sunlight, and I thought the better of it. Instead, I whispered his name against his temple and gently led him on.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CAIUS
It had been nearly a week since Josette, Alcibiades, and I had shared our tête-à-tête in the general’s room, and we had yet to find an opportunity in which to get Lord Temur by himself.
The man was simply impossible!
“Of course, we would have to pick one of the more popular lords.” I sighed, murmuring my complaint to Alcibiades behind the fall of my sleeve. “He’s much too sociable for a Ke-Han warlord.”
“I thought that was what you liked about him,” Alcibiades countered in a maddening fashion.
He reached over me to spear one of the fried dumplings that had somehow begun cropping up at our table. Alcibiades did well enough with his sticks, even if he did use them as if they were weapons instead of eating utensils. I couldn’t help but think that his improved mood had a great deal to do with the fare, though that in turn was doubtless more to do with my helpful little suggestions to Lord Temur—all of them exquisitely tactful—than any hint the cooks might have taken from Alcibiades’ plates of fish going back untouched.
Josette, on my left, took a sip of her tea, watching our quarry with an expression that I might have termed intimate concern were I feeling more romantic about the whole thing. Really, she almost made it too easy for me. She was much like Alcibiades in that fashion, poor thing. Some people just couldn’t keep anything to themselves.
“Are we sure this is the proper way to go about things?” Josette asked.
“Oh, surely not proper,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my lips, “but it will be simplest. And it’s dreadfully efficient. I’m a bit out of practice since the war ended, and unlike Alcibiades, I haven’t had any opportunity for fun.”
“Fun,” Alcibiades snorted. “I wouldn’t call it that, exactly.”
I was starting to take the impression that my companions were experiencing what amounted to a softening of the heart. It was not quite a change of heart, since Alcibiades at the very least could be counted on to stick to a decision once he’d made it, but I could still tell that the poor dears were having doubts. Even to men such as Alcibiades, hardened on the battlefield, my Talent was a questionable force. When asked directly, the most explanation that people could manage was that it didn’t seem “quite fair,” all things considered.
That was all right. It was an attitude I’d grown rather used to in my eighteen years of living at the palace, and subsequently in exile. I was an ally, but not trusted—a necessary weapon, whose means were considered underhanded and whose actions left a considerably sour taste in most people’s mouths. The fact that I enjoyed my work seemed to be what distressed them the most, but I was good at it, and I made it a point always to enjoy the things I was good at.
So I was quite prepared to go through with our plan, even if it meant losing the friendships I’d cultivated there. I held no real illusions about the strength of such relationships, anyway, knowing full well that Josette only put up with me because my good general did, and that Alcibiades only put up with me because he was, bless him, an endearingly simple creature to baffle, and I thrust myself into his company more often than not.
That, and I considered us friends. He would simply have to forgive me my transgressions. And he would, given enough time.
Besides, it was terribly cumbersome living beholden to the whims and expectations of other people. I’d gone dreadfully overboard in my enthusiasm on first arriving within the Ke-Han capital, and it was time to prune back what had bloomed.
Everyone made their jokes about the instability on my mother’s side of the family, but the truth was it made things very difficult when one came out of a spell of madness to find one’s life all askew. It had happened once, just before my period of exile, but I was grateful for that one—it meant I had to recall very little of my first few weeks therein. I sometimes felt as though I spent at least half my time putting things to right again. It could be exhausting, but there were moments that made it quite worthwhile.
Getting the chance to exercise my powers was certainly one of those moments, and in