Faith pulled the door of the bedroom shut. It clicked gently. She breathed a sigh of relief, leaning her head against the wood. She closed her eyes.

Grace leaned back against the wall. "That was too close."

Faith straightened up again, summoning her composure. "Let me see your side."

Grace waved her way. "It's just a bruise. I checked it myself a moment ago. The bullet hit the hilt of my dagger." Grace looked at the door of the master bedroom worriedly. "Will he be alright?"

"He should." Faith pulled off her gloves, tucking them into her belt. "With fae blood in him he'll heal fast. I think I cleaned out all the iron."

Grace shook her head, worriedly. "I don't think it works like that."

"Well I don't know what else to do!" She glared at Grace.

Grace glared back, gesturing in the general direction of the front door. "We've got him stable, we go get a real healer!"

Faith raised her hands in frustration. "I don't think he'd want that!"

"It doesn't matter what he wants!" Grace's eyes took on a focussed look that almost made her look feline herself. "He's wounded badly! He needs help!"

Faith started to answer, but then glanced back to the bedroom door. She guided her sister to the stairs down into the first floor. More quietly, she said, "We can't betray him."

"Betray him?! We'll be saving his life!"

"And giving away his secrets!" Faith shook her head. "He's a very private man. If we let a doctor in here to see that he's a changeling, we may lose his good will forever."

Grace started to speak, but looked away, thinking about that. "He saved our lives."

"I know." Faith looked down the hall, sadly, then back to her sister. "We have to trust him now."

Grace sighed, rubbing her eyes. "Damn these Rendruan nobles and their stupid pride."

"It's not the Rendruan nobility." Faith looked to her, then to a painting in the hall. It was a thin, brown-haired woman with a boy on her lap and other children nearby. As was the convention of most Rendruan nobility, she was depicted with the shadow of a raven behind her. The artist had done well--the boy, though a child far younger than he was now, was unmistakably the changeling lord whose life they had just fought to save. In this painting, his features were softer, and he smiled.

The boy's father was not pictured.

Faith went on. "This is a family with a complicated past. In this country, they were probably faced with shame for some...indiscretion or another."

Grace studied the picture. "The hypocrisy here makes me sick. Every noble family in this damn country has bastards, they even have a word for it. They call it chaffing. And they--"

"It's not chaffing. Chaffing is when they send their children to other places, families, and institutions to be educated. A bastard is still a bastard."

Grace looked horrified. "Don't call him that!"

"I didn't, they did! Do you think I'd insult him after today?!"

Grace leaned back against the wall, studying the picture. "Well where are the rest of his family? Surely one of them can help him."

"Who even knows. But either none of his brothers were legitimate either, or they're all dead. It's the only way he'd be lord now."

Grace shook her head. "Unless no one else knows he's illigitimate." She walked to the painting. "There's only one brother here. The others are all girls."

Faith looked away. "And anything could have happened to him. Or their father."

"So what do we do?"

Faith rubbed her eyes. "We change his bandages, and we stay with him." She looked up. "And we see if there's anything to help him in this house."

---

The next few hours passed in careful search. No painting was left un-disturbed, in case there might be a safe or something behind it. No drawer was ignored, no pantry, no cupboard, no chest. Faith felt like a common burglar, periodically checking herself to see if she still felt this was better than getting a healer. The longer they went, the less she felt good about it. Grace frequently got distracted with the paintings, and it was she who pointed out that the only men in the paintings were Morphiel, his younger brother Lucian (according to the name plate), and Lord Augustin, their grandfather. The sisters, according to a family ledger buried in a drawer, had all married off to noblemen of various fiefdoms, many of them not even Rendruan.

Faith pulled another piece of paper out of the drawer. It appeared to contain a rubbing of a tombstone, simple, but for a small Hinterstrad crest carved in.

"Lucian Augustinovic Hinterstrad...Here, it gives his birth day and his death day..." Faith did the math in her head. "He was fifteen. The inscription says beloved brother, dedicated grandson, hope of his ancestors."

Grace took the rubbing. "Augustinovic. He took his grandfather's name as his patronymic."

"The father's not in the picture." Faith looked around. "In any of the pictures. But that explains how Morphiel got to be Lord Hinterstrad." She pulled the drawer out further. "Maybe there's correspondence in here from someone who can help us--"

Something heavy and metalic clinked on the floor. Grace looked under the drawer at a small square of folded paper. It was fat, like an envelope. "What the..." She bent to pick it up, her fingers closing on something hard and heavy, wrapped in an old piece of paper. She unfolded it carefully.

A piece of silver, flat, carved to look like the image of a sun blazon with a pair of scales in the middle. Attached to it was three inches of flat, shimmering gold silk, and a pin.

"A medal." Grace turned it over in her hands.

"The Silver Sun." Faith smirked. "I was right. He was a Staff. The Silver Sun is an award for distinguished heroism. He must have risked his life to protect someone. Only the Golden Sun is more distinguished, and only one was awarded in the last three hundred years. It was to a whole special unit, and it was posthumous. Entirely."

Grace shook her head slowly. "I don't understand. Why wouldn't he put that in a frame somewhere, or wear it to official functions? Why did he hide it in a drawer?"

Faith shook her head. "It looks like he's got more secrets than just his parentage." She carefully laid the medal on the dresser, and continued her search for aid.