With Prince Dutiful recovered and the court at Buckkeep settling back into its rhythms, FitzChivalry Farseer finds that a return to quiet isolation is no longer possible. Living under the alias Tom Badgerlock and serving publicly as bodyguard to the nobleman Lord Golden, in truth the Fool, Fitz takes up residence in the castle and resumes his work as Chade's apprentice assassin. He is also charged with instructing Prince Dutiful in the Skill, the hereditary Farseer magic, while guarding the dangerous secret that the prince, like Fitz, carries the persecuted beast-magic called the Wit. The political climate is tense: the Piebalds continue to threaten exposure, and persecution of the Witted is intensifying across the Six Duchies. As Fitz searches for others able to teach or share the Skill, he discovers within Buckkeep a person of raw, untrained talent whose hostility toward him could prove disastrous. An Outislander delegation arrives to advance Dutiful's betrothal, and unexpected visitors from Bingtown surface secrets about the Fool's past that test the bond between the two friends. Hobb keeps the focus tight on character and relationship, the evolving, often painful friendship between Fitz and the Fool, Fitz's place at a court that believes him dead, and the burdens of mentorship, making this middle volume more intimate and court-bound than its bookends, while threading the larger questions of prophecy and the return of dragons.