isn’t so simple as all that.”
“No?”
“No. You were right when you said Numair and I were childhood friends. He…changed, around fifteen winters. It was six months or so after his mother died. That is when he became…” She waved a hand airily. “Lord Numair Tolvannen, famous court drunk and male whore. It is as if everything that made him the person I’d known disappeared.
“He was sometimes still himself on the odd occasion we went riding or something, but it surfaced less and less. When we were nineteen, I actually tried to get him to quit drinking.” She smiled bitterly. “I told him he was making a fool of himself, and if he didn’t stop, he would be this for the rest of his life.”
Clare said nothing. He’d fooled everyone. Even Alys. But Clare was more interested in the timing. “You think it was his mother’s death that changed him?”
“I thought so at the time. I even asked him outright, thought maybe he needed…I don’t know, to talk about it.”
“What did he say?”
“Something that didn’t make any sense.”
When Clare simply looked at her, Alys sighed and said, “He said that it had everything to do with her death, and nothing at all to do with his feelings, so if I thought he simply needed to have a good cry on my shoulder, I was hopelessly mistaken.”
Alys straightened, and Clare could tell they were done speaking of memories. “The Arrendons knew exactly what they were getting into when they offered me shelter. So I’ll tell you, like I told them, that if I become a problem, I’ll leave. Though I really don’t think you understand that no one is going to look at the Arrendon household for a runaway duchess.”
“Because of that business with the Mages War?”
“That’s barely the start of it.”
“But you trust them?”
Alys shrugged. “Marquin saved my life when I was five. I’d gotten angry with my parents and run away to live in the woods. I got lost, broke my ankle. There was a whole search party out, but it was Marquin who found me. It’s kind of hard to be afraid of someone who carried you three miles home and told you stories the whole time.” Alys nodded at the basket of envelopes. “Anyway, I suppose what you actually want help with is navigating that mess?”
“Yes.”
Alys drummed her fingers on the table, considering. “I’ll do it. I’ll teach you everything you need to know about navigating the wonderful ladies of Veralna’s Court. But I need something in return.”
“What?”
“A favor. A future favor, to be delivered at the time of my choosing.”
“I’m not killing anyone for you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle the killing myself. I just need you to…deliver something. A message, when I need it sent.”
“Fine. Agreed.”
Alys pushed the basket at her. “Tell me which ones you think are important.”
“There’s another part to this request.” Clare forced the next words out. “I can’t read.”
“You’ll want to fix that. For now…” Alys sorted through the envelopes with hardly a glance, making three piles. One contained the majority of the envelopes, the middle maybe ten, and the last, only two. She tapped the large pile. “None of these matter. I’ll tell you the names and you can memorize them later. These” —she tapped the second pile— “you need to respond to but don’t have to accept. And these” —she tapped the final two envelopes— “you can’t politely decline.”
“What are they?”
