can’t build in the Houses of Healing. If, however, I allow myself to be assassinated, he’s going to hold a grudge against you forever.”
“If only that long. I’ll leave you with Gordon. If you’d like, I can tell him he’ll be demoted.”
“That, in my opinion, would not help. It would be effective . . . but no.”
“Marave?”
“Her injuries were superficial enough that I saw no need to detain her. Gordon was not impressed.” He hesitated. “Jay.”
She waited.
“The House Name isn’t about the House. It’s about me. I know its value. I know what it means to walk the city streets as ATerafin. I know what men—and women—believe themselves willing to do to gain it. Some of me wants it as well. And this is how I’ll know where my priorities are. It’s a check.”
Daine was not, and would never be, Alowan. For just this moment, though, she loved him as if he were.
* * *
Angel was still waiting, spear conspicuous against the wall, when she emerged.
“Go back to the West Wing,” she told him softly.
“I don’t—”
“I’m going to talk to Teller. And Barston. I have no prior appointments for the rest of the day, and if I’m lucky, I won’t have to look at Duvari. If I’m unlucky,” she continued, as he lifted his spear, “and I expect that, given my day, I’ll be mired in appointment making and veiled or not-so-veiled threats, none of which will come to fruition now.
“Go back to the Wing and tell the others what happened.”
* * *
When she arrived in the right-kin’s office, Barston had the expression of a man under siege, although the office was almost empty. He rose the minute she stepped across the threshold and tendered her a perfect bow. It was one of the few ways in which he expressed annoyance. Barston did not stoop to obvious incivility where relative rank demanded none; he merely sharpened every polite gesture in his arsenal.
Given he was Barston, that arsenal included obeisances that probably hadn’t been used at Court for two centuries.
“Is it very bad?” she asked when he rose.
“Teller has granted the Lord of the Compact an audience. They are in the right-kin’s office now.”
Duvari—and a woman Jewel didn’t immediately recognize—were waiting in Teller’s office. Teller was seated behind his desk. He rose when Jewel entered the room, and offered her a full bow. Carrying a large, crudely painted sign about the high levels of danger would probably have been a less effective warning.
Jewel, forewarned, nodded him back into his chair before she turned to face Duvari. “Lord of the Compact,” she said, inclining only her chin. She glanced at the woman.
“Terafin,” Duvari replied. “May I introduce Birgide Viranyi.” It was, in theory a question; it sounded like a command. The woman, however, now turned to Jewel, and offered her a full, flat-backed bow. She was about six inches taller than Jewel; her hair was cropped. She had two visible scars on her face, one along the line of her jaw and one just under her left ear. She was not particularly finely dressed, but of more relevance, she was not dressed as a member of the patriciate at all.
“You are a member of the Astari, Birgide?”
Birgide said nothing.
“She is,” Duvari replied. “That is not to be discussed outside of this office.”
“If she arrived with you, it will be.”
“It is not to be discussed by you or your right-kin outside of this office. As it happens, she did not arrive with me.”
Jewel turned to Teller. “Under what pretext was she granted an appointment?”
“. . . As a possible new member of the gardening staff.”
Jewel stared at him for a full fifteen seconds before she turned back to Duvari. “Out of the question.” Duvari clearly expected this.
“She is, in fact, renowned for her skill in gardens across the Empire.”
“At her age?”
“Even so. She is only two years older than you, yourself, and you are now known as the ruler of the most powerful of The Ten.”
“The gardening staff is decided upon by the Master Gardener.”
“I wish you to introduce Birgide to that Master Gardener—and allow him to make his own decision with regard to her employ.”
“Duvari, you have at least three members of your Astari in various positions in my House. Why—why on earth—would you now plant a fourth here as a gardener?”
Avandar coughed into his hand.
Birgide lifted her chin. “It was not the request of the Lord of the Compact,” she said. Her voice was low, but it was musical. “It was