Afraid to hope.

He dropped the pen and twisted around to face her.

"What happened, Temorii? Why shouldn't you get another chance, if others will?"

Her eyes flickered away from his to stare at her toes, and one shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. "It's hard to explain."

"I'm not going anywhere. But if it's a long story, would you mind sitting back down, before my neck is perma- nently kinked?"

She swallowed hard, biinked, but rather than return to her chair, she sank down where she stood, as if her knees had given out beneath her. Her fingers began that nervous pleating of her patched and dirty tunic. And when she began, he wasn't certain she remembered the question, but he didn't interrupt, content for the moment, that she hadn't run away again.

"The competition is more than the dance. First, there's the maze. You're led blindfolded into the courtyard, and there, you await your turn to compete. Staying warmed up and readysometimes for all daythat's part of the challenge."

She leaned against his chair until her shoulder and hair brushed his thigh. Her hands were foldedclenchedin her lap.

"When they call your number, you try to reach the dance stadium. The maze is . . . more than a puzzle to test logic.

It's full of hidden trapsmost potentially lethal. Some of the most expensive seats are the hidden viewing areas for those traps."

"Dancers in the maze," Mikhyel murmured, and she looked up through the ragged fall of hair, her expression puzzled. He smiled, and brushed the strands free of her improbably long lashes. "A game I used to play. A child's game of sticks and stones. I never thought where it came from."

"Oh," she said, though he didn't think she truly under- stood. She was staring at him, eyes wide, unseeing, and he realized, somewhat belatedly, that his hand was still in her hair, finger-combing the tangles out of the sunbleached strands. He felt his face grow hot, but before he could think what to say, her shoulders heaved, and she relaxed, settling down onto the floor, letting her head rest full against his knee.

"I waited all day," she murmured, talking into the shad- ows. "I waited for the arbiter to call my number. But he never did. There were three still to compete when the rings went down . . . as I later discovered."

"So you never got to run the maze, never danced-. . ."

She nodded. "From the time he accepted my application, Rhyys had said I was to be led in once only. I'd have one chance to run the maze, and one chance to dance. I sent Rhyys a petition to try again. . . after, but Rhyys says I chose the competition I'd take part in. Rhyys says I lost my chance. Rhyys says, obviously Rakshi doesn't want me to dance for him, or Rakshi would have made my number rise to the surface before the rings went down."

"Rakshi? Is Rhyys a believer in the old gods, then?"

"Not that he will admit."

"But you are?"

A shrug. "I'm a dancer."

As if that explained everything.

"And he uses that belief against you?"

No answer.

"What about the others left to compete? Did Rakshi also frown on them? Will they get another trial?"

"Probably, though I can't swear to that. Rhyys delights in controlling our . . . the dancers' lives. But it's rare that he doesn't let them try again. He . . . likes having the students and trainees around."

"Why would he single you out?"

She shrugged. "Because I am a child of the mountain and not his precious Khoratum? Because I was a better dancer than his favorite? Because he dislikes the color of my eyes? Rhyys dunTarec doesn't need logical reasons to wield his whip."

An analysis that certainly corresponded to his sense of the petty tyrant Anheliaa had chosen to control Khoratum Tower. A petty tyrant he would enjoy outwitting. And there might be a way, though not one Korelli dunKharin could use to advantage.

"It appears," he said slowly, "that the time has come for Mikhyel dunMheric to make an official entry into Khoratum."

She tilted her head back to look up at him.

"Care to become part of his entourage?"

8 ~ d "He's taking Temorii with him to join his men, some- where outside the city wall."

"Where?"

Thyerri shrugged, hating himself already, then staggered as the scarred hand reminded him that insolence would not be tolerated in this elegant Tower room.

"I don't know," he protested, dabbing blood from his lip with the back of his hand. "They'll take the Orenum stage and then leave itsomewhere. Someone will pick them up and then he's to come back to Khoratum. Officially."

"When?"

"I don't know."

Scarface raised his hand again, but the blow didn't come, and Thyerri stared dully at the hand that glinted with gold and silver in the leylight. Rings, several per finger. One, at least, bore Rhyys' crest. Scarface gorRhyys, then, though Thyerri doubted Rhyys was the real master.

The beringed hand fell.

"Where did he go today?"

"Downhill. All day."

The brocade-clad shoulders shook with silent laughter.

"Looking for his Temorii."

Thyerri said nothing. Scarface began pacing, a wild cat's impatient prowl.

"And did he meet again with the Orenumin?"

Thyerri began to nod. Caught himself and muttered, "Yes. At Louinnii's again."

"Why?"

Thyerri controlled his shoulders in mid-shrug. "He said something about a gathering here, and some concern that the Northern Crescent nodes are unhappy. I think he wants to find out why, is all, and that's why he was just . . . here."

Scarface scowled. "I'm not asking you to think. How does he intend to get Temorii this Second chance at the dance?"

Thyerri shook his head. "I wish I knew."

Scarface paused in mid-prowl. "Why?"

A shudder ran through him, and he thought of those holds over people that this man treasured so highly.

"Just . . . curious, that's all. It does seem an impossible task, don't you think?"

Scarface grunted, but he continued to watch Thyerri with a hawk's interest in a field mouse.

"I think, perhaps, I will tell Rhyys about this plan. And you will tell Temorii that Rhyys knows and is prepared and that when she returns to the Tower, she had best play along with whatever Rhyys does."

"Temorii wants to compete."

"I can't guarantee that."

"Then I can't guarantee her cooperation."

"No? And you, Thyerri. What do you want."

"You can't guarantee it."

Scarface laughed, a long, hard, cruel laugh.

"May I go now, sir?" Thyerri asked.

"I think I'd like you to stay a while. I'm in a festive mood. As I recall, you were a competent dancer."

"Please, sir. I'd rather not."

"I don't care what you'd rather. Dance for me, Thyerri of Khoratum."

"I will try, sir," Thyerri answered slowly, "but I fear you will be much disappointed. You asked that first night, whether anything essential had been damaged in the fire.

The fact is, sir, the answer was 'yes.' "

"You will, nonetheless, try."

In the end, even Scarface admitted it was a meaningless exercise and sent Thyerri on his way, untouched. As he rushed through the back corridors of the Tower, and into the streets, Thyerri hoped he was in time: Temorii had promised dunMheric she'd be back by midnight.

Thyerri slipped out the door that barely opened, stuck now as it was between old and new construction. He squeezed down the narrow space between the buildings, paused behind the hedgerose to listen for passing guards, then slipped out into the open.

And a vast mountain of a man.

Thyerri ducked back between the buildings, but a huge paw gripped his arm and hauled him out. The next instant, the living mountain had him backed up against a building, and a knife point pricked his throat.

"Who are you and what's your connection with Mikhyel dunMheric?" the mountain hissed in his ear.

"W-who?"

"Don't try to play the innocent with me, hiller. I know you. I know your kind. I've been following you for three days now, and I don't like what I'm seeing. Who are you selling him to?"

"I1 can't . . ." Thyerri let his words and eyes drift, let his body wilt, as if he were about to collapse.

The mountain cursed. The vast weight shifted, and Thy- erri shoved off the stone wall with his feet, driving his shoulder into the mountain, sending him staggering farther off balance.

Thyerri tapped and jumped, as those days with Zeiin had taught him, driving his hands, then his feet off the huge shoulders, gaining the height and the loft to make a nearby roof. The mountain's fingers brushed his ankle, caught and nearly pulled him back.

He snapped free, hauled himself to his feet, and ran.

Chapter Eight.

"There." Mikhyel gave the cravat's top fold one final tug and stepped to the side. "Well?"

Temorii swallowed and lifted her chin as if trying to avoid the lace, then met his mirrored eyes suspiciously.

"Why is yours so plain?"

He grinned. "Your father's a timber baron and I'm your humble tutor, remember?"

She made a face at his reflection, then stepped back, to fit more of herself in the mirror. She tugged the coat lapels and struck a pose so reminiscent of Nikki at his most self- aware, that Mikhyel almost choked on his stifled laughter.

"You'll do," he said, and threw his grooming kit into the portmanteau and buckled the bag closed.

By the whim of Rakshi (as Ganfrion would say) under- professor dunKharin had escaped Bernoi forever. He'd been hired as companion and tutor to one Thyerri dunMa- trii of Orenum (which Mikhyel complained showed a marked lack of imagination; Temorii said Thyerri wouldn't mind, that it was a common enough name in the Northern Khoramali and easier than remembering a new name).

Young dunMatrii, having declared himself bored with Khoratum, was being sent home following an Embarrassing Incident with a local heiress.

A (Ganfrion would say) far too elaborate story, and one Temorii had endlessly embellished over the past days. In fact, once he'd convinced her to trust him (a formidable task in itself) Temorii's enthusiasm for her role had flour- ished. Temorii had wandered about the Khoratum market wearing his spare clothing, spending his money on items he pointed out, because (she insisted, and he soon conceded) she could get a better price.

They were, as he'd noted the first day, much of a height, though he had the slight edge, and his clothing, though tailored to his measurements, seemed somehow to fit her better than ever it fit his too-bony frame. In fact, in his clothes, with her hair pulled back into a simple queue, she cut a figure well able to turn a variety of heads wherever they went.

Or perhaps it was just his increasingly prejudiced eyes that interpreted her effect on people.

Time and familiarity had done nothing to diminish his fascination with her. He'd tried to hire a second room, but that had proven impossible, thanks to the growing number of outsiders coming in for the festival. He'd had the cot brought back in, and a sheet hung between the beds for privacy, but while he was awake, he remained conscious of her every action on that far side, and twice he'd waked to discover her curled at the foot of his bed.

Both times, morning had found her back in the cot, which she claimed was quite comfortable.

She didn't mention the late night shifting about, there- fore neither did he, but he'd seen her eyes widen when he left her alone to go "listen" in Greater Khoratum, and he'd noted the eagerness with which she followed him about the.

market, and he wondered whether having thrown her trust into him, she feared that trust would be betrayed and he would desert her, and whether that fear ruled her late- night actions.

It would be too much to hope that her motives bore any resemblance to the insane urge he felt simply to be close to her. And it was undoubtedly best for her if they did not.

Fortunately for them both, she felt at times such as this more like a younger brother than a young woman.