I watched Winsor snore for several moments as I waited for Rorona to be gone, and then I slinked from the bedroom into the hallway. There didn't seem to be anyone. I didn't check the rooms I'd already been in, but instead made a beeline for the far hallway I hadn't been able to get to before. Instead of creeping, I walked tall and purposefully. As if I were supposed to be there.

Directly across from Winsor's room, I heard activity in Charmster Toles's room. Odd. She was supposed to be outside. There was angry muttering and drawers slamming before the sounds of someone else shushing the disgruntled occupant. I continued; it wasn't Mallow.

At the end of the hall, crying slipped beneath the door like a secret note. Azeria. Someone must have brought her in here to warm up as well, perhaps one of the servants of the household.

I slowed my pace. I felt exposed in the dim light of the hallway lanterns with nothing to hide behind. I pressed my hand to the door, fighting back a smirk as I remembered how the last time me listening at doors had ended. I listened, and her stricken voice was muffled by the thick wood.

"What if he doesn't recover?" Azeria hiccupped between crying, her words as sincere and melodramatic as Winsor's. "I got sick before I could see. What if he doesn't—"

"Forget Winsor. What if you don't recover, Enchanted One? Your Proving is only a month away. You took a terrible risk," Tyas said. Her words had a high tone to them, like she had something caught on her throat and was wheezing around it. "Really, it's quite thoughtless how he's always expecting you to save him. I mean, I know he's only a human and that we elves are all terribly brave compared to them, even a lowly servant such as I, but—"

"Terribly brave?" Azeria's outrage, like when she asked who I was, how dare I speak to her, except magnified by a hundred. "Were we at different garden parties? I must be mistaken because as far I can recall there wasn't a single brave elf there, just a bunch of trembling, excuse-conjuring cretins—"

"Enchanted One! Those are your peers, some of them your betters."

"Nobody helped!"

"Winsor is scary. There's something wrong with him, and we can all sense it. Isn't that why you've been turning him away? You'd do well to follow your instincts once more and ignore him, Enchanted One."

"Follow my instincts?" Azeria barked a laugh. I no longer leaned against the door, I was standing outside of it, hearing the shouted words. "I suppose your instincts are fine with free meals and parties and dances and performances performed in Winsor's honor. Your instincts support staying in his manor and kissing up to his father and mother. Your instincts are spot on when they tell you to spend hours exploiting this party for all the fun you can wring from it. But those instincts, they stop short of helping Winsor when he's lying at your feet about to freeze to death?"

"It sounds terrible when you put it like that Azeria. Don't be upset at me. I'm your Assistant; I was terrified I would lose you when you caught his curse. I am trying to tend you. You do not need the anguish of concerning yourself with him."

"I wouldn't have had to be tended to if somebody else would have been willing to help." Then, quieter. "I don't know how you all sleep at night."

"I have a Cosmostic-sized down filled mattress with Zanthachaun imported silk sheets and a bug-proof enchanted canopy net. You know that. It's in your room; you bought it for me... Oh Azeria!" The high pitched voice went even higher, until it was shrill. "The curse is eating away at your memories as well as your body. This is terrible! I should have held you back; I shouldn't have let you touch him."

"Uaaaaagh," Azeria groaned. I stifled a laugh. Her friends were oblivious as well as insensitive. "Just go! Get out!"

"But I'm caring for you Azeria—"

"You're only eating the blueberries they brought me, you ridiculous twit. Get out."

"Auh!" A scandalized exhalation. "I will go, and I want you to know I don't hold you responsible- I'm sure you're only acting this way because somehow Winsor's unpersonable attitude has magically backwashed into your usually generous heart—"

"I am going to curse you. I am so serious. Leave."

"Whatever you wish, Enchanted One."

Azeria's friend passed from the room, shooting a glare back at me. She curled a lip in contempt. I saw a small fleck of blueberry skin snagged between her tiny, perfect, pearl-like teeth. Bowing in deference, I slipped my foot in and caught the door before it closed. Once she a ways down the hall, I slipped into the room.

"What is it? I thought I said—" Azeria began. Her eyes had trails of black makeup beneath them from where she'd cried while getting sick, and I had the absurd thought that they matched Winsor's own sleep-deprived rings of darkness nicely. Her lipstick and the rest of the makeup on her lower face had been wiped away when she'd cleaned off the puke, meaning I saw the color change easily when face flushed.

She yanked the blankets up around her bare shoulders, only kept from implied nudity by the thin straps of a dress slip. The tips of her pointed ears went red. "What are you doing in here? Haven't you caused enough trouble tonight you insolent Assistant?"

"I came to tell you that Winsor is fine." I bowed my head low; I had to hide the grin on my face. Women's clothes tended to not be comfortable in any position, much less lying down when recovering from illness. She was in her undergarments. I glanced around the room, and saw the gloomy yet feminine dress she'd been wearing at the party draped over the back of a chair. Its laces were dusted with dirt. She slipped her shoulders underneath the blanket too, leaving only her head to pop out like a swaddled infant. I wasn't thinking anything lusty, she was practically a kid, but her embarrassment was instantly endearing.

"He is?" she asked.

"Thanks to you. You saved him. You have my gratitude."

"You needn't tell Winsor. I don't want his thanks. I ... want him to be well."

"I was wishing to fetch one of his personal artifacts, from his... lab. You wouldn't happen to know where it is?" I asked. "I was only hired this week and still do not know my way around the manor. Winsor told me you used to often visit."

Azeria tilted her head, causing the ringlets of hair to shift on the blanket. They were dark, recently rinsed.

"His lab? No. As far as I know, he does most of his work in his room. Sometimes Divinis Wenrick lets Winsor and Bernard use his lab in the cellar if he were there to supervise, but I don't think Winsor keeps much down there," She scoffed. "You shouldn't bring him anything right now. He's in no condition to work."

"There's a project he is trying to finish before you leave."

"Another present?" Her tension melted and the blanket slipped a little, revealing her soft shoulders. "I've told him I will not marry him no matter what presents he brings me. I'm going on my Proving and that's that. He really is incorrigible, isn't he?"

"He is. If I am not saying too much, he is working on something he hopes will aid you in your Proving."

Azeria glared at me. I realized that was my cue to go; she had given me all the information she could. I placed my hand on the door. I cracked it open.

"I was jealous."

The words were so soft I almost didn't hear them. I continued to open the door as if I hadn't, just to make sure, and then she cried after me. "I was jealous."

"Enchanted One?" I closed the door before spinning and gazing at her. She scowled at me, angry.

"I was jealous. I didn't know it, but you did. That's upsetting."

I said nothing.

"Why did absorbing his magic make me sick?"

"He was very cold."

"I suppose. My siblings were always practicing. Winsor by contrast was someone truly pushed to their limits..." She rubbed her shoulders beneath the blanket. She then let her hands hang on her own shoulders, hugging her own body. "Before that... Before I got sick, it felt nice to hold him." A crease formed between her fashionably shaped eyebrows. "I miss him."

"You don't have to," I said, crossing the floor. I picked up a piece of firewood and tossed it on top of the stack. I poked at the log with the fireside tools, moving around the hot embers. I didn't say anything else. I was making a soft sales pitch. Maybe if Winsor had her, he wouldn't need my Mallow. "He is only a few doors down from here."

Azeria stared at the door.

"He is so unusual. The magic smell, the funny way he dresses, how he's always so intense..." Her words grew warm with admiration even though objectively they were insults. "He gets odder every year... and so fragile. I've always had to keep the bullies off his back..."

The fire licked around the sides of the log.

"He is a good master, from the little I've seen, all oddness accounted for." My tone was noncommittal.

"There are already so many jokes about the absurdity of his devotion... the yearning desperation of it. If others knew I enjoyed the attention, that his acts of adoration kept my spirits high when everything else was determined to make life bleak... they would think that I am odd too."

"Enchanted One, it seems you already think very little of them, what consequence would it be if they thought very little of you?"

A sound of shuffling came from behind me. Azeria's comforter and sheets tumbled over the edge of the bed as she sat up. The shadowy light from the fire did more to conceal the details of her robust body than the flimsy pale colored slip. Her hair was messily done, and I saw that her ankles were trembling uncontrollably. But this wasn't her inviting me. She fixated only at the door. She was marshalling her bravery.

"The temptation was so strong to find a path out of the Proving when I was younger. After what Bernard did to Winsor, I hated that I almost married someone that was so cruel. Winsor's love came so easily, it had to be another mistake. So I resisted it."

I silently tended the fire, biding my time.

"But... I don't want Winsor with other women." Her voice broke again. "And I want to hold him again. Smell and all. I'm tired of doing what I should instead of what I want." She bunched her fists on her knees. "Is... is he alone?" She sounded absolutely terrified of what she was about to do.

"He was. Once his parents return, I believe they will want to stay with him."

"Then, tomorrow." She pulled her legs back under the blanket with a small sense of relief. The trembling lessened. "I should tell him. I will tell him. Tomorrow." She settled her head on the pillow. I was not going to be able to rush this anymore then I had already. Mallow would still need to be rescued tonight, but perhaps Winsor would be so distracted with Azeria there would be no pursuit tomorrow. This was still a good gain.

"The floor is too cold right now anyway. And he's probably sleeping." She sounded relaxed now, as only those whose tasks had been relegated to 'the future' can. "Azark, was it?"

"Yes."

"You are a good Assistant, impertinence and inability aside."

"Thank you, Enchanted One," I said. And taking this cue, I made my exit. As the door closed behind me, I found satisfaction in the lack of crying sounds coming from the room. That particular thread tied up, I knew now whatever room Mallow was in, Azeria was not likely to have been in it. Mallow couldn't have been in the Divinis's cellar, as it was highly illegal to own a Moon Giant. I'd been reminded of that fairly recently by the red-clothed Arcana Enforcement Agents when they had harassed Mallow and I. The Divinis wouldn't risk it, so where was Winsor keeping her if not the cellar and not his room...

The dungeons were too obvious. The tower would have been a good suspect, except Winsor said he hadn't been there in a long time. And he wouldn't guide me there when he knew Mallow was mine... Except, he had said he was going to the library to learn about Moon Giants. What if that was his code for examining Mallow?

The door behind me flew open. I grabbed the door handle next to me, and twisted. Locked. I hurried to the door on the other side of the hallway and wrenched it open. This one did swing open, but too late, and I heard a furious call behind me.

"You!"

Winsor's mother stormed across the hall toward me, the many layers of her formal dress swishing noisily. I froze, uncertain of what to do. She grabbed the collar of my shirt and pinned me against the wall.