“We live in unhinged times.” The comment came from Amara, who had been silent for a while. “Such times often call for extraordinary measures.”
A brave statement, but one delivered in a completely flat tone, devoid of any derring-do.
“So they do, and our decision was to strike at the heart of the Bane’s dominion, in the crypt where he keeps his original body.” Kashkari reached out and poured tea for everyone—tea that Iolanthe had forgotten was steeping in the pot. “Last night I’d suggested to the prince that we should wait for a more opportune time to strike. But the news my sister-in-law brought this morning changes things again.”
Titus pulled a chair up next to Iolanthe, sat down, and pressed a cup of tea into her hands. His eyes reflected nothing but ruin—exactly as she remembered, when she’d pulled him in from the fog the night before. She ought to have guessed then and there that Kashkari’s dream concerned her, not him: he had long ago made peace with his own death; it was only hers that could have devastated him to such a degree.
She set aside the saucer and wrapped her hands directly about the cup, needing its scalding heat against her skin. He did the same, his hands clutching his teacup so tightly that it was a wonder he didn’t pulverize it.
“We must go after the Bane,” continued Kashkari. “Only now we have an implacable time constraint—and we must do it without Fairfax, if we’ve learned anything from my vision. Nobody who goes to Atlantis expects to come back alive. But if Fairfax were to fall, everything we’ve ever done would be in vain.”
Iolanthe’s head throbbed. “Then what do I do?”
And who would save Titus?
“You hide. Preferable somewhere none of us can even guess, in case we are captured by Atlanteans.”
She shook her head—this went against the grain of everything she had been taught about prophecies. “We are asking for trouble. You interfere with a prophecy and the end result will always be worse than if you’d let it happen.”
“But what can possibly be worse than your being taken to the Bane’s crypt and sacrificed? And it was the Bane’s crypt I saw; that much there could be no question.”
Beside her Master Haywood gasped softly, but said nothing. She glanced at him, then at Titus, who sat with his neck bent, his breaths shaky.
She shook her head again. She couldn’t think very well, but even so, something about Kashkari’s vision made no sense. “Why wouldn’t either you or His Highness have made sure that Atlantis didn’t take me alive?”
“I’ve taken a blood oath that doesn’t allow me to harm either you or His Highness. I don’t know whether His Highness is capable of lethal acts against you. Besides, we could have become separated as we made our way across Atlantis.”
She took a sip of tea. It was bitter—she never did make very good tea. Titus tasted his and grimaced. He rose, left the room, and came back half a minute later with a small plate of sugar cubes. She dropped two cubes into her cup; he took the rest.
“But perhaps we are looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps my death, far from the worst thing that could happen, was instead the necessary step that allowed the two of you to go as far as you did. You were in the Bane’s crypt. And you were still alive and well. There was nothing to prevent you from finishing the Bane.”
No one said anything. She drank from her tea again and was astonished at the difference in the taste. Whatever had gone into making the sugar cubes gave the tea not only sweetness, but subtle yet delicious hints of citrus and stone fruits.
“I can’t believe that everyone here takes the matter of a vision so cavalierly,” she went on. “I’m all for making a vision prove itself, and even I do not argue the validity of this one. Whereas . . . whereas you all seem to treat it as no different from a mere rumor.”
Again, silence.
“My beliefs in the matter differ from Mohandas’s,” said Amara. “I do understand his point of view, that the future has not yet happened—that every decision we make now has an impact on what will take place down the road.
“Growing up, however, I was very much influenced by my paternal grandmother, who emigrated to the Kalahari from a Nordic realm and was a firm believer that only events