BOTH GENTIAN AND Gunner sat in chairs facing the entry. As she shut the door, Gunner rose to his feet and edged sideways against the wall in a direction that brought him slightly nearer to her.

A shield with Quislam's colours was propped against a footstool. Fire saw that the carpet was a patchwork of squares in rust, brown, and red; the curtains red; the sofa and chairs brown. At least they wouldn't have to worry about bloodstains. She soaked in the feeling of these two men, and knew immediately where the trouble would lie in this room. Of course it would not be with Gentian, so charming and so blitheringly happy to see her, so easy for even her torpid mind to invade that she would have wondered how such a man could ever have risen to a place of power, had the answer not stood scowling before her in the form of Gunner.

He was a bit like Nash used to be: unpredictable, confusing, too much for her to control, but not entirely under his own control either. He began to prowl back and forth along the wall, his eyes always on her. And though he was not a big man or imposing, something tight and smooth in his movements caused Fire to see suddenly why the others had been worried. He was a calculating creature with a capacity for strong, fast viciousness.

'Won't you sit down, Gunner?' Fire murmured, moving herself sideways, away from both of them, and seating herself calmly on the sofa - which was a mistake, because more than one person could fit on a sofa, and the sofa was where Gunner now seemed inclined to sit. She fought him with her mind, which felt puffy and stiff, pushed him back toward the seats nearer his father, but he would not sit if he couldn't sit with her. He retreated to his wall and resumed prowling.

'And what can we do for you, darling child?' Gentian said, slightly drunk and bouncing in his seat with happiness.

How she wished she could go slowly. But her time in this room was borrowed from Lord Quislam.

'I want to join your side,' she said. 'I want your protection.'

'You're not to be trusted, looking like that,' Gunner growled.

'Never trust a monster.'

Gentian chided his son. 'Gunner! Did she not prove her trustworthiness when we were set upon in the hallway? Mydogg wouldn't wish us to be rude.'

'Mydogg does not care what we do, as long as it's to his advantage, ' Gunner said. 'We shouldn't trust Mydogg either.'

'Enough,' Gentian said, his voice suddenly sharp and commanding. Gunner glowered, but made no retort.

'And how long have you been allied with Mydogg?' Fire asked, turning innocent eyes to Gentian.

She latched tightly to Gentian's mind and directed him to speak.

SOME TWENTY MINUTES later she had learned, and conveyed to the siblings, that Mydogg and Gentian had allied themselves largely in response to the lady monster joining the ranks of the king, and that Hart had only told part of the story when he'd said Gentian planned to attack Fort Flood with his force of ten thousand. Really Gentian would attack Fort Flood with fifteen thousand. After they had allied, Mydogg had moved five thousand of his own Pikkian recruits piecemeal to Gentian, through the tunnels.

It had not been easy to play-act delight at that particular piece of news. It meant Brigan would be outnumbered by five thousand at Fort Flood. But perhaps it also meant that the rest of Mydogg's army, wherever it was hiding, only numbered fifteen thousand or so? Perhaps the other two branches of the King's Army plus all the auxiliaries could then meet Mydogg on equal ground . . .

'Our spies tell us you've been looking all over the kingdom for Mydogg's army,' Gentian said now, interrupting her calculations. He giggled, playing around with a knife he'd pulled from his boot because his son, pacing and snarling, was making him nervous. 'I can tell you why you haven't found it. It's on the sea.'

'On the sea,' Fire said, genuinely surprised.

'Yes,' Gentian said, 'Mydogg has twenty thousand strong - ah, I see that number impresses you? He's always recruiting, that Mydogg. Yes, he's got twenty thousand strong on the sea, just out of sight of Marble Rise, in a hundred Pikkian boats. And fifty more Pikkian boats, carry nothing but horses. They're big boat people, you know, the Pikkians. Lady Murgda's own husband's a boat type. An explorer, until Mydogg got him interested in the business of war. Sit down down, Gunner,' Gentian said sharply, reaching out to Gunner as he loomed past, slapping Gunner's arm with the flat of his knife.

Gunner swung on his father abruptly, grappled for the knife, wrested it from Gentian's grip, and flung it at the far wall. It screeched against stone and thumped onto the rug, bent crooked. Fire kept her face still so he would not know how much he'd frightened her.

'You've lost your mind,' Gentian said indignantly, staring at his son.

'You have no mind to lose,' Gunner snarled. 'Have we any secrets you haven't told yet to the king's monster pet? Go on, tell her the rest, and when you're done, I'll break her neck.'

'Nonsense,' Gentian said sternly. 'You'll do no such thing.'

'Go on, tell her.'

'I'll tell her nothing until you've sat down, and apologised, and shown you can behave yourself.'

Gunner made a noise of impatient disgust and came to stand before Fire. He stared at her face, and then quite shamelessly at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Gunner is unstable, Fire told Brigan. He's winged a knife at the wall and broken it. He's winged a knife at the wall and broken it.

Can you get more out of them about the boats? Brigan thought back. How many horses?

Before Fire could ask, Gunner touched a finger to her collarbone and Fire dropped her perception of Brigan, of Gentian, of the whole rest of the palace. She put everything into Gunner, into fighting his intent, for she knew his attention and his hand were tending downward and she thought she might lose hold of him entirely if she allowed him a handful of her breast, which was what he wanted, or more accurately, what he wanted to start with.

And she did get his hand to rise, but it rose to her throat, and encircled it, and very slightly squeezed. For a long second Fire could not breathe, she could not find her brain. He was choking her.

'Mydogg thinks the crown will send reinforcements south to Fort Flood when we attack,' Gunner said, whispering, and finally letting her go. 'Maybe even a whole branch of the King's Army, if not two branches. And when the north is less crowded with the king's soldiers, Mydogg will send word for the beacons on Marble Rise to be lit. Do you understand, monster?'

Marble Rise was a high, coastal area north of the city, and Fire did understand. 'The soldiers on the Pikkian ships will see the smoke,' she said lightly.

'Clever thing,' Gunner said, circling his hand around her throat again, then changing his mind, taking a handful of her hair and pulling on it. 'And the smoke is the signal they've been waiting for to make land and march on the city.'

'The city,' Fire whispered.

'Yes,' Gunner said, 'this city. And why not go straight for King's City? The timing will be perfect. Nash will be dead. Brigan will be dead.' city. And why not go straight for King's City? The timing will be perfect. Nash will be dead. Brigan will be dead.'

'He means that we're killing them tomorrow,' Gentian interjected, watching his son warily. 'We have it all planned. There's to be a fire.'

Gunner yanked on Fire's hair, very hard. 'I'm telling her, Father,' he said savagely. ' telling her, Father,' he said savagely. 'I decide what she knows. decide what she knows. I I am in charge of her.' am in charge of her.'

He grabbed her neck again and pulled her against his body, rough and disgusting. Fighting for breath, Fire capitulated to old-fashioned pain, reaching for his groin, grabbing whatever she could get hold of and twisting as hard as she could. In the moment of his scream she took a swipe at his mind, but her own mind was a balloon, soft and hollow, with no sharp edges, no claws for gripping. He stepped back from her, breathing hard. His fist came out of nowhere and slammed into her face.

For an instant she lost consciousness. Then she resurfaced, to the taste of blood and the familiar feeling of pain. The rug. I'm lying on the rug, she thought. Face in agony, head in agony. She moved her mouth. Jaw intact. She wiggled her fingers. Hands intact. Brigan? Brigan?

Brigan responded.

Good, she thought blearily. Mind intact. She began to stretch her mind out to the rest of the palace.

But Brigan wasn't through communicating. He was trying to make her understand something. He was worried. He heard noises. He was on the balcony above, ready to drop down at her command.

Fire realised that she also heard noises. She rolled her head sideways and saw Gentian and Gunner yelling at each other, pushing each other around, one pompous and outraged, the other frightening because of a deranged look in his eyes that brought the memory of why she was in this room back to Fire. She propped herself up on her elbow and dragged herself onto her knees. She sent Brigan a question.

Is there anything else you need to know about Mydogg?

There was not.

She rose to her feet, staggered to the sofa, and leaned against it, eyes closed, until the pain of her head became something she thought she could bear. Then come down. This interview has come to the end of its usefulness. They're fighting each other Then come down. This interview has come to the end of its usefulness. They're fighting each other. She watched Gunner shove his father against the gla.s.s of the balcony door. They're grappling against the balcony door this moment They're grappling against the balcony door this moment.

And then, because Brigan was coming and when he did he would be in danger, she brought each of her ankles up to her hands, one at a time - vaguely suspecting that if she did it the other way, reaching hands down to feet, her head would fall off and roll away. She pulled her knives from their holsters. She stumped closer to the struggling men, both too preoccupied to notice her or the knives in her hands. She blotted her bleeding face on her gorgeous purple sleeve, and teetered, and waited.

It wasn't long. She felt Brigan and saw him almost at the same time, saw him yank the balcony door open and Gentian fall out through the opening, saw Gentian surge back in again, but different now, because his mind was gone, he was just a body now, a dagger was in his back, and Brigan was pushing him violently to get him out of the way and to give Gunner a thing to trip over as Brigan descended with his sword.

It was a horrible thing to watch, actually, Brigan killing Gunner. He smashed his sword hilt into Gunner's face, so hard Gunner's face changed shape. He kicked Gunner full onto his back and, his expression smooth and focused, drove his sword into Gunner's heart. That was it, it was so quick, and so brutal, and then he was upon her, worried, helping her to the sofa, finding a cloth for her face, all too fast for her to take control of the horror she was sending out to him.

He felt it, and understood it. His own face closed. His inspection of her injuries changed to something clinical and emotionless.

She caught his sleeve. 'It startled me,' she whispered. 'That's all.'

There was shame in his eyes. She held tighter to his sleeve.

'I won't let you be ashamed before me,' she said. 'Please, Brigan. We're the same. What I do only looks less horrible.' And And, she added, understanding it only as she said it, even if this part of you frightens me, I have no choice but to like it, for it's a part of you that will keep you safe in the war. I want you to live. I want you to kill those who would kill you. even if this part of you frightens me, I have no choice but to like it, for it's a part of you that will keep you safe in the war. I want you to live. I want you to kill those who would kill you.

He didn't say anything. But after a moment he leaned in again to touch the bones of her cheek and chin, gently, no longer avoiding her eyes, and she knew he accepted what she'd said. He cleared his throat. 'Your nose is broken,' he said. 'I can set it for you.'

'Yes, all right. Brigan, there's a laundry chute outside, just down the hall. We need to find sheets or something to wrap up the bodies, and you need to carry them to the chute and drop them in. I'll tell Welkley to clear all the servants out of the northernmost laundry room and to get ready to deal with an enormous mess. We have to hurry.'

'Yes, good plan,' Brigan said. He took tight hold of the back of her head. 'Try to keep still.' And then he grasped her face and did something that hurt far more than Gunner's blow had, and Fire cried out, and battled him with both her fists.

'All right,' he gasped, letting go of her face and catching her arms, though not before she hit him hard in the side of the head. 'I'm sorry, Fire. It's done. Sit back and let me handle the bodies. You need to rest, so you can guide us through what's left tonight.' He jumped up and disappeared into the bedroom.

'What's left,' Fire murmured, still crying slightly from the pain. She leaned on the armrest of the sofa and breathed until the ache of her face receded and stabilised, joining the blunt throbbing rhythm of the misery of her head. Slowly, softly, she pushed her mind to travel all around the palace and the grounds, touching on Murgda, touching on Murgda's and Gentian's people, touching on their allies, latching onto Quislam and his wife. She found Welkley and conveyed her instructions.

Blood was in her mouth, dripping down the back of her throat. Just as the sensation became intolerably disgusting Brigan appeared at her elbow, sheets slung over his shoulder, and plunked a bowl of water and cups and cloths on the table before her. He moved on to the bodies of Gentian and Gunner and set to bundling them up. Fire rinsed out her mouth and ran her mind again through the palace.

For a moment at the edges of her perception she thought that someone felt wrong, out of place. On the grounds? In the green house? Who was it? The feeling disappeared, and she couldn't locate it again, which was frustrating, and unsettling, and thoroughly exhausting. She watched Brigan wrap Gunner's body in a sheet, his own face dark with bruises, his hands and his sleeves covered with Gunner's blood.

'Our army is greatly outnumbered,' she said. 'Everywhere.'

'They've been trained with that expectation in mind,' he said flatly. 'And thanks to you, we have the element of surprise on both fronts. You've done more tonight than any of us could have hoped. I've already sent messages north to the Third and Fourth and most of the auxiliaries - soon they'll be consolidated on the sh.o.r.e north of the city and Nash will ride to join them. And I've sent an entire battalion to Marble Rise to take charge of the beacons and pick off any messengers heading for the boats. You see how it's laid out? Once the Third and Fourth are in position, we'll light the beacons ourselves. Mydogg's army will make land, suspecting nothing, and we'll attack them, with the sea to their back. And where they outnumber us with men we'll outnumber them with horses - they can't have more than four or five thousand on the boats - and their horses will be in no state to fight after weeks on the sea. It'll help. Maybe make up a bit for our own daftness in not realising that Mydogg might be building a navy with his Pikkian friends.'

It was difficult for Fire to wipe blood from her nose without touching it. 'Murgda's a problem,' she said, gasping at the pain. 'Eventually someone's going to notice Gentian and Gunner are missing, and then Murgda will suspect what we've done and what we know.'

'It almost doesn't matter, as long as none of her messengers are able to reach those boats.'

'Yes, all right, but there are a hundred people at court this minute who'll be willing to make a go at being the one messenger who gets through.'

Brigan tore a sheet in half with a ma.s.sive ripping sound. 'Do you think you could get her out of her rooms?'

Fire closed her eyes and touched on Murgda. Any change of heart, Lady Murgda? Any change of heart, Lady Murgda? she thought, trying not to sound as weak as she felt. she thought, trying not to sound as weak as she felt. I'm resting in my bedroom. You're welcome to join me. I'm resting in my bedroom. You're welcome to join me.

Murgda responded with scorn, and with the same recalcitrance she'd displayed before. She had no intention of going anywhere near Lady Fire's rooms.

'I don't think so,' Fire said.

'Well then, for now we'll just have to keep her from suspecting for as long as we can, however we can. The longer it takes, the more time we have to set our own wheels into motion. The shape of the war is ours to choose now, Lady.'

'We've done Mydogg an enormous favour. I suppose he'll be the commander of Gentian's army now. He'll no longer have to share.'

Brigan knotted a last sheet and stood. 'I doubt he ever meant to share for long, anyway. Mydogg was always the more real threat. Is the hallway clear? Shall I get on with this?'

A very good reason to get on with it bubbled into Fire's mind. She sighed. 'The master of the guard is calling to me. One of Quislam's servants is coming, and - and Quislam's wife, and a number of guards. Yes, go,' she said, pushing herself to her feet, dumping her bowl of b.l.o.o.d.y water into a plant beside the sofa. 'Oh! Where's my mind? How are you and I to leave this room?'

Brigan heaved one of the bundles onto his back. 'The same way I came. You're not afraid of heights, are you?'

ON THE BALCONY, tears seeped down Fire's face from the effort of detracting the attention of eight levels of potential onlookers. They put the candles out and sank into shadow.

'I won't let you fall,' Brigan said quietly. 'Nor will Clara. Do you understand?'

Fire was slightly too lightheaded to understand. She'd lost blood and she did not think she was capable of this thing just now, but it didn't matter, because Quislam's people were coming and it had to be done. She stood with her back to Brigan as he told her to, his back to the railing, and he crouched, and the next thing she knew he was lifting her up by her knees. Her palms touched the underside of the balcony above. He shifted her backward and her searching fingers found the bars to that balcony. For one horrible moment she looked down and saw what he'd done to achieve this angle; he was perched on his own railing, his feet locked around his own bars, leaning back over empty s.p.a.ce while he lifted her. Slightly sobbing, Fire grasped the bars and held. Clara's hands came down from above and locked tight around her wrists.

'Got her,' Clara said.

Brigan abandoned her knees for her ankles and she was rising again, and suddenly the beautiful, merciful railing was before her, and she grabbed onto it, and wrapped both arms over it, and Clara was pulling at her torso and her legs and a.s.sisting her clumsy and painful climb over it. She crashed onto the balcony floor. She gasped, and with a monumental effort focused her mind, and pushed herself to a standing position so that she might aid in Brigan's ascent; and found him already standing beside her, breathing quickly. 'Inside,' he said.

Within the room, Clara and Brigan talked back and forth rapidly. Fire understood that Brigan was not waiting to see what would happen with Murgda, or with Gentian's men, or with Welkley and the bodies in the laundry room, or with anyone. Brigan was going now, this instant, across the hallway and into the opposite rooms, through the window and down a very long rope ladder to the grounds and his waiting horse, his waiting soldiers, to ride to the tunnels at Fort Flood and begin the war.

'Murgda may still light this fire Gentian spoke of,' Brigan was saying. 'They may still try to kill Nash. You must all increase your vigilance. At a certain point it might be wise if Murgda's and Gentian's thugs began to disappear, do you understand me?' He turned to Fire. 'How best for you to leave this room?'

Fire forced herself to consider the question. 'The way I came. I'll call a cart and take the lift, and climb the ladder to my window.' And then she had a night of the same work ahead of her: monitoring Murgda and everyone else, and telling Welkley, the guard - everyone - who was where, who must be stopped, and who must be killed, so that Brigan could ride to Fort Flood and his messengers could ride north and no one would learn enough about anything to know to try to pursue them, and no one would light any fires.

'You're crying,' Clara said. 'It'll only make your nose worse.'

'Not real tears,' Fire said. 'Just exhaustion.'

'Poor thing,' Clara said. 'I'll come to your rooms later and help you through this night. And now you must go, Brigan. Is the hallway clear?'

'I need a minute,' Brigan said to Clara. 'A single minute alone with the lady.'

Clara's eyebrows shot up. She glided into the next room wordlessly.

Brigan went and shut the door behind her, then turned around to face Fire. 'Lady,' he said. 'I have a request for you. If I should die in this war-'

Fire's tears were real now, and there was no helping them, for there was no time. Everything was moving too fast. She crossed the room to him, put her arms around him, clung to him, turning her face to the side, learning all at once that it was awkward to show a person all of one's love when one's nose was broken.

His arms came around her tightly, his breath short and hard against her hair. He held on to the silk of her hair and she pressed herself against him until her panic calmed to something desperate, but bearable.

Yes, she thought to him, understanding now what he'd been about to ask. If you die in the war, I'll keep Hanna in my heart. I promise I won't leave her If you die in the war, I'll keep Hanna in my heart. I promise I won't leave her.

It was not easy letting go of him; but she did, and he was gone.

I N THE CART on the way back to her rooms, Fire's tears stopped. She'd reached a point of such absolute numbness that everything, save a single living thread holding her mind to the palace, stopped. It was almost like sleeping, like a senseless, stupefying nightmare.