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And yet, as she watched him with his arm around her sister, she breathed a little easier. She smiled at Carragheen and pulled her sister away, over to the window where they could see the long black cars arriving for the reception and all the dignitaries alighting.

  ‘You are very loved, dear sister. It makes my heart swell.’ She smiled at Rania.

  But Rania narrowed her eyes. ‘Why are you saying this to me now? It sounds like a goodbye speech. What did you learn today?’

  ‘Nothing.’ And it was true. Well, she reflected, she had learned some things. That Manos was here, and that he wanted to stop them. And, perhaps a little of how he recruited and commanded his army.

  Lecanora considered the little band they had assembled. Such an unequal contest, if it came to that. She looked over at Doug, standing in front of a full-length mirror, tearing a small black tie from his neck in frustration. She smiled, considering how much he looked like a caged beast, frustrated by the confines of the thing.

  Rania followed her gaze. ‘You like him,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘I…’ Lecanora looked carefully at Rania, but her sister was still smiling. ‘Yes,’ she said, dipping her head. ‘I like him. Of course, he is very kind.’

  ‘And hot,’ Rania added.

  ‘Yes, his skin is particularly warm, even for a Land man,’ Lecanora agreed. ‘But Rania, he is also…’

  Rania raised an eyebrow and then frowned. ‘Oh, you aren’t worried about me, are you? I mean, yeah. Doug and I had a thing. But it didn’t, it was never…’ Rania broke off, and even Lecanora, who had limited experience of these things, could see that she was uncomfortable.

  Lecanora put her sister out of her misery. ‘No, sister,’ she said. ‘It is not that. Why would that worry me?’

  Rania laughed, and she looked relieved. ‘Of course,’ she said, dryly. ‘Why on earth would it worry you that your sister had slept with the guy you’ve got the hots for?’

  Lecanora smiled. ‘I’m sure on The Land,’ she spoke carefully, emphasizing the words, ‘such history may worry people. But I am not of The Land. You know such things would not worry me. People do not get used up. People are not…’ She paused, searching for the right word. ‘People are not non-renewable resources. Unless you continue to have feelings for this man, in which case…’

  Rania placed a hand on her sister’s arm. ‘No, darling, I do not. I mean, I love him, yeah. But as a friend, a dear friend. So what’s the problem? Why don’t you go for it?’

  Lecanora looked at her sister’s face: soft and wild and beautiful, but also tough. Could she understand what Lecanora felt about this man? ‘He is a killer,’ she whispered. ‘I see the hardness in him, and the secrets. We are very different.’

  Rania smiled and patted her again. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘You are very different. In some ways.’ Rania tuned to consider Doug as he strapped a pistol to the sling across his shirt, and then put on a slick single-breasted jacket. ‘And yet, not so. He loves his mother, you know.’

  Lecanora nodded. ‘He told me.’

  ‘Like you,’ Rania said, holding Lecanora’s eyes. ‘And he fights for what is right.’

  Lecanora nodded again.

  ‘Like you,’ Rania said again. Then she continued, her face darkening. ‘Here, on The Land, you will need people who can protect you, even if it means they must kill to do it.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lecanora said.

  ‘Doug is good.’ Rania’s voice cracked a little as she said it. ‘And I know that right now, his mission is to keep us safe. And that includes you.’

  Lecanora looked over as Doug said something to Carragheen, and they laughed, a shared moment of levity in the tense atmosphere of the hotel room.

  ‘More importantly,’ Lecanora said, ‘you and Carragheen will have a good and long future together, once all of this is behind us.’

  Something changed in Rania’s face as Lecanora said the words. A shadow passed over it. Lecanora reached for her half-sister’s mind, but Rania wriggled out from under her mental grasp and then did the same with her body.

  Lecanora reached for her hand and pulled her back down onto the window seat.

  ‘Sister. What is it?’

  Rania shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Lecanora considered this woman sitting in front of her, avoiding her eyes. That wild, beautiful face that was always so open to Lecanora. ‘I mean, why do you doubt what I say? About your future?’

  Rania sighed. ‘It’s just…look, Princess, no-one’s ever got any guarantees, that’s all. This is dangerous stuff. However this goes down, whatever might happen to me, I just want you to know that I have seen some things and I believe that you will be okay. If we can just do what we need to do, I think all of it—well, most of it—will be okay.’

  The bottom slid away from Lecanora’s stomach. ‘What do you mean most of it?’ Her voice was soft. She knew, just as Rania had known something was happening to Lecanora back in that bathroom. She just knew that Rania knew something she was not passing on. Something about Rania’s own fate. Something bad. Lecanora felt herself losing her self-control, imagining something happening to her sister. ‘What do you know? Rania, look at me. What do you know?’

  Rania smiled and reached over to hug her sister quickly. It was an unusual gesture for Rania, more given to arm punches, hand squeezes and high fives. ‘Nothing, babe. Come on, we need to have a last session here, make sure we’ve covered all the contingencies.’

  Lecanora looked over and saw Carragheen considering them. She remembered he had heard them before, when they had thought he could not. He crooked a brow at Lecanora and she shrugged. His usually stormy countenance locked down a few more degrees as he took in their secret huddle.

  ‘I will leave it there for now, my sister,’ Lecanora said aloud.

  But to her brain she said, We have not finished here.

  * * *

  As they moved downstairs in the elevator, Lecanora heard muted music and the sounds of a party. She felt as she always did before important events back home: skittish and excited. But this time there was more, and less. In many ways, she felt surer of herself than she usually did. She knew herself better now; who she was, and what her story had been. She was not just the foundling Princess. She was a Queen-in-waiting, charged with perhaps the most important mission her people had ever entrusted to anyone.

  On the other hand, she knew that there was much that would test her this night. She rubbed her arm, remembering the way the burn had felt as Manos had touched her.

  And then the creeping bliss.

  The knowledge rested in her bones—he would try to stop them again. Some time soon.

  As the elevator pinged, alerting their arrival in the lobby, the men began to move off towards their covert positions, and the women made for the party. The choice had been deliberate. Rania had explained that, here on The Land, men were considered more dangerous. And women—especially beautiful women—were rarely seen as a threat. Rania had laughed into Lecanora’s brain as she had imparted that piece of wisdom. Crazy, huh?

  The thought made Lecanora look back towards Doug. At the same moment, he turned back, and touched her arm, drawing her back and slightly away from the others. She took him in as he stood in front of her, tall and graceful in a close black suit. He had hurled the small tie to the bed in frustration after wearing it for a while upstairs, so his white shirt was open at the collar, revealing a patch of black hair and a triangle of dark brown skin. His lips seemed even darker than usual tonight, and his eyes almost black. He looked hard at Lecanora, and she was conscious of the way the long black dress gathered tightly at her breasts and across her hips.

  ‘I don’t think you should go.’ His voice was clipped and serious.

  ‘Why?’

  He looked at her with half-closed eyes. ‘It’s dangerous.’ The way he said it, like a man who knew about dangerous things, made her stomach quiver.

  She sighed. ‘But you are content for Rania to go.’

 
; He scowled at her. ‘Rania has more experience of these things. But this guy, Manos? He’s got something for you. After today, I’m sure of it. It’s you he wants to get to. For some reason.’

  Lecanora shivered inside. She knew the reason. He wanted his Aegiran Princess.

  Doug ploughed on, still scowling. ‘And I can go in there, instead of you, with Rania and her mother. I can protect them, I know I can. But this thing Manos has with you. I’m not sure I can—’

  Lecanora put a finger to his lips. They were so warm. He captured her finger in his big, warm hand and kissed it slowly. ‘You don’t know Land people, Princess. And the ones you do know are different. Even if you succeed; even if you get to talk to Mrs Murray, and she believes you, anything could happen to you. You realize what they would do with a real-life mermaid Princess? And then there’s this sick asshole, with the songs. It’s too—’

  Lecanora stepped forward, very close to Doug. He stopped speaking and grabbed her upper arms in his big hands. He lowered his head and she was sure he was going to kiss her, but instead he lowered his nose to her hair and inhaled deeply.

  ‘You smell like the sea, Princess,’ he breathed.

  She nodded. ‘Of course I do. And you smell like smoke and skin and sweat.’

  He drew back a little and laughed.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Lecanora said, feeling herself flush. ‘Did I insult you?’ She wriggled in her place a little. ‘It is…a very nice smell. I find it very pleasing.’

  Doug made a low noise and brought her closer to him again. She found herself caught in the warm, manly smell of him: the crisp clean smell of his shirt, and some spicy perfume.

  He tried again, his voice beginning to sound taut and strained. ‘You’re a princess. Your people need you. What if—’

  She rescued him from the need to say it. ‘What if I am killed?’

  He shook her a little, his hands still wrapped around her upper arms. ‘Goddamnit, Lecanora,’ he said. ‘Please don’t go.’

  Lecanora could wait no longer. She tilted her head up and wrapped a hand around Doug’s neck, bringing his face close to hers. She moved towards his lips slowly, giving him every chance to pull away. ‘I would like to kiss you,’ she said softly as she came closer.

  He groaned again, and this time when he swooped his head it was down to her lips. His mouth felt exactly as she had imagined it would—hard and soft and warm and wet. And tasty. She felt her mouth open to him as his tongue parted her lips and he licked the delicate nerve endings there. He crushed her into his hard chest, like he wanted to imprint the feeling of her on him.

  ‘Do you two think you could get a room?’ Rania was tapping her foot and Lecanora turned to her, still feeling as though Doug’s lips were on hers.

  Then she blinked, and swiveled back to the warm, strange Land man. ‘Thank you, Doug,’ she said. ‘At least now, if something does happen, I will have died having done that. I am very grateful. And if it all goes well, perhaps later we could do some more of that?’

  Doug nodded, standing still, and looking like he was trying to remember his line.

  Lecanora moved to the lobby, linking arms with Lunia who whispered in her hair. ‘Not so much of the “‘if I die”‘ thanks, my darling,’ she said. ‘None of us are dying tonight, or anytime soon.’ Did Lecanora imagine it, or did she see that same shuttered look slam down across Rania’s face again as their mother spoke the words?

  * * *

  Lecanora popped another one of the things into her mouth. She should not be hungry. Her nerves had reached a fever pitch. But the tiny balls wrapped in bacon with the soft, cheesy center were not only delicious, and they seemed to be calming her. Lunia had warned her not to touch the long, tall flutes of champagne that were circulating, but she had realized she had such a thirst, and she had just drunk one. She knew enough about the effects of alcohol to know that it would keep her loose and relaxed, but would not be sufficient to blunt her senses for the rendezvous in—she checked the slim wristwatch Lunia had given her—twenty minutes.

  Arty had managed to get hold of the schedule for the evening, procuring a piece of paper from the clipboard of the young redheaded woman who had been with Susan Murray in the lobby. So they knew that the candidate had one bathroom break scheduled for the evening, and they knew it was to take place in twenty minutes. She felt for the tiny clutch in her hand for the fiftieth time and decided there was time and it could wait no longer.

  The three women had agreed that they would stay within eyesight of each other, but not move about together, lest there be a problem with one of them and the security team slow them down. Lecanora drew back slightly behind a large potted plant and sat down onto a stuffed chair in a small semi-circle of chairs arranged artfully under some paintings. She put her hand inside the small bag and drew the thing out. She held it inside her closed fist and then opened it carefully and considered it.

  So innocuous. A small, tiny shell, as simple and perfect as a tiny ear.

  A circulating waiter motioned at her with his drinks tray and she shook her head quickly, and lifted the thing before she could change her mind, slipping it into the opening of her ear. She closed her eyes as though she was just taking a moment.

  It only took a second and then the purple mist came. It was not like the visions she had sometimes had, the settling knowledge that something was about to occur. This was different. It was now, the moment. The lover’s ear was showing her what she wanted to see.

  Rashind. The dark one, the healer, and the newest member of her mother’s council. She saw him, working in the great racing spaces on the eastern ridges of Aegira. He was there, with Zorax and Epaste, and many others. What were they doing? She tried to focus the lens of the thing in her ear, but it did not work like that. It seemed to take her where it wanted. And it wanted to take her to Rashind. He was talking quietly with his mind to a young woman, explaining what they were doing.

  It is very hard, I know, he was saying. But you will learn, I am sure you will. Zorax and Epaste know much of the technique. They helped to develop it.

  His tone was warm and reassuring, and the young woman glowed under his praise. Lecanora watched with him as the young woman tried whatever it was she was supposed to be doing again. She seemed to be focusing on a point some way in the distance—a great conch shell suspended in the current several leagues away. The girl swam very still in one spot, frowning as she looked towards the thing. And then she sang, a single, perfect note. Rashind smiled at her and she took the note higher but also gentler, more beautiful. Lecanora felt herself wrapped in the moment, the note and Rashind’s smiling encouragement.

  Lecanora had often admired this man, Rashind, and over her last few days in Aegira, since he had tended to her after her ordeal in the cave, they had become tentative friends. She knew he liked watching her. She had caught him, several times, when he thought she was not aware of it. And so she had asked him, before she left, if he would keep the other lover’s ear. She had asked him this thing, this liberty, so that she could see Aegira, check on her home.

  She had not dared to ask her mother. And Rashind had not dared to say no.

  She focused on the screen playing in her mind’s eye. The woman, the note. As she watched the scene, wrapped in the purple mist, the shell shattered, splintering into a million pieces in the currents. The shock made Lecanora gasp, and the shell dropped from her ear.

  ‘Miss.’ A rough voice close by jolted her a second time. ‘You can’t sit there.’ She looked up, spilling the drink she had been holding as a prop. A big man, almost as tall as Doug, filled up the space in front of her. He was heavily built and his face was hard. Less beautiful than Doug’s, but she guessed it would appeal to a great many women here in this world, with its chiseled planes and strong lines. He had very long lashes, almost feminine, she noticed, and a large mouth with cruel lips.

  Lecanora stood up. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Let me take that,’ the man said, re
moving the half-spilled drink from her hands as he handed her a napkin. He looked her up and down, and she knew that he liked what he saw. As he raked her, she recognized him. It was the man from the lobby today.

  The secret service agent, who had been with Susan Murray.

  He seemed to come to the realization at the same time. ‘You,’ he said.

  His gaze again assessed her, this time lingering over her breasts in a way that made Lecanora feel unsure of her footing. She felt her heart rate pick up, Not like it did when Doug looked over her. More like times she had been chased, when she had been learning to forage, out in the open ocean, and had been locked onto by a predator.

  Lecanora reached for her royal training. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, smiling as disarmingly as she could manage. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Who are you?’ The man’s voice had lost all pretense of politeness. ‘I saw the effect you had on the candidate today. She knew you. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re mistaken,’ Lecanora said, stepping forward to move off.

  The man with the hard body and harder face moved into her path as she made to leave. She ran into him as he moved into her path, her chest bumping against his.

  ‘I never forget a face,’ he growled. ‘And I never forget a body.’ He looked down at her, standing very close. ‘And let me tell you this for free, Missy. I’d never forget this body. Do not fuck with me. I don’t want to see you again.’

  He smirked.

  ‘At least, not around my candidate.’

  Chapter 10

  Getting personal

  ‘It’s going to be harder, now that you’ve pissed off the bodyguard,’ Rania said, wriggling awkwardly in the red dress as she hefted it a little up her thigh and patted the big black gun in its thigh holster. They had discovered the small media room in their reconnaissance that day, one wall adjoining the ladies bathroom, and now they were poised outside it in a small alcove, waiting for the moment. ‘What the hell did you say to him? Why was he so freaked out by you?’

  ‘He recognized me,’ Lecanora said, mentally berating herself for losing her focus back at the cocktail party, when she had been watching the scene unfold in Aegira instead of staying in the moment. ‘Something about our interaction with Susan today. It troubled him.’