room and that all day,” she explained, “on someone or another’s directions. First I was told Fiacre was in a meeting with the Emperor—but they must have known that explanation wouldn’t hold water for long, since the rest of us would’ve been there for that kind of an event, now wouldn’t we? Then I was told he was out in the gardens—which he wasn’t—but a nice young woman in the gardens told me he’d gone back to his room, except he wasn’t there either. As you can see, I’ve been given something of a runaround. Your help really should be better informed, Lord Temur.”
Lord Temur said nothing, but bowed his head and sipped his tea. After all he’d been through, I didn’t blame him for feeling ashamed. I felt it, too, instead of letting myself feel other things in which fear was heavily involved.
And once you let fear in, panic settled over you, so we were lucky, at least, that all four of us had different kinds of level heads.
“So it would seem that our companions have been taken captive,” Caius said, after a long pause, like he was saying, “I do so love that flower arrangement” or “The tea is a tad too strong.”
“It would seem that we’ve been taken captive,” I added.
“Just in a different manner of speaking,” Josette agreed.
“Well, we are lucky at least in one respect,” Caius said, blithe as you please, “since we have an asset that our companions were unfortunately lacking.”
All three of us—Caius, Josette, and I—turned to look at Lord Temur, who was holding the teacup in his hand like it was alive and he was afraid of hurting it. He’d drained it, and turned it over on his palm, so that it formed a pale blue dome in his hand. Something like wry defeat passed across his face.
“What do you plan to do?” he asked at last.
“We cannot hope to bring assistance to our companions unless we have gotten word out to the Esar of our predicament,” Caius said.
“But I’m not leaving anyone here,” I countered sharply.
“Nor can I leave,” Temur said. “That far, I cannot go.”
Josette smiled. “Then, General Alcibiades, Lord Temur,” she explained, quick as you like, and her blue eyes hard and pretty as jewelry, “you will cause the distraction that gives us cover to escape.”
“I figured as much,” I said.
MAMORU
I woke in an alien world of clean white sheets and a pillow that was too soft—like resting upon something as untrustworthy as a cloud. It wasn’t the bed I’d had at the palace, and it most certainly wasn’t the ground I’d grown accustomed to sleeping on in recent weeks. My stomach clenched with a sudden rush of panic, followed by confusion. All around me, I heard voices whispering in a foreign language—one I’d taken great pains to learn, once, though it felt like another lifetime of lessons. A bright light streamed from an unknown source, making it impossible for me to see.
There was only one question to ask.
“Kouje?” I croaked, surprised to hear the quality of my voice, which was hoarse and raw, as though I’d been misusing it for some time. Had the fever done so much?
I heard someone issue a command, stern and brisk, but my head was still fuzzy and I couldn’t understand it. The word for “summon” …? Or maybe it had been “call”. The fever had taken my clarity from me, even causing me to awaken with no memory of how we had come from one point to another. I remembered the mountains, and being unbearably cold. I remembered the night sky, and nothing so bright as the light focused upon me.
There had to be something I was missing.
I cast my mind back as far as I could remember. Kouje had spoken of going to Volstov, that there was where we would find the cure to the fever that raged in my blood at night. But Kouje hadn’t answered my call, which meant he couldn’t possibly be there beside me.
I held up my hands, the only thing familiar in the too-bright room, and passed them in front of my face, back and forth, until my fingers took shape and form, and I began to recognize the sight of my own palm. Then I reached over and pinched the skin on the back of one hand. It hurt, and I didn’t wake up.
“Oh,” I heard myself saying. “It isn’t a dream.”
“Hardly,” said another voice. That one was speaking in my native tongue, though it