"Then we will just have to find you new people to meet," she said lightly, scooping up his hand in hers. "Maybe hire you your own bard so you won't need to borrow mine." She was mostly teasing. "Until then, I'll be your friend. I know it is not the same and . . . and to be quite honest I don't know if it is a good thing, for us to be each other's only friend. But it's not going to be fore'er, I promise."

Marcello smiled. "I know," he answered. "And I love you, and you're the most perfect friend I could possibly have." He squeezed her hand. "It isn't a good thing. We need people apart from each other. But...well. That's why I was happy about the Queensman. He may not be here, but he's not so far off."

Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Dear me, it seems everyone is taking to this Queensman. Still waters and all. Maybe I need to sneak off and have a private chat with him."

"You could," Marcello replied. "And Fiona, too. It sounds like she doesn't have many friends, either. But I think it would be good, if we can be on friendly terms with these people. Especially if it doesn't take much in the way of effort."

She smiled. "I quite like Her Majesty. She is a little peculiar but she seems clever enough. I do not know if she will care to come back, though. This all seemed very hard on her, but I don't know if it is being here in particular or if it's hard for her to be anywhere."

"I think it was," Marcello replied. "But I think she wants to try to have better relations between us. I feel like...well, we can go there. And the Queensman told me something about how the circles were destroyed? How can we fix them?"

Niabheara frowned, as if she did not understand him. "Fix them? If they're gone . . . they're just gone."

Marcello frowned. "But...destroyed suggests it's broken, doesn't it? That it could be repaired? Is there...can't you build new ones?"

"No one had e'er built a new one," she said. "No one knows who built these ones. Everyone says the sister-queens built them."

"Well, then they must have been built," Marcello pointed out cheerily. "That's good, isn't it? It means it's possible."