'Please, Archer. Don't go.'

'I must,' he said, suddenly, explosively. He turned away from her, held up a hand against her. 'Look at you,' he said, tears thick in his voice. 'I can't even bear to look at you. I must do something, don't you see? I must get away. They're going to let you do it, you know, you and Brigan together, the grand a.s.sa.s.sination team. Here,' he said, yanking a folded paper from his coat pocket and pitching it savagely onto the sofa beside her.

'What's that?' Fire asked, bewildered.

'A letter from him him,' Archer practically yelled. 'He was at the desk just before you woke, writing it. He told me if I didn't give it to you he'd break both my arms.'

Tess appeared suddenly in the doorway and jabbed a finger at Archer. 'Young man,' she barked, 'there's a child that lives in this house, and you've got no cause to yell the roof off.' She turned and stomped away. Archer stared after her in amazement. Then he spun to the fireplace and leaned against the mantle, head in hands.

'Archer,' Fire pleaded. 'If you must do this, take as many soldiers as you can. Ask Brigan for a convoy.'

He didn't answer. She wasn't even sure he'd heard. He turned to face her and said, 'Goodbye, Fire.' He stalked out of the room, abandoning her to her panic.

Her thoughts clamoured after him desperately. Archer! Keep a strong mind. Go safely. Archer! Keep a strong mind. Go safely.

I love you.

BRIGAN'S LETTER WAS short.

Lady:I have a confession. I knew that you killed Cansrel. Lord Brocker told me the day I came to your house to escort you here. You must forgive him for betraying the confidence. He told me so that I might understand what you were, and treat you accordingly. In other words, he told me in order to protect you, from me.You asked me once why I trust you. This is not the entire reason, but it's a part. I believe you have shouldered a great deal of pain for the sake of other people. I believe you're as strong and as brave as anyone I've met or heard of. And wise and generous in the use of your power.I must ride suddenly to Fort Flood, but will return in time for the gala. I agree you must be involved in our plan - though Archer is wrong if he thinks it pleases me. My siblings will tell you our thoughts. My soldiers are waiting and this is hastily written, but meant sincerely.Yours, Brigan.P.S. Do not leave this house until Tess has told you the truth, and forgive me for keeping it from you. I made a promise to her, and have been chafing under it ever since.

Fire breathed shakily as she walked to the kitchen, where she sensed Tess to be. The old woman raised green eyes from the work of her hands.

'What does Prince Brigan mean,' Fire said, frightened of the question, 'when he says you must tell me the truth?'

Tess put down the dough she was kneading and wiped her palms on her ap.r.o.n. 'What an upside-down day this is,' she said. 'I never saw this coming. And now that we're here, you're such a sight I'm intimidated.' She shrugged, quite at a loss. 'My daughter Jessa was your mother, child,' she said. 'I'm your grandmother. Would you care to stay for dinner?'

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

FIRE GLIDED THROUGH the following days in a state of wonderment. To learn that she had a grandmother was staggering enough. But to sense, from their first hesitant dinner together, that her grandmother was curious to know her, and open to her company? This was almost too much for one young human monster who'd experienced so little joy to bear.

She ate dinner every night in the kitchen of the green house with Tess and Hanna. Hanna's stream of chatter filled the s.p.a.ces in the conversation between grandmother and granddaughter, and soothed, somehow, their awkwardness as they tried to find the way to relate to each other.

It helped that Tess was straightforward and honest, and that Fire could sense the sincerity of every mixed-up thing she said. 'I'm mostly unflappable,' Tess said over their first dinner of dumplings and raptor monster stew. 'But you've flapped me, monster Lady. I told myself all these years you were Cansrel's daughter, and not truly Jessa's. A monster, not a girl, that we were better off without. I tried to tell Jessa, too, though she would never listen, and she was right. Plain as day I can see her in your face.'

'Where?' Hanna demanded. 'What parts of her face?'

'You have Jessa's forehead,' Tess said, brandishing a spoon at Fire helplessly. 'And the same expression in your eyes, and her lovely, warm skin. You take after her eye and hair colouring, though yours is a hundred times what hers was, of course. The young prince told me he trusted you,' she finished weakly. 'But I couldn't believe him. I thought he was ensnared. I thought you'd marry the king, or worse, him, and it would begin all over.'

'It's all right,' Fire said softly, immune to grudges, because she was newly fallen in love with having a grandmother.

She wished she could thank Brigan, but he was still away from court and unlikely to return before the gala. She wished more than anything that she could tell Archer. Whatever else he might feel, he would share her joy in this - he would laugh in astonishment at the news. But Archer was b.u.mbling around somewhere west with the smallest of guards - according to Clara, he'd only taken four men - getting into who knew what kind of trouble. Fire determined to make a list of all the delights and the confusions of having a grandmother, to tell him when he returned.

She was not the only person worried about Archer. 'It wasn't such a terrible thing, really, that he told your secret,' Clara said - forgetting, Fire thought dryly, that at the time Clara had found it terrible enough to punch him. 'We're all more content with you in the plan now we know. And we admire you for it. Truly, Lady, I wonder you never told us before.'

Fire didn't respond to this, for she couldn't explain that the admiration was part of the reason she hadn't told. It was not rewarding to be the hero of other people's hatred for Cansrel. She had not killed him out of hatred.

'Archer's an a.s.s, but still I hope he'll be careful,' Clara finished, one hand resting absently on her belly while the other rifled through a pile of floor plans. 'Does he know the terrain in the west? There are great crevices in the ground. Some of them open to caves, but some of them are bottomless. Trust him to fall into one.' She stopped rifling for a moment, closed her eyes, and sighed. 'I've decided to be grateful to him for supplying my child with a sibling. Grat.i.tude takes less energy than anger.'

When the truth had come out, Clara had indeed, accepted it with a generous equanimity. It had not been so easy for Mila, though she hadn't taken to anger either. In her chair now beside the door, more than anything, Mila looked dazed.

'Ah, well,' Clara said, still sighing. 'Have you memorised anything above level six? You're not afraid of heights, are you?'

'No more than the next person. Why?'

Clara pulled two enormous, curling pages from the pile of floor plans. 'Here are the layouts for seven and eight. I'll have Welkley verify I've labelled the guest rooms correctly before you start learning all the names. We're trying to keep those floors empty for your use, but there are those who like the views.'

Memorising the palace's floor plans was different for Fire from what it would be for other people, because Fire couldn't get herself to conceive of the palace as a map, flat on the page. The palace was a three-dimensional s.p.a.ce that whirled out from her head, full of moving minds walking down corridors, pa.s.sing laundry chutes and climbing stairways Fire couldn't sense but was expected to fill in now from her memory of a map on a page. It wasn't enough now for Fire to know, for example, that Welkley was on the eastern end of the palace's second level. Where was he, precisely? What room was he in, and how many doors and windows did it have? How close was it to the nearest servants' closet, or the nearest stairway? The minds that she sensed near Welkley - were they in the room with him, or were they in the hallway, or the next room over? If Fire needed to give Welkley mental directions to guide him to her own rooms this instant without anyone seeing him, could she do it? Could she keep eight levels, hundreds of hallways, thousands of rooms, doorways, windows, balconies, and her perception of a court-full of consciousnesses all in her mind at once?

The simple answer was that no, she couldn't. But she was going to have to learn to do it as best she could, because the a.s.sa.s.sination plan for gala night depended on it. In her rooms, in the stables with Small, on the roofs with her guard, she practised and practised, all day long, constantly - proud of herself, sometimes, for how far she'd moved beyond her early days in this palace. She would certainly never get lost wandering these halls again.

The success of the plan hinged rather nerve-rackingly on Fire's ability to isolate Gentian, Gunner, and Murgda, separately or together, secretly, somewhere in the palace. It was imperative that she manage to do this, because the backup plans were messy, involved too many soldiers and too many scuffles, and would be next to impossible to keep quiet.

Once alone with them, Fire would learn whatever she could from each and all of them. In the meantime Brigan would find a discreet way to join her and ensure that the information exchange ended with Fire alive and the other three dead. And then news of the entire escapade would have to be contained somehow, for as long as possible. This would also be one of Fire's jobs: monitoring the palace for people who suspected what had happened, and arranging for those people to be quietly captured before they said anything. Because no one - no one - on the wrong side of the crown could be permitted to know where matters stood or what Fire had learned. Information would only be valuable as long as no one knew they knew it.

Brigan would ride through the night to Ford Flood. The instant he got there, the war would begin.

THE DAY OF the gala, Tess helped Fire into her dress that had been commissioned, fastening hooks, smoothing and straightening bits that were already smooth and straight, and all the time murmuring her pleasure. Next, a team of hairdressers yanked and braided Fire to distraction, exclaiming at the range of reds, oranges, and golds in her hair, its occasional astonishing strands of pink, its impossibly soft texture, its luminosity. It was Fire's first experience of trying to improve improve her appearance. Very quickly the process grew tiresome. her appearance. Very quickly the process grew tiresome.

Nonetheless, when it finally ended and the hairdressers left and Tess insisted upon pulling her to the mirror, Fire saw, and understood, that everyone had done the job well. The dress, deep shimmering purple and utterly simple in design, was so beautifully-cut and so clingy and well-fitting that Fire felt slightly naked. And her hair. She couldn't follow what they'd done with her hair, braids thin as threads in some places, looped and wound through the thick sections that fell over her shoulders and down her back, but she saw that the end result was a controlled wildness that was magnificent against her face, her body, and the dress. She turned to measure the effect on her guard - all twenty of them, for all had roles to play in tonight's proceedings, and all were awaiting her orders. Twenty jaws hung slack with astonishment - even Musa's, Mila's, and Neel's. Fire touched their minds, and was pleased, and then angry, to find them open as the gla.s.s roofs in July.

'Take hold of yourselves,' she snapped. 'It's a disguise, remember? This isn't going to work if the people meant to help me can't keep their heads.'

'It will work, Lady Granddaughter.' Tess handed Fire two knives in ankle holsters. 'You'll get what you want from whomever you want. Tonight King Nash would give you the Winged River as a present, if you asked for it. Dells, child - Prince Brigan would give you his best warhorse.'

Fire strapped a knife to each ankle and did not smile at that. Brigan couldn't give gifts until he'd returned to court, and that was a thing, two hours before the gala, he had not yet done.

ONE OF SEVERAL staging areas reserved by the royal siblings for the night was a suite of rooms on the fourth floor with a balcony overlooking the large central courtyard. Fire stood in the balcony with three of her guard, deflecting the attention of hundreds of people below.

She had never seen a party before, let alone a royal ball. The courtyard sparkled gold from the light of thousands upon thousands of candles: walls of candles behind bal.u.s.trades at the edges of the dance floor so the ladies wouldn't set their dresses on fire; candles in wide lamps hanging from the ceilings by silver chains; candles melted to the railings of every balcony, including her own. Light flickered over the people, turned them beautiful in their dresses and suits, their jewellery, the silver cups they drank from. The sky was fading. Musicians tuned their instruments and began to play over and through the tinkle of laughter. The dancing began, and it was the perfect picture of a winter party.

How absolutely the look of a thing could differ from its feel. If Fire had not had such an intense need to concentrate, if she hadn't been so far from humour, she might have laughed. For she knew herself to be standing above a microcosm of the kingdom itself, a web of traitors, spies, and allies in fancy costumes, representing every side, watching each other with calculation, trying to hear each other's conversations, and keenly aware of everyone who entered or exited. It began with Lord Gentian and his son, the focal centre of the room even though they stood at its edges. Gunner, medium size and nondescript, had a way of blending into the corner, but Gentian was tall with bright white hair and too famously an enemy of this court to be inconspicuous. Surrounding him were five of his 'attendants', men with the look of vicious dogs stuffed into formal clothing. Swords were not the fashion at b.a.l.l.s such as this; the only visible weapons were on the palace guards stationed at the doorways. But Fire knew that Gentian, Gunner, and their thinly disguised body-guards had knives. She knew they were wound tight with distrust; she could feel it. And she saw Gentian tugging his collar, repeatedly, uncomfortably. She saw him and his son turning sharply at every noise, their social smiles false, frozen almost to the point of crazedness. She thought that Gentian was a nice-looking man, finely dressed, seemingly distinguished, unless you were in a position to feel his screaming nerves. Gentian was regretting the plan that had brought him here.

It overwhelmed Fire to keep track of everyone in this courtyard, and stretching herself beyond this courtyard was positively dizzying. But as best as she could, and using whatever minds gave her access, she was compiling a mental list of people in the palace she thought might be sympathetic to Lord Gentian or Lady Murgda, people who were not to be trusted, and also people who were. She communicated the list to a secretary in Garan's offices who took down names and descriptions and communicated them to the master of the guard, whose many jobs this night included knowing where everyone was at all times and preventing any unplanned appearances of weapons, or disappearances of significant people.

The sky was dark now. Fire sensed archers moving into the shadows of the balconies around her. Both Gentian and Murgda had been housed on the palace's third level overlooking this very courtyard, the rooms above, below, across, and to either side of them empty of guests, and temporarily occupied with a royal military presence that made Fire's guard seem quite shabby.

These had been Brigan's orders.

Fire wasn't certain which she was dreading more: what it would mean for her and his family personally if he did not arrive in time, or what it would mean for their night's work and the war. She thought these might be pieces of the same fear. If Brigan didn't come, he was probably dead, and with that, all things would fall apart anyway, whether they be big, like tonight's plans, or small, like her heart.

And then, only a few minutes later, she stumbled upon him as he materialised at the edges of her range on the nearest city bridge. Almost involuntarily she sent him a surge of feeling that began as fury but turned immediately to worry and also relief at feeling him, so uncontrolled that she couldn't be sure some of her deeper feeling hadn't seeped through.

He sent back a.s.surance and exhaustion and apology, and she reached back to him with apology of her own, and he apologised again, more insistently this time. Brigan has arrived Brigan has arrived, she thought hurriedly to the others, and pushed their own expressions of relief out of her mind. Her focus was unravelling. She scrabbled to regain control of the courtyard.

Lady Murgda was keeping a lower profile than Gentian. Like Gentian, she'd arrived with attendants, at least twenty of them, 'servants' who had the feeling of persons used to fighting. A number of these persons were in the courtyard below. Others were spread throughout the palace, presumably watching whomever Murgda had instructed them to watch; but Murgda herself had gone straight to her rooms at her arrival and had not emerged since. She was holed up there now, a level below Fire and across from where Fire stood, though Fire could not see her. She could only feel her, sharp and intelligent, as Fire had known she would be, harder than her two enemies below and more guarded, but buzzing with a similar edginess, and burning with suspicion.

Clara, Garan, Nash, Welkley, and several guards entered Fire's room. Sensing them, but not turning from the balcony view, Fire touched their minds in greeting and, through the open balcony door, heard Clara muttering.

'I've figured out who Gentian's got tailing me,' Clara said, 'but I'm not so sure of Murgda's tail. Her people are better trained.'

'They're Pikkian, some of them,' Garan said. 'Sayre tells me she saw Pikkian-looking men, and heard their accents.'

'Is it possible Lord Gentian could be daft enough to have no one watching Lady Murgda?' Clara said. 'His entourage is pretty obvious, and none of it seems trained on her.'

'There's no ease in watching Lady Murgda, Lady Princess,' Welkley said. 'She's barely shown her face. Lord Gentian, on the other hand, has asked for your audience three times, Lord King, and three times I've brushed him off. He's quite eager to tell you in person all kinds of made-up reasons why he's here.'

'We'll give him the opportunity to explain, once he's dead,' Garan said.

Fire listened to the conversation with one fraction of her attention and monitored Brigan's progress with another - he was in the stables now - dancing all the while around Gentian, Gunner, and Murgda. So far she had only played around their minds, searching for ways in, approaching but not taking hold. She instructed a servant below - one of Welkley's people - to offer wine to Gentian and Gunner. Both men waved the serving girl away. Fire sighed, wishing the elder were not so plagued with indigestion and the younger so austere in his habits. Young Gunner was a bit troublesome, actually, stronger-minded than she'd like. Gentian, on the other hand - she wondered if it was time to enter Gentian's mind and begin pushing. He grew more and more anxious, and she got the sense that he had wanted the wine he'd refused.

Brigan pushed into the room behind her. 'Brother,' Fire heard Garan say. 'Cutting it a bit close this time even by your standards, don't you think? Everything in place at Fort Flood?'

'Poor boy,' Clara said. 'Who punched up your face?'

'No one relevant,' Brigan said shortly. 'Where's Lady Fire?'

Fire turned from the courtyard, went to the balcony door, stepped into the room, and came face to face with Nash, very handsome, very smartly dressed, who froze, stared back at her unhappily, turned, and strode into the next room. Garan and Welkley stared also, mouths agape, and Fire remembered that she was dressed up. Even Clara seemed struck dumb.

'All right,' Fire said, 'I know. Pull yourselves together and let's get on with things.'

'Is everyone in position?' Brigan asked. Mud-splattered and radiating cold, he looked like he'd been fighting for his life not ten minutes ago and had nearly lost, his cheekbone sc.r.a.ped raw, his jaw bruised, and a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage across his knuckles. He directed his question at Fire, searching her face with gentle eyes that did not match the rest of his appearance.

'Everyone's in position,' she said. Do you need a healer, Lord Prince? Do you need a healer, Lord Prince? He shook his head, peering down at his knuckles with mild amus.e.m.e.nt. 'And our enemies? Anyone we weren't expecting? Any of Cutter's foggy friends about, Lady?' He shook his head, peering down at his knuckles with mild amus.e.m.e.nt. 'And our enemies? Anyone we weren't expecting? Any of Cutter's foggy friends about, Lady?'

'No, thank the Dells.' Are you in pain? Are you in pain?

'All right,' Clara said. 'We have our swordsman, so let's get moving. Brigan, could you attempt, at least, to make yourself presentable? I know this is a war, but the rest of us are trying to pretend it's a party.'

THE THIRD TIME Fire instructed Welkley's serving girl to offer Gentian wine, Gentian grabbed the cup and downed it in two gulps.

Fire was fully inside Gentian's mind now. It was not a stable place. He kept glancing at the balcony belonging to Murgda. When he did this, his entire handsome being flashed with anxiety, and with a peculiar wishfulness.

Fire began to wonder why, if Gentian was so anxious about Lady Murgda's balcony, he'd a.s.signed none of his men to monitor Murgda. For Clara had figured right. Fire knew the feeling of every person in Gentian's entourage, and with a small effort, she could locate each of them. They were lurking around the doors and the persons of various gala guests; they were lurking near the guarded entrances to the royal residences and offices. None of them were lurking around Murgda.

Murgda, on the other hand, had spies on everyone. Two of them were milling around Gentian this moment.

Gentian took another cup of wine and glanced once more at Murgda's empty balcony. It was so odd, the emotion that accompanied these glances. Something like a frightened child looking for rea.s.surance from an adult.

Why would Gentian look to the balcony of his enemy for rea.s.surance?

Suddenly Fire wanted very much to feel what would happen if Murgda came onto her balcony and Gentian saw her. But Fire was not going to be able to compel Murgda onto her balcony without Murgda knowing she was being compelled. And then it would be only one more step to Murgda figuring out why.

It seemed to Fire that if she couldn't sneak up on Murgda, she might as well be direct. She sent a message.

Come out, lady rebel, and tell me why you're here.

Murgda's response was both immediate and startling: an ironic, hard pleasure at being so hailed; an utter lack of surprise or fear; a desire, unmistakable, to meet with the lady monster in person; and a blatant and unapologetic mistrust.

Well, Fire thought, her tone deliberately careless. I'll meet with you, if you'll go to the place I specify. I'll meet with you, if you'll go to the place I specify.

Amus.e.m.e.nt and contempt in response to this. Murgda was not fool enough to be led into a trap.

And I'm not keen enough to see you, Lady Murgda, that I would let you choose the meeting place.

Stubborn refusal to leave her self-created fortress.

You don't imagine I'd come to you in your rooms, Lady Murgda? No, I begin to think we are not meant to meet after all.

A determination - a need need - to meet Lady Fire, to see her. - to meet Lady Fire, to see her.

It was intriguing, this need, and Fire was content to use it for her own purposes. She breathed to calm her nerves, for her next message must be perfect in tone: amused - delighted, even - to the point of mild acquiescence, and somewhat curious, but rather indifferent as to where all of this might lead.

I suppose we could start by getting a look at each other. I'm on the balcony just across from you and up.

Suspicion. Fire was trying to lure Murgda out again.

Very well then, Lady Murgda. If you think our plan is to kill you publicly at our winter party and start a war in the court, then by all means, don't venture onto your balcony. I cannot blame you for caution, though it does seem to disallow your own interests. Goodbye, then.

A burst of irritation in response to this, which Fire ignored. Then scorn, then mild disappointment; and finally, silence. Fire waited. Minutes pa.s.sed, and her sense of Murgda shrank, as if Murgda were pulling her feelings away and closing herself tight.

More minutes pa.s.sed. Fire was beginning to try to cobble together a new plan when suddenly she felt Murgda moving through her rooms toward her balcony. Fire nudged Gentian to a place in the courtyard where he would not be able to see Fire but would have an un.o.bstructed view of Murgda's balcony door. Then Fire stepped forward into the light of the candles on her own railing.

Murgda stopped behind her balcony door and peeked out at Fire through the gla.s.s pane. She was as Fire remembered her: a short, plain-faced woman, straight-shouldered and tough-looking. Fire was pleased, oddly, by the strong and purposeful sight of her.