you looked in the gardens?” Lord Temur asked. “He holds great affection for our fireflies, and can often be found there in the early evening.”
“Well, you’ve just been making friends with everyone, haven’t you?” I exploded, even though I wasn’t the one conducting the investigation, and I probably should’ve waited for Caius to say it was my turn, or whatever. I was done doing things this way. I’d tried being diplomatic, and that hadn’t worked, and now what? It was all just some crazed Emperor’s ruse to get us here, spy on us, then trap us here indefinitely. I could feel the bars of the cage sliding into place and I hated it.
The whole thing was ridiculous.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, because I had to say something as Caius and Lord Temur both were staring at me. “This whole time, he’s probably been watching us and reporting back to the Emperor with bastion knows what. How we like our tea and how many fried dumplings I bought at that stand and how many steps it took to get from the theatre district to the artists’ alley. Did you tell him about all those prints we looked at, Lord Temur? The ones that called him out for the brother-hunting madman he is? Or did you tell him about the play, and how his brother what’s-his-name is some kind of folk hero now that he’s gone and declared him a traitor? How about how many people booed when his player got up onstage? Does he know it’s common opinion that he’s about as good as a raving, conniving lunatic who—”
“Alcibiades,” Caius said.
I shut up. So much for not talking. I was so angry I could feel my face turning red like a lobster in boiling water.
Lord Temur folded his hands against the blanket like it was a table, and we were having another one of those diplomatic meetings, just the three of us this time. The only thing different I could see was that there was a ring of white flesh around Lord Temur’s mouth that made him look like he’d caught fever or a plague. Somewhere in his soul, tradition meant that he should kill me for what I’d just said about his Emperor; and, somewhere in his soul, he also knew I was right.
That shut me up good and proper.
“I was…” Temur began. “Rather I am, still, quite curious about Volstovic customs and culture.” He spoke slowly but firmly with his head held up. The Ke-Han had seventeen different ways to bow, but apparently none of those applied to torturers and kidnappers. “My interest led me to speak first with Lord Greylace and Margrave Josette, both of whom seemed to harbor a corresponding curiosity about our own traditions and habits. It was through their association that I also came to meet you, General Alcibiades, and, though I can hardly expect you to believe me under the circumstances, no machinations more complicated than that.”
His face darkened for a moment, and he looked at me.
“Of course, my lord Emperor is exceedingly clever at using a situation to his advantage if you will take my meaning.”
Caius made a noise like a hiss and sat down on my bed to look Lord Temur in the eyes.
“So while we were enjoying your very fine company, you were informing him of everything we said. Something like that?”
“It was my duty,” Lord Temur said. It was simple as that for him.
Maybe to the Ke-Han it was, and that was what I didn’t like about them. I respected th’Esar, but when he mucked it up it was our duty as citizens to make sure he knew it, not serve him to the brink of madness and beyond.
I’d have spat on the ground if we hadn’t been inside. As things stood, I had to settle for snorting.
“Why tell us now?” Caius asked. “Of your own free will, even! I did a fine job on you, certainly, but there isn’t any… lingering control.”
A silence followed, during which I started thinking of all the things that might have been happening to Fiacre if Iseul the Stark Raving Mad was responsible for his being nowhere to be found. None of them were good things. All of them were shades darker than bad.
“You must understand,” Lord Temur said quietly, “that there are those of us who feel that matters have been taken quite out of hand. In understanding that, however, you must also know that our customs bid us do nothing but follow