A moment later he looked up and held her eyes again. He smiled very slightly. 'Perhaps it would be fair to say that Nax mightn't have turned into a madman if it weren't for the drugs. But I believe the drugs were as inevitable as the rest. And Cansrel himself was the truest drug to Nax's mind. People saw what was happening - they saw Nax punishing law-abiding men and making alliances with criminals and wasting all the money in the king's coffers. Allies of Nax's father began to withdraw their support for Nax, as they were bound to do. And ambitious fellows like Mydogg and Gentian began to think and plot, and train squadrons of soldiers, under the guise of self-defence. And who could blame a mountain lord for that, with things so unstable? There was no law anymore, not outside the city, for Nax couldn't be troubled to attend to it. The roads were no longer safe, you had to be mad or desperate to travel the underground routes, looters and raiders and black market thugs were cropping up everywhere. Even the Pikkians. For ages, they'd been content to squabble among themselves. Now, suddenly, even they couldn't resist taking advantage of our lawlessness.'

Fire knew all of this; she knew her own history. In the end, a kingdom connected by underground tunnels and riddled with caves and hidden mountain holdings could not bear so much volatility. There were too many places for bad things to hide.

Wars had broken out in the Dells; not proper wars with well-defined political adversaries, but bungling mountain turf wars, one neighbour against another, one party of cave raiders against some poor lord's holding, one alliance of Dellian lords against the king. Brocker had been in charge of quelling all uprisings, all across the Dells. He'd been a far better military leader than Nax had deserved, and for several years, Brocker had done an impressive job of it. But he and the army had been on their own; in King's City, Cansrel and Nax had been busy, plowing their way through women and drugs.

King Nax had fathered a set of twins with a palace laundry girl. Then Brocker had committed his mysterious offense, and Nax had retaliated. And on the day that Nax had destroyed his own military commander, he'd dealt a fatal blow to any hope of rule in his kingdom. The fighting had burgeoned out of control. Roen had borne Nax another dark-haired son named Brigan. The Dells had entered a desperate time.

CANSREL HAD QUITE enjoyed being surrounded by desperation. It had entertained him to smash things apart with his power, and for entertainment he'd been insatiate.

The few women Cansrel couldn't seduce with the power of his beauty or his mind, he raped. The few women Cansrel impregnated he killed. He didn't want monster babies growing into monster children and adults who might undermine his power.

Brocker had never been able to tell Fire why Cansrel hadn't killed Fire's mother. It was a mystery; but she knew better than to hope for a romantic explanation. Fire had been conceived in a time of depraved pandemonium. Cansrel had probably forgotten he'd taken Jessa to his bed, or never noticed the pregnancy - she was only a palace servant, after all. He'd probably not realised the pregnancy was his, until the child had been born with hair so astonishing that Jessa had named her Fire.

Why had Cansrel allowed Fire to live? Fire didn't know the answer to that, either. Curious, he'd gone to see her, probably intending to smother her. But then, looking into her face, listening to the noises she made, touching her skin - absorbing her tiny, intangible, perfect monsterness - he'd decided, for some reason, that here was a thing he didn't want to smash.

While she was still a baby, Cansrel took her away from her mother. A human monster had too many enemies, and he wanted her to grow up in a secluded place far from King's City where she would be safe. He brought her to his own estate in the northern Dells, a holding he rarely inhabited. He left her with his dumbfounded steward, Donal, and a scattering of cooks and maids. 'Raise her,' he said.

The rest Fire remembered. Her neighbour Brocker took an interest in the orphan monster and saw to her education in history and writing and mathematics. When she showed interest in music, he found her a teacher. Archer became Fire's playmate, eventually her trusted friend. Aliss died of a lingering sickness that had set in after Archer's birth. Fire learned from the reports Brocker received that Jessa had died as well. Cansrel visited often.

His visits were confusing, because they reminded her that she had two fathers, two who never entered each other's presence if they could help it, never conversed beyond what civility demanded, and never agreed.

One was quiet and gruff and plain in a chair with big wheels. 'Child,' he'd say to her gently, 'just as we respect you by guarding our minds from you and behaving decently to you, so must you respect your friends by never using your powers deliberately against us. Does that make sense to you? Do you understand? I don't want you to do a thing unless you understand it.'

Her other father was luminous and brilliant and, in those earlier years, happy almost all of the time. He kissed her and swirled her around and carried her upstairs to bed, his body hot and electric, his hair like warm satin when she touched it. 'What has Brocker been teaching you?' he'd ask in a voice smooth as chocolate. 'Have you been practicing using the power of your mind against the servants? The neighbours? The horses and the dogs? It's right that you should do so, Fire. It's right and it's your your right, because you're my beautiful child, and beauty has rights that plainness never will.' right, because you're my beautiful child, and beauty has rights that plainness never will.'

Fire knew which one of the two was her true father. He was the one she called 'Father' instead of 'Brocker', and he was the one she loved the more desperately, because he was always either just arriving or just leaving, and because in their pockets of time together she stopped feeling like nature's freak. The people who despised her or loved her to excess had precisely the same feelings for Cansrel, though their behaviour towards him was different. The food her own cooks laughed at her for craving was the same food Cansrel craved, and when Cansrel was home, the cooks stopped laughing. Cansrel could sit with Fire and do something no one else could: give her lessons to improve the skill of her mind. They could communicate without saying a word, they could touch each other from opposite ends of the house. Fire's true father was like her - was, in fact, the only person in the world like her.

He always asked the same question when he first arrived: 'My darling monster girl! Was anyone mean to you while I was gone?'

Mean? Children threw stones at her in the road. She was tripped sometimes, slapped, taunted. People who liked her hugged her, but they hugged her too hard and were too free with their hands.

And still, Fire learned very young to answer no to his question - to lie, and to guard her mind from him so he wouldn't know she was lying. This was the beginning of another of her confusions, that she would want his visits so much but fall immediately to lying once he came.

When she was four she had a dog she'd chosen from a litter born in Brocker's stables. She chose him, and Brocker let her have him, because the dog had three functional legs and one that dragged, and would never be any use as a worker. He was inky grey and had bright eyes. Fire called him Twy, which was short for Twilight.

Twy was a happy, slightly brainless fellow with no idea he was missing something other dogs had. He was excitable, he jumped around a lot, and had a tendency on occasion to nip his favourite people. And nothing worked him into a greater frenzy of excitement, anxiety, joy, and terror than the presence of Cansrel.

One day in the garden Cansrel burst upon Fire and Twy unexpectedly. In confusion, Twy leapt against Fire and bit her more than nipped her, so hard that she cried out.

Cansrel ran to her, dropped to his knees, and took her into his arms, letting her fingers bleed all over his shirt. 'Fire! Are you all right?' She clung to him, because for just a moment Twy had scared her. But then, as her own mind cleared, she saw and felt Twy throwing himself against a pitch of sharp stone, over and over.

'Stop, Father! Stop it!'

Cansrel pulled a knife from his belt and advanced on the dog. Fire shrieked and grabbed at him. 'Don't hurt him, Father, please! Can't you feel that he didn't mean it?'

She scrabbled at Cansrel's mind but he was too strong for her. Hanging onto his trousers, punching him with her small fists, she burst into tears.

At that Cansrel stopped, shoved his knife back into his belt, and stood there, hands on hips, seething. Twy limped away, whimpering, his tail between his legs. And then Cansrel seemed to change, dropping down to Fire again, hugging her and kissing her and murmuring until she stopped crying. He cleaned her fingers and bandaged them. He sat her down for a lesson on the control of animal minds. When finally he let her go she ran to find Twy, who'd made his way to her room and was huddled, bewildered and ashamed, in a corner. She took him into her lap. She practiced soothing his mind, so that next time she'd be able to protect him.

The following morning she woke to silence, rather than the usual sound of Twy stumping around outside her door. All day long she looked for him on her own grounds and Brocker's, but she couldn't find him. He'd disappeared. Cansrel said, with smooth sympathy, 'I suppose he's run away. Dogs do that, you know. Poor darling.'

And so Fire learned to lie to her father when he asked if anyone had hurt her.

AS THE YEARS pa.s.sed Cansrel's visits became less frequent but lasted longer, for the roads were unsafe. Sometimes, appearing at her door after months away, he brought women with him, or the traders who dealt his animals and drugs, or new monsters for his cages. Sometimes he spent his entire visit strung out on the poison of some plant; or, completely sober, he had strange, arbitrary, gloomy fits of temper, which he took out on everyone but Fire. Other times he was as lucid and lovely as the high notes Fire played on her flute. She dreaded his arrivals, his bra.s.sy, gorgeous, dissolute invasions of her quiet life. And after every one of his departures she was so lonesome that music was the only thing to comfort her, and she threw herself headlong into her lessons, never even minding the moments when her teacher was hateful, or resentful of her growing skill.

Brocker never spared her the truth about Cansrel.

I don't want to believe you, she'd think to him after he'd told her another tale of something Cansrel had done. But I know it's true, because Cansrel himself tells me the stories, and he is never ashamed. He means them as lessons to guide my own behaviour. It worries him that I don't use my power as a weapon. But I know it's true, because Cansrel himself tells me the stories, and he is never ashamed. He means them as lessons to guide my own behaviour. It worries him that I don't use my power as a weapon.

'Does he not understand how different you are from him?' Brocker would ask. 'Does he not see that you're built from a different mould entirely?'

Fire couldn't describe the loneliness she felt when Brocker talked that way. How she wished at times that her quiet, plain, and good neighbour had been her true father. She wished to be like Brocker, built from his mould. But she knew what she was and what she was capable of. Even after she'd done away with mirrors, she saw it in other people's eyes, and she knew how easy it would be to make her own miserable life just a little bit more pleasant, the way Cansrel did all the time. She never told anyone, even Archer, how much the temptation of it shamed her.

When she was thirteen the drugs killed Nax, and a twenty-three-year-old Nash became king of a kingdom in shambles. Cansrel's fits of fury became even more frequent. So did his periods of melancholy.

When she was fifteen Cansrel opened the door of the cage that held back his midnight blue leopard monster, and departed from Fire for the last time.

CHAPTER THREE.

FIRE DIDN'T REALISE she'd fallen asleep in Lord Brocker's library until she awoke and found herself there. It was Brocker's monster kitten that woke her, swinging from the hem of her dress like a man on the end of a rope. She blinked, adjusting her eyes to the grainy light, absorbing the baby monster's consciousness. It was still raining. No one else was in the room. She ma.s.saged the shoulder of her injured arm and stretched in her chair, stiff and achy but feeling better rested.

The kitten climbed his way up her skirts, sank his claws into her knee, and peered at her, hanging. He knew what she was, for her headscarf had slipped back a finger width. The monsters appraised each other. He was bright green with gold feet, this kitten, and his daft little mind was reaching for hers.

Of course, no animal monster could control Fire's mind, but this never stopped some of the more dim varieties from trying. He was too small and silly to think of eating her, but he would want to play, nibble her fingers, lick some blood, and Fire could do without the stings from a monster cat game. She lifted him into her lap and scratched him behind the ears and murmured nonsense about how strong and grand and intelligent he was. For good measure, she sent him a blip of mental sleepiness. He turned a circle in her lap and plopped himself down. For good measure, she sent him a blip of mental sleepiness. He turned a circle in her lap and plopped himself down.

Housecat monsters were prized for keeping down the monster mouse population, and the regular mouse population too. This baby would grow big and fat, live a long, satisfied life, and probably father scores of monster kittens.

Human monsters, on the other hand, tended not to live long. Too many predators, too many enemies. It was for the best that Fire was the only one remaining; and she had decided long ago, even before she'd taken Archer into her bed, that she would be the last. No more Cansrels.

She sensed Archer and Brocker in the hallway outside the library door, and then she heard their voices. Sharp, agitated. One of Archer's moods - or had something new happened while she was sleeping? She touched their minds to let them know she was awake.

A moment later Archer pushed the library door open and held it wide for his father. They came in together, talking, Archer jabbing the air angrily with his bow. 'Curse Trilling's guard for trying to take the man alone.'

'Perhaps he had no choice,' Brocker said.

'Trilling's men are too hasty.'

Brocker brightened with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Interesting accusation, boy, coming from you.'

'I'm hasty with my tongue, Father, not my sword.' Archer glanced at Fire and her sleeping kitten. 'Love. How do you feel?'

'Better.'

'Our neighbour Trilling. Do you trust him?'

Trilling was one of the less foolish men Fire dealt with on a regular basis. His wife had employed Fire not only to tutor her boys in music but to teach them how to protect their minds against monster power.

'He's never given me reason to distrust him,' she said. 'What's happened?'

'He's found two dead men in his forest,' Archer said. 'One is his own guard, and I regret to say that the other is another stranger. Each with knife wounds and bruises, as if they'd been fighting each other, but what killed them both were arrows. Trilling's guard was shot from a distance in the back. The stranger was shot in the head at close range. Both arrows made of the same white wood as the bolt that killed your poacher.'

Fire's mind raced to make sense of it. 'The archer came upon them fighting, shot Trilling's guard from far away, then ran up to the stranger and executed him.'

Lord Brocker cleared his throat. 'Possibly a rather personal execution. a.s.suming the archer and the stranger were companions, that is, and it does seem likely that all these violent strangers in our woods have something to do with each other, doesn't it? The stranger from today had grievous knife injuries to his legs that might not have killed him, but would certainly have made it difficult for the archer to get him away once Trilling's guard was dead. I wonder if the archer shot Trilling's guard to protect his companion, then realised his companion was too injured to save, and decided to dispose of him, too?'

Fire raised her eyebrows at that, considering, and petted the monster cat absently. If the archer, the poacher, and this new dead stranger had, indeed, been working together, then the archer's responsibility seemed to be clean-up, so that no one was left behind to answer questions about why they were there in the first place. And the archer was good at his job.

Archer stared at the floor, tapping the end of his bow against the hard wood. Thinking. 'I'm going to Queen Roen's fortress,' he said.

Fire glanced at him sharply. 'Why?'

'I need to beg more soldiers of her, and I want the information of her spies. She might have thoughts about whether any of these strangers have anything to do with Mydogg or Gentian. I want to know what's going on in my forest, Fire, and I want this archer.'

'I'm going with you,' Fire said.

'No,' Archer said flatly.

'I am.'

'No. You can't defend yourself. You can't even ride.'

'It's only a day's journey. Wait a week. Let me rest, and then I'll go with you.'

Archer held up a hand and turned away from her. 'You're wasting your breath. Why would I ever allow such a thing?'

Because Roen is always unaccountably kind to me when I visit her northern fortress, Fire wanted to say. Because Roen knew my mother. Because Roen is a strong-minded woman, and there's something consoling in the regard of a woman. Roen never desires me, or if she ever does, it's not the same.

'Because,' she said out loud, 'Roen and her spies will have questions for me about what happened when the poacher shot me, and what little I managed to sense from his mind. And because,' she added, as Archer moved to object, 'you are neither my husband nor my father; I am a woman of seventeen, I have my own horses and my own money, and I decide for myself where I go and when. This is not yours to forbid.'

Archer slammed the end of his bow against the floor, but Lord Brocker was chuckling. 'Don't argue with her, boy. If it's information you're after, you're a fool not to take the monster at your disposal.'

'The roads are dangerous,' Archer said, practically spitting.

'It's dangerous here,' Brocker retorted. 'Isn't she safest with your bow to defend her?'

'She's safest inside, in a room with the door closed and locked.'

Brocker turned his chair toward the exit. 'She has precious few friends, Archer. It would be cruel for you to rush off to Roen and leave her behind.'

Fire found that she was holding the kitten close, cradling him against her breast, as if she were shielding him from something. From the way it felt to have her movements, her feelings, even, debated by two p.r.i.c.kly men. She had the sudden mad wish that this little green-haired creature in her arms were her own baby, to hold and adore and to deliver her from people who did not understand her. Foolish, she thought to herself furiously. Don't even think it. What does the world need with another mind-stealing baby?

Lord Brocker grasped Archer's hand and looked into his eyes, steadying his son, calming him. Then Brocker rolled to the exit and closed the door on their quarrel.

Archer watched Fire, his face uncertain. And Fire sighed, finally forgiving her stubborn friend and the stubborn father who'd adopted him. Their arguments, however they squashed her, were drawn from the wells of two very large hearts.

She dropped the kitten to the floor and stood, taking Archer's hand as his father had done. Archer looked down at their joined hands soberly. He brought her fingers to his mouth, kissed her knuckles, and made a show of inspecting her hand, as if he'd never seen it before.

'I'll pack my things,' Fire said. 'Just tell me when we're leaving.'

She stretched onto her toes to kiss his cheek, but he intercepted her and began to kiss her mouth, gently. She let him, for just a moment. Then she extricated herself and left the room.

CHAPTER FOUR.

FIRE'S HORSE WAS named Small, and he was another of Cansrel's gifts. She had chosen him over all the other horses because his coat was dun and drab and because of the quiet way he'd followed her back and forth, the pasture fence between them, the day she'd gone to one of Cutter's shows to choose.

The other horses had either ignored her or become jumpy and agitated around her, pushing against each other and snapping. Small had kept on the outside of the bunch of them, where he was safe from their jostling. He'd trotted along beside Fire, stopping when she stopped, blinking at her hopefully; and whenever she'd walked away from the fence he had stood waiting for her until she came back.

'Small, his name is,' Cutter had said, 'because his brain's the size of a pea. Can't teach him anything. He's no beauty, either.'

Cutter was Cansrel's horse dealer and his favourite monster smuggler. He lived in the western Great Greys and, once a year, carted his merchandise all over the kingdom in large caravans, showing his wares and selling them. Fire did not like him. He was not kind to his animals. And his mouth was wide and loose and his eyes were always settling on her in a way that felt proprietary and disgusting, a way that made her want to curl up into a ball to cover herself.

He was also wrong about Small. Fire knew the look of stupid eyes and the feel of a fatuous mind, in animals and in men, and she had sensed none of this with Small. What she had sensed was the way the gelding trembled and balked whenever Cutter came near, and the way the trembling stopped when Fire touched him, and whispered her greetings. Fire was used to being wanted for her beauty, but she was not used to being needed for her gentleness.

When Cutter and Cansrel had walked away for a moment, Small had strained his neck over the fence and rested his chin on her shoulder. She'd scratched him behind the ears, and he'd made small blissful noises and breathed spit onto her hair. She had laughed, and a door in her heart had opened. Apparently there was such a thing as love at first sight; or love at first spit, anyway.

Cutter had told her she was daft, and Cansrel had tried to talk her into a stunning black mare that suited her own flamboyant beauty. But it was Small she'd wanted, and Small that Cutter had delivered three days later. Shaking, terrified, because Cutter in his inhumanity had stuck the horse into a wagon along with a mountain lion monster Cansrel had purchased, with nothing but what amounted to a shaky arrangement of wooden slats separating them. Small had come out of the wagon rearing and screaming, and Cutter had stung him with his whip and called him a coward.

Fire had run to the horse, choked with indignation, and put all the pa.s.sionate calm feeling she could into soothing his mind; and she'd told Cutter furiously, in the kind of words she never used, just what she thought of his way with his goods.

Cutter had laughed and told her she was doubly pleasing when she was angry - which had, of course, been a grave mistake on his part, for anyone with a modic.u.m of intelligence would have known better than to treat Lady Fire with disrespect in the very presence of her father. Fire had pulled Small quickly to the side, because she'd known what was coming. First Cansrel had caused Cutter to grovel, and apologise, and weep. Then he'd caused him to believe himself to be in agonising pain from imaginary injuries. Finally he'd switched to the real thing, kicking Cutter calmly in the groin, repeatedly, until Cansrel was satisfied he understood.

Small, in the meantime, had gone quiet at Fire's first touch, and had done everything, from that first moment, that she had ever asked.

Today as she stood at Small's side, dressed warmly against the dawn, Archer came to her and offered his hand. She shook her head and grabbed the pommel one-handed. She pulled herself up, catching her breath against the pain.