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  ‘We do not have time for that,’ Lecanora said, standing also. ‘I need to leave, for home, for Aegira, in a few hours. And I need to know what I can tell my mother before I go.’

  ‘I understand.’ Susan smiled. She moved over to Lecanora and carefully put an arm around her shoulder. ‘Dear brave girl. How proud your mother—’ She stopped and corrected herself. ‘How proud your mothers must be. The things that were done to you today in my name I cannot bear to think on. But I do need time. You’ve had your whole life to take this in. I need a few hours to think through the right path.’

  Susan linked an arm through her father’s, and moved for the door. Doug stepped aside, nodding at her. She smiled a small smile at him, also. ‘That was fast and brave work in there today,’ she said. ‘I will not forget it.’

  ‘Neither will I,’ Doug said, and his voice had an edge of menace to it.

  * * *

  ‘How badly do we need her?’ Doug was sitting in the chair by the window, his face framed by the sun.

  Lecanora tilted her head to the side. ‘Badly, I think,’ she said. ‘And not just to bring The Land on board. The prophesy says the end can only be averted by The Three.’ She considered him carefully. ‘Are you going to sit there while I sleep?’

  ‘Yup,’ he said, continuing to clean the long, black gun he had resting on his thigh.

  ‘I have calculated, and the minimum sleep that I can have and still survive the journey is three hours,’ Lecanora went on. ‘You’re going to sit there for three hours and wait?’

  ‘Yup,’ he said again.

  She sighed, wriggling her naked legs against the crisp sheets. ‘You could always get some sleep of your own in the next room.’

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Don’t need much sleep.’

  He was different with her; Lecanora could feel it. Was it because of all he had learned, standing guard at the door, listening while she and Lunia told Susan the whole tale?

  ‘Come here,’ she said.

  Immediately, he moved over and sat down on the bed beside her, searching her face with his dark, almost angry eyes. ‘Are you okay?’

  She closed her eyes and considered the question. She felt for the raw spots where the man had been on her. Physically, she knew she was healing. Mentally… her mother’s word and ministrations had helped. But. ‘Not entirely,’ she said.

  Doug got up quickly, but she caught his hand and dragged him back down.

  ‘What is it?’

  His dark face was silhouetted in a halo of light coming through from the window behind him. ‘I let you down,’ he said. ‘And you got hurt.’

  Lecanora’s mind groped to make the connections. ‘You?’ She reached for both his hands. ‘You think it is somehow your fault I got hurt?’

  ‘I should have anticipated the ambush,’ he said. ‘I should never have let you answer the door.’

  ‘You would not have had a choice,’ she said. ‘It was my meeting. Schwarz was a…rogue element. You could not have planned for him.’

  Doug carefully placed his gun down on the bedside table. He touched Lecanora’s face. ‘You don’t understand, Princess,’ he said. ‘Taking care of rogue elements is my job.’

  His words made her curious. ‘What exactly is this job?’

  He tapped his nose. ‘I could tell you but I’d have to shred you,’ he said, winking.

  ‘Shred me?’ She didn’t know what the word meant, but the way he said it, dark and serious, scraped across her tummy and sent shivers to her toes. ‘I think I might like to be shredded.’ She took his hand and placed it high on her chest, just under her clavicles. ‘By you.’

  ‘Princess,’ Doug said, dark eyes boring into her. ‘Can you please tell me you’ve got some jarmies on under those sheets?’

  ‘Jarmies?’

  Doug groaned. ‘Bedclothes,’ he said gruffly. Lecanora flapped the sheets a little. ‘I thought these things were called bedclothes.’

  Doug groaned again. ‘Please don’t do that with the sheets.’ Doug’s voice was uneven and deeper than ever.

  ‘Why not?’ Lecanora felt risk rise, heady and delicious, in her blood. She knew he liked touching her, but for some reason he was holding himself back.

  ‘You need some time,’ he croaked, removing his hand. ‘After…that asshole.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ Lecanora said, placing his hand on her again, this time lower.

  ‘Lecanora.’ Doug’s hands were shaking, and his voice was hard to hear. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You,’ she said, pulling him towards her. Every moment she knew more and more about who she was, and what she wanted. After today, she would do anything. She would take any risk to save those she cared about, and to defeat this foe.

  But right here, in this moment, she would take this. For herself.

  Doug stopped halfway to her mouth. ‘What will you do, Princess?’ He grabbed both her hands in one of his. ‘What will you do if Susan Murray won’t help you?’

  ‘I will take her,’ Lecanora said. ‘I will show her why she must help us. And you will help me.’ She smiled at him, losing herself in those dark eyes. ‘Won’t you?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure whatever you need, I’m gonna help you.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Right now I need to go sleep. But first, you’re going to kiss me.’

  Doug took the hands that he held in his and lifted them above her head with aching slowness. He stretched them a little as he did, before pinning them against the headboard behind him. Then he looked down at her. ‘You have no idea how you look,’ he said. ‘Lying there like that, looking up at me. Those grey eyes of yours. You just…’

  She silenced him ‘Shhh.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not a talker, right? But I gotta say this. You take me apart, Princess.’

  She smiled up at him. He bent down to her, putting warm, full lips on hers. No softness this time, just hard insistent wanting. He looked up for a moment, his breath heavy. ‘I just hope to God you can put me back together.’

  Lecanora strained up towards him, only to be interrupted by the sound of a door closing.

  ‘Doug,’ Lunia commanded. ‘If you must stay, chair.’ She pointed to the place he had been. ‘Lecanora.’ She pointed to the bed. ‘Sleep. You will not survive the trip without it.’

  Chapter 14

  Crossing the Line

  Her body woke as she had commanded, precisely three hours after the time she had dropped off. Her eyes immediately searched out the place Doug had been sitting, in the chair by the window, but he was not there. She recognized a flat feeling in the bottom of her belly. Disappointment. He had said he would be there, and he was gone.

  Then she heard his low, deep drawl from the next room. It sounded terse and busy. She listened a little closer. And one-sided. He must be using the telephone.

  She swung her legs out of bed, and considered them. Long and brown. The same as yesterday. She reminded herself: no different. I am the same person. What that man did, what he tried to do, it did not touch me. It cannot touch me. An evil, ancient sorcerer tried to kill me, and is still trying. What one feeble Land man did to me, with his threats and his gun, it cannot even scratch the outer dermis of me.

  And I have greater things to concern myself with.

  Aegira.

  Lecanora made her way to the small bathroom and fished in the little evening bag Lunia had given her. There were still there. Still, small and perfect. The lovers’ ears. And she needed them right now. They were going back there, very soon. She needed to know what was happening. Still naked, she slipped one of the tiny things into an ear, and focused her mind through the swirling purple mist. She suddenly made the connection. Purple, the color of pain. No wonder.

  She focused on her mind, willing the picture to come to mind.

  And there he was. Rashind, the healer. And now, Rashind of her mother’s inner council. Finally, someone both she and her mother could trust. He had proved himself a goo
d friend, despite the mistrust his dark looks around among the fair Aegirans. He was in her mother’s Chamber, floating by her sleeping mats.

  She tried to see through his eyes, see what he could see. Was her mother there? Was she well? Was she unharmed?

  As hard as she tried to focus the lens of the magic shell, she could not get a picture of her foster-mother, the Queen. Just Rashind, still beside her bed. He was murmuring some words, and even through the strange magic device, she felt the pull and lull of them. He was incanting something. She hoped it was something that would give her mother succor and rest. She knew better than anyone what a talented healer this man was.

  If only she could see Imd.

  As she watched, Rashind turned. ‘What news?’

  Through his eyes, Lecanora saw Carragheen and Rania, swimming side by side, faces serious. Lecanora felt her senses calm, seeing them. They had made it back. They were alive, and whole. And, most importantly of all, they were with her mother. And Rashind.

  ‘We did as you said,’ Carragheen said. ‘We took the defensive party. We scoured the perimeters.’

  ‘And…?’ Rashind’s voice sounded very tired. There was a slight slur at the end of each word, as though he were working hard to focus.

  ‘It is as you suspected. Raiding parties have begun. They are circling the city, looking for the weakest parts. They are terrifying people, going into homes, taking young men away. Some have been killed resisting.’

  ‘Did you encounter them?’

  ‘No,’ Rania said. ‘But I felt them. They know we are here. They were watching us, just beyond our ability to get to them. They’re fucking with us. I am sure they’ll enter the city soon.’

  Rashind closed his eyes, and for seconds Lecanora could see nothing except the confused swirl of his thoughts. The Queen. His mind was very focused on the Queen.

  Carragheen broke into his thoughts.

  ‘How is she?’

  Rashind’s eyes opened. ‘She is not well. I think she is close to the end.’

  ‘How close?’ Rania’s voice was clipped and quiet.

  Rashind moved his hands in wave shape in front of him, making a gesture like a shimmer, the Aegiran equivalent of a shrug. ‘I cannot say,’ he said.

  ‘Will she last…’ Rania whispered. ‘…until Lecanora returns?’

  Rashind repeated the gesture. ‘When will that be?’

  Rania shook her head, and then studied the settled sand on the floor of the Royal Chamber. ‘I cannot say,’ she said. ‘Soon, I hope.’

  Lecanora wanted to scream her frustration, yell at them that she was coming, she would be there soon, as soon as ever she could. She jiggled her legs where she sat, naked on the toilet, wanting with everything in her to be there.

  ‘What is it? What is doing this to her?’ Carragheen moved to the bedside, and Lecanora felt the warmth spread through her as she saw him take her mother’s small, pale hand in his strong brown one.

  ‘It is just her time, I believe,’ Rashind said. ‘Just the natural conclusion of her life, as we, and she, have always known would come at this time. All of the other Aegiran Queens, her sisters, lived a thousand years also. They gave birth to their sisters, and then they returned to their mother and father. With Imd, we never knew. We could not know how it would transpire. But I think she is simply…nearing the end.”‘

  With the words, Rashind turned to look at the woman lying on the mats, and Lecanora saw her properly for the first time. She was very pale. Her shimmering vanilla warmth was shrunken and feeble. Her eyes were closed.

  Carragheen spoke again. ‘Before I left, Rashind,’ he said. ‘You told me you had a way, to keep her safe. If something happened while we were gone. If something happens in this city, I do not want them to have her. They must not have her. What was it, you spoke of? What can you do?’

  Rashind hesitated, and then spoke carefully, his head down. ‘I can hide her.’

  ‘Hide her? That’s it? That’s all you got?’ Rania’s voice dripped derision, even in the Aegiran tongue, known for its grace and subtlety. ‘Well now, why didn’t I think of that? Genius.’

  Carragheen grasped Rania’s arm. ‘Wait,’”‘ he said. ‘Where, Rashind?’

  Rashind’s voice became very low. ‘Not where, Carragheen,’ he said. ‘But how.’

  ‘Stop being so cryptic,’ Rania spat, and Lecanora could see her face growing pink and determined. ‘Cut to the goddam chase.’

  ‘I know it is frowned upon, here in Aegira. The old ways…’

  Lecanora remembered as she spoke that this man had grown up orphaned, apprenticed to the old healer, Artog. The ancient Artog had known many things, and it had been rumored that he had dark artistry in his repertoire also.

  ‘There’s not much we frown upon,’ Carragheen said, and Rania nodded. ‘Not if it works.’

  Rashind paused again, then nodded back at them. ‘It is a way to hide her, right here. She will be invisible, they will not be able to find her.’

  ‘Buh-bow.’ Rania made that noise she liked so much, the one like a game show host signaling wrong answer. ‘Manos is all over that one. We tried it back on The Land. He saw right through it.’

  Rashind swam close to them. ‘Not this trick, Rania,’ he said, and his voice was strained. ‘Because it is not a trick. It is very real.’

  Rania eyes narrowed. ‘Whaddya mean?’

  Rashind sighed. ‘There are ways,’ he said, ‘ancient ways, to move the planes on which we exist. Just a little, and for a short time. She will be here, but not here. Not invisible, but gone.’

  ‘Sounds dangerous,’ Carragheen growled.

  ‘Very,’ Rashind agreed. ‘But not, perhaps, as dangerous as Manos finding her, in her weakened state like this. What would he do, what example would he make of her? How would he use her, against the Princess, against all of us?’

  ‘Do it,’ Rania said. Lecanora saw the shadow of what happened in the bathroom on her face, the same twisted grimace, and she knew in her heart that Rania was remembering what Manos could do. ‘If it comes to that, and he gets here before Lecanora gets here. If we can’t stop him, you need to do it. Hide her. Hide her wherever you need to.’

  Carragheen made an acquiescing noise in his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said, taking Rania’s hand and making to swim off. ‘But just be sure you can get her back.’

  Rashind tuned back to the Queen, and Lecanora could feel the emotions whirling and crashing in his brain and his heart. She could feel the echo of the low drag in his chest. He took the Queen’s hand and watched as her life fish made its way across her wrist in its endless journey through her blood stream.

  Lecanora watched too, through his eyes. The alorha was erratic, and slower than it should be. As Lecanora sat in this man’s mind, felt his doubts, an awareness settled on her. This man was like her. Not a man without an identity, because everyone had known and loved his parents before they had died, but a man who had grown up orphaned, alone, removed from those with whom he was connected by blood. He had unusual talents, was admired, but mistrusted. She felt all the pull of the emotions of his life play across his brain as he watched his Queen. And more, she felt his love. For the woman who had admired him, championed his cause. And, finally, promoted him to her inner circle.

  She wished she could speak with him. She wanted to tell him that he was doing well, that the things she had seen—the training of the Aegirans and the settlers, the tender care he was giving her mother, even the plan he had to hide her—he was making the right judgments. For when all was balanced in the scales of life, that was all leadership was, she realized, sitting naked on the toilet on this piece of The Land, far from home. Making the best guesses at the right time, with the best information you had.

  The thought hit her. Now it is my time to lead.

  As she stood to ready herself, the door banged open and Doug was standing there. She quickly tapped the shell out of her ear and slid it into her purse.

  ‘Jesus.’ Doug tried very hard not to
look at her as she stood naked before him. ‘I’m… Shit, Princess, I’m sorry,’ he said, backing out quickly. ‘I just ducked out to make a quick call, I was worried that I would wake you.’ He started talking quickly through the door. ‘And when I came back in and you weren’t there, I worried. I’m sorry, I should have knocked.’

  ‘Why?’ Lecanora strolled out of the bathroom, aware by now that nudity had a profound effect on these Land dwellers, and her nudity on this Land man in particular. But she didn’t care. ‘Why are you sorry? Have I offended you? Does the sight of me without clothes offend you?’

  ‘Hell no,’ Doug said under his breath, turning his back as she moved to the bed and put on the simple shift dress Lunia had found for her last night. ‘It’s just, you know, you should be careful who you do that around. I mean, there are some really dodgy…’ He trailed off, as though realizing Lecanora knew enough now to know about those dodgy characters. ‘Princess, I’m sorry,’ he said, stammering over his words. ‘I am getting this all wrong. Forgive me.’

  Lecanora laughed, the drag that had been pulling her down since she saw her foster-mother languishing on her sleeping mats abating a little as she looked at his dark and disturbed face. ‘Stop, Doug,’ she said, walking to him and turning him around, touching his face. ‘What does my sister say? We have bigger fish to fry?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, it is time to begin. Has Susan Murray made contact yet?’

  ‘No,’ Doug said, his face suddenly closed off to her but full of something she could not quite understand.

  Lecanora’s mind raced with all that happened in the last two days. The woods, and the little death. The attack at the prison. Manos, twice. Arty’s death. And now, knowing the truth of it. That he was there, in Aegira. Him, and his army. And they were hurting her people. She thought about Rania’s words, about how now it was personal. She thought about her mother lying broken on the sleeping mats again. She felt the full weight of her impending queenship rest down hard on her shoulders.

  What would she do, to save her people?

  ‘I believe we need her,’ Lecanora said. ‘I must show her why this matters. I must show her why she belongs with us. Tell me, Doug. What are our options?’