die if she did. She had to stand her ground.
The buzzing voice of the Lord of Chaos slashed the air, dismissing her claim: “Bardsham is long dead. He told you nothing.”
“Yet your Agents here sought that name in seeking me. How is it they were thus confused?”
“It was your skill that confused the masses. They compared you to him. Bardsham was thrown from a span just like this one. A great height, wasn’t it, Scratta?”
“Thrown? Not turned into stone like all the others?”
Chaos rose up. “Why am I explaining myself to a puppeteer?” he shouted. “Scratta!”
“If I may,” she interjected and waited until the tension dampened. “You requested a story, a proof from him”—she pointed to Diverus—“and he couldn’t provide you with that.”
“Your musician. You said.”
“I did. Allow me to recompense you with such a tale. It will make up for his inability and satisfy you that I am she whom you’ve sought.” With a gesture at the undaya cases, she added, “You’ve kindly provided me my puppets, too, so I will give you a tale to hold you rapt and you will give us safe passage come morning.”
Tophet the Destroyer chuckled. “I’ve seen hundreds of your kind, and most of them you’ll find strewn among my possessions—the ones we haven’t left behind. You are brazen for someone so young and untested. You had best hope your talents match your presumption.”
“Lord.” Scratta filled that single syllable with all his misgivings.
“Yes,” Tophet answered and likewise in a syllable dismissed those doubts. “I’ll have her shadowplay now. What is your concern in it? You failed even to collect the right individual, tricked by an old sot.”
Scratta bowed his head. He looked at Leodora from beneath his brow. His lips stretched in what might have been a retributive smirk. “Yes, Lord,” he answered softly.
Leodora didn’t move.
“Well?” Tophet asked.
“My musician?” she said.
“One of you get him down.”
“I’ll need water for his wounds. Wine for him to drink.”
“Brazen,” he said again, and she unconsciously wrapped one hand around her pendant to keep it from speaking up.
“I don’t have to perform. We might instead take a meal with all your friends, Lord Tophet.”
His fingers squeezed the arms of the throne. “Do you appreciate at all to whom you speak in this manner?”
“I’m well aware,” she said.
Another pause followed, and then he sighed. “You remind me of someone, girl, who defied me even though she drowned in fear. Why don’t you remove that mask and show us your face?”
“Perhaps after my performance, and you can show me yours.”
Diverus, lowered from the chains, collapsed on the floor. They had torn three strips the length of his back. She could hardly keep from screaming at the sight of what they’d done to him. He babbled softly with foam and vomit on his lips.
“I doubt he’ll play you any tunes today,” Scratta said to her.
“Maybe not, but he won’t suffer any further because of me.”
The pale Agent shook his head slowly. “The day is long from over, storyteller.”
“You’re wrong,” she argued. “The day’s nearly done.” She carefully took hold of Diverus. His eyes fluttered open and focused on her a moment. He breathed her name and she shushed him. If Scratta heard the name, he didn’t respond. She held him to her, raised him to his feet, and then supported him while they shambled around the broad puppet screen.
An attendant delivered a goblet, a bowl of water, and a cloth. Leodora directed him to place them on the performer’s stool under the burning lantern that cast the silk screen in glaring light—too much light. She eased Diverus against the stool, where he stood leaning, his legs trembling but holding him up. She walked back into view of Tophet and his terrified audience, and struggled to remove the lid from the larger puppet case. Then she pulled it around the side of the screen. The second one she lifted as it was and carried out of sight. She stood the case on end directly in back of the lantern, where it threw a long shadow across the polished floor.
She took the bowl from the stool, rolled the cloth in it and then washed his face and mouth, soaked the cloth again and squeezed some of the water over Diverus’s back. He cried out, then hung his head and muttered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Again she hushed him. Then she turned away with the bowl and crouched down and poured the rest of the water in the stripe of shadow cast by