"Ma'am," she said, in that light young voice. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"
Selina's eyes narrowed.
"She had a worm in her head," Alex said, as fast as he could. "A real one. Green. At the back of the skull. I pulled it out an hour ago. They made her drink it when she was nineteen and that's the last thing she remembers. She thinks she IS nineteen. They're all like that, Selina. Every red out there has one."
Nobody in the hall breathed.
Selina looked at Ash's eyes for a long time. Then she looked at her hands.
"Green," she said finally. "Did it have a little face on it?"
"You saw one?!"
"I spat one into a bush." The spear lifted away. "Infirmary. Somebody carry her, and be careful of the legs. If she so much as picks up a spoon wrong, I want to hear about it."
The burly man picked Ash up like she was made of eggs. She looked back at Alex over his shoulder the whole way to the door.
The man with the mace was still standing there, breathing hard.
"Guild Master. Jory is dead."
