"He's alive, but in a critical condition," Leo said as we hurried through the castle to the medical ward. "Kass heard a struggle and found him just as the attacker had fled, so Elise and Gideon managed to administer an antidote in time. But we don't know when -- or if -- he will wake up."

"Why didn't the murderer attack Queen Kassandra once they'd eliminated her guard?" I asked. My coat was now covering proper clothes, and I hugged it tighter as we passed through the chilly hallways.

"I don't know," Leo said. "I don't know anymore. I'm just thankful that they didn't."

I looked at him. "Leo... She would have been all right. Maybe, because the murderer slipped up and made a noise, they were intimidated at the thought of facing her and fled. Queen Kassandra is, after all, part dragon."

"Then we need to catch them before the next nightfall so that she isn't killed in her sleep. It seems they've finished playing games and giving us scares now. Our time is almost up."

"We'll do it, I promise," I said. "At least the ninjas have been ruled out as suspects. They were guarded all night."

We came to the big, black doors of the medical ward. Leo stopped. "Silas obviously won't be able to talk, but Gideon will go over the details of the poison, and Kass is in there, too. She should be able to tell you exactly what she heard."

"You're not coming in with me?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.

I glanced between him and the medical ward doors. "What, you're squeamish? Really?"

He looked back at me, his eyes shuttering, and I realised I'd hit a nerve.

"Right, okay," I said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

He turned away. "I'll be waiting in my study. Bring the notes you've made so far about the case."

He stalked back down the corridor, his head lowered. I felt guilty for dragging his discomfort into the light...and I supposed I was lucky he'd walked me all the way here.

I pushed open the doors and stepped into a large, grey room full of cots. Silas was lying directly ahead, his eyes closed. Gideon and Elise were standing over him. Queen Kassandra was sitting in a chair at his bedside, her head on King Xander's chest. Princess Camilla was sitting on her right, her hand on the Queen's back.

"I will fill in for Silas," she was saying. "Don't arrange for another member of the Royal Guard to come. You need someone better than that -- you need an army commander. No one will get past me, I promise you, and I promise we shan't be parted for even a millisecond of your day."

Queen Kassandra sat up, drawing away from her husband to look at her sister. "But, Camilla, what if --"

She caught sight of me and broke off, turning even whiter. It occurred to me that as an investigator, I was somewhat symbolic of these murders, and very few people in the castle actually spoke to me without a feeling of dread.

I stopped in front of them all and glanced at Silas. Then I looked back at Queen Kassandra, her face drawn and miserable.

"Good morning, Captain Grace," Gideon said.

"Good morning," I replied. "How is he?"

"Alive. The rest is impossible to tell. Do you remember me mentioning a poison called pixie?"

"I do."

"That's what was injected, but I was able to administer an antidote that contains fladyn to save him. I've learned through my experiments that fladyn counteracts pixie. One would also assume that pixie counteracts fladyn, but I haven't quite --"

"That's interesting," I said flatly. "I'm glad you were able to save him. Queen Kassandra, Leo mentioned something about you hearing a struggle. Do you mind giving me a full account of what happened, my lady?"

"Of course not," she said, her voice thick. She cleared her throat. "It wasn't really a struggle, I suppose. Just a thud. It woke me up. I would have ignored it if not for the murderer within this castle. It was Silas' turn to guard us, so I called out to him, but there was no response. I suppose my voice must have scared the murderer off. When I went to the door, I saw someone in a dark cloak with the hood drawn up disappear around the corner. And Silas...he was just lying on the floor, burning up. The poison was taking hold of him so quickly. Xander woke up, and we carried him..." Her voice cracked, and she choked on her words.

King Xander put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close again. "He'll be all right."

I looked back at Silas and saw my failures stacking up. He wouldn't be lying there if I'd worked out who the murderer was. 

"Thank you for your time," I murmured, turning away.

I left the medical ward and went back up to my room to collect my notes. Then I tried to remember how to get to Leo's study. Eventually, I found what I thought was the right room -- although it was somewhat difficult to tell when the doors were all unmarked -- and knocked.

"Come in," Leo called.

I opened the door and went inside. Leo was sitting at his desk, still looking a little pale. Sheets of parchment covered in looping handwriting were scattered across the surface, and he kept his gaze on them as I approached. I wasn't certain if he was concentrating or simply avoiding looking at me, so I grabbed the other chair without discussion and carried it around to his side of the workspace again.

I put my own notes on the desk. Leo picked them up and flicked through them. He stopped when he reached the list of suspects. "Clara? Your maid?"

"I don't want to think it's her, but she has a motive," I replied. "King Garon ordered for her tongue to be cut out during his reign, then imprisoned her...well, I'm sure you know that. She outstayed her sentence by one year before King Xander released her, and she's not happy about it. Her fiancé died while she was waiting."

Leo looked up and met my eyes, frowning. "How do you know that?"

"She told me so, in a note." I started unlacing my boot.

He watched as I took my foot out of my boot and lifted the inner sole to reveal the secret compartment. I picked up the knife and unravelled the note, passing it to him.

He took it. "I didn't know you kept a knife in your boot. Is the other one the same?"

"Yes. It's not a place many people think to look."

"The Royal Guard didn't when I arrested you."

"No. But you were in no danger of being stabbed -- I couldn't get to them."

He didn't smile. He just smoothed Clara's note out and read it silently. At last, he looked up. "Why didn't you do as she asked and burn it?"

"It seemed like a stupid thing to do when we're running a murder inquiry. But I also didn't want to betray her trust in me when there was no evidence pointing towards her."

"Which is why you didn't show it to me until now." Leo's jaw was tight.

"Yes, but there's something else. My dagger's gone missing -- the one I was keeping under my pillow. Someone's taken it. Clara was in there before the poker game...she put something in her apron, and I thought it was the book she'd lent me the night before. But it could have been the dagger. She wouldn't look at me afterwards."

Leo put his head in his hands. "If Clara is the murderer, then her actions mix you up in this even further -- and put you in more danger."

"Alternatively, she could have taken it for her own protection because she's scared, but she was afraid to be caught for thievery. Or she really was just taking the book, and someone else had been in and stolen the dagger beforehand."

"But why would she have behaved strangely around you after that?" Leo shook his head and glared at the notes in front of us. "This is ridiculous. Why is nothing about this case certain?"

"The link to Queen Kassandra still is," I reminded him. "We need to add Silas to the list of victims. The murderer certainly intended for him to die. Hopefully, he'll wake up and tell us what happened soon. He should have got a good look at who the culprit is."

"I don't think he'll wake up soon enough. We have got to catch this killer today."

"Let's add to our notes and then go over them again to see what we have. We can question Clara once the sun has actually risen and everyone else in this castle gets up."

Leo wrote Silas down on my list of victims, and the poison that had been used. "The murderer was clearly able to get hold of a new weapon."

"Gideon's favourite poison," I replied. "Is that suspicious?"

"Everything is suspicious."

He finished writing, then organised our notes into one collection of papers. We read them together in silence. It took about half an hour to get through it all, as Leo had written pages and pages of musings that had seemingly tumbled straight from his head and onto the parchment. I felt no more enlightened by the end of it.

He gathered everything back together again with a sigh. We sat, miserably stumped, for a moment.

"Was Kass all right when you spoke to her?" he asked suddenly.

I shrugged. "She was shaken up, but she was physically all right, I suppose. King Xander was with her, and Princess Camilla, but she probably would have liked it if you had come in and spoken to her as well."

I pressed my lips together as soon as I'd said it, wondering if I'd hit a nerve again. But I felt that it needed to be said, and I wanted an explanation for his behaviour. There were enough unknowns about the current situation as it was.

He sighed and closed his eyes. "I know. I...I just find it very difficult to go into the medical ward."

I watched him carefully. "Have you always been like that?"

"No." He opened his eyes again. "But I've been Xander's tactician since the moment Father first sent me on missions. When I saw all the soldiers in the medical tent, laid up with injuries, it always made me feel guilty. My plans had failed everyone who was hurt. After a while, I grew uncomfortable with entering the medical tents...or any sort of medical ward." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"And?" I pressed gently.

He met my gaze, his eyes startled. "And what?"

"There's more. You don't have to explain it if you don't want to, but I'll listen if you do."

His arms rose and began to fold across his chest, as if by instinct. But he suddenly dropped them and released another deep sigh. "Well...perhaps it would benefit you to hear it, given your nightmares. It's about my first kill.

"A group of young Hoshidan soldiers had come to the edge of the border to scout the activity of our nearby troops. We were sent to drive them back -- it was my first mission. They may not have been close enough for swords, but they were close enough for tomes. We were ordered to attack them. I hit a woman who was so young that it was possible she was on her first mission, like me.

"We captured her and a few other Hoshidans as prisoners of war, and then we travelled back to the castle. After each day of riding, a medical tent would be set up and the infirm would be taken inside. Each day, I would go and see the woman, for she was my prisoner and so I had the task of interrogating her. Each day, she remained unconscious. I worried endlessly that she would die. It wasn't what I had wanted when I'd hit her. It didn't seem fair. I dreaded going to the medical tent and looking at her, because every time I visited, her life faded a little more before my eyes.

"On the fourth day of our journey, she died. I felt so guilty that I hated visiting the medical ward afterwards. That's where the phobia started." He leaned forwards, hanging his head.

"Gods, Leo, I'm sorry." I put my hand on his arm. "That must be awful."

"I can, for the most part, bear the burden. It's just when I'm in the medical ward that I cannot."

"What happens?"

He blushed.

"I'm not going to tease you," I said. "But I'm your friend, aren't I? I want to know so that I can help you if it's ever necessary."

"You can probably guess," he muttered.

"Well, you were very good with me when I felt dizzy."

He sat up. "Yes. The next time I walked into a medical ward after the Hoshidan girl had died, I collapsed." His blush deepened. "Only Camilla knows that. She was there. I've tried to avoid the medical ward ever since, although that can be a problem at times. At least I've never fainted again."

I squeezed his arm. "We match in that respect, then. But you still feel dizzy when you enter them?"

His blush spread down his neck, and he pulled away. "Stop making me spell it out. All of Nohr would have a field day if they knew."

"Don't worry. If I ever decide to make one of your secrets public, it will be about the tomatoes."

Leo stared at me for a moment. Then his lips twitched. "You've been so sincere lately that I almost forgot about our early conversations."

"Then let me say this before my sincerity wears off: lots of people have phobias. It's normal, and it doesn't make you weak. It just makes you human."

"I wish I could see it that way." His face softened. "But I'm glad you do."