Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The following chapter, “Ransom,” opens with a brief note about recognizing children who have the Skill before moving into Fitz and Dutiful arriving through the Skill-pillar back whence they had fled. Fitz reassesses their situation, finding it suboptimal, but is surprised that his horse, Myblack, awaits them. He hustles Dutiful along, the horse following, until he can get the Prince astride the steed. As they proceed, Fitz hums to himself, speaking to Dutiful about his magics; Dutiful notes that the woman is with him, raging at his inability to attack Fitz through the Skill-command. He also speaks of his cat and the ways in which the woman in the cat would not allow the cat to be a cat.

Fitz becomes aware of pursuit and of the suffering of his wolf, and the Prince’s abductors emerge. Fitz threatens Dutiful, and pursuit pauses, one pursuer questioning why Fitz stands against others of the Old Blood; Fitz lays out his reasoning, and the pursuer rages against the Farseers. Dutiful hears it, and Fitz learns the underpinnings of the plot against Dutiful; the deaths of the Witted at the hands of the Six Duchies and their Farseer monarchs. Fitz manages to dicker for time and the release of the Fool and Nighteyes, a thin hope for all involved, and they are taken to where the abductors hold Lord Golden and Nighteyes. Fitz directs the Fool and communes briefly with Nighteyes, sadly so, and Dutiful begins to be possessed by the dead woman, Peladine, but he offers some resistance.

Things just do not seem to improve for Fitz, do they? At least he recognizes his own complicity in creating the current situation, although he had no way to expect that many or any of his entanglements would occur as they have in the novel. And it is not as if he had not already given his life in service to the Six Duchies…but even that does not mean that his actions did not give rise to what befalls now, as well as what is portended. Because the deal Fitz has struck with the Prince’s abductors, the Piebalds, is a tenuous one at best, and he has to expect that it will not be honored. As suspicious as Fitz is even of those closest to him, he can hardly not believe that others, less kindly disposed toward him, will be forthright…

Send some money my way?