Leon shushed his daughter, his face red, while Solie shook her head, silently glad that Justin was dead if he was willing to order something so awful. Heyou smirked, picking up on her anger.

"You're still alive," she pointed out to Ril.

"He left the how and when open," the battler explained. Shrugging, he added, "I figured I'd die someday, so I'd obey him then."

Solie laughed. Clever. "Anything else?"

"I really don't remember."

Heyou piped up. "Why don't you just order him to ignore anything Justin told him to do?"

Solie looked up. "That's the whole problem. How can he know what he's not supposed to do when he doesn't know when he's doing something he was told?"

Heyou looked taken aback. "Oh. Uh. Huh?"

"Dammit," Leon muttered. "Maybe something else? Maybe some sort of overall order not to do anything to hurt himself?"

Lizzy moaned, staring at her hands. "I can't believe Justin did this. I mean, did he really think he could make me love him by killing Ril?"

Her father put an arm around her while Ril watched worriedly.

Heyou eyed Lizzy as well, scratching his head, but then he paused, listening. A moment later he had Solie around the waist and was throwing her backward, shifting form to catch her in his mantle as he did.

Solie screamed, tumbling against solid darkness as the front door crashed open and a second cloud pa.s.sed inside. Mace shifted to human form as he landed on the bed. His ma.s.sive hand lashed out and locked around Ril's throat, slamming him back against the headboard.

Lizzy shrieked.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Leon thundered.

"Claw found a diary at the boy's. He ordered Ril to sabotage the warehouse, kill Rachel and Galway, murder those a.s.sa.s.sins, and try to kill Moreena. My master was next on the list."

"I didn't!" Ril gasped.

"He ordered him to forget," Mace finished. "We don't know what else he was told to do. The queen is in danger."

Leon wore a belt knife. He had it out and against Mace's throat. "Let him go."

"That won't hurt me."

"Care to find out for sure?"

"Stop!" Solie shouted, emerging from Heyou. Awkwardly, she edged onto her feet, leaning on Heyou and keeping one hand on her belly. "Mace, don't hurt him."

"He's a danger to you."

"Sylphs don't hurt queens."

"Crazy ones do."

Leon pressed his knife against Mace's throat until the skin pushed inward, and the battler squinted at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Ril isn't crazy."

"Release him, Mace," Solie ordered. "Leon, put the knife away."

Mace slowly let go of Ril, and Leon stepped back, sheathing the knife. The two glared at each other while Ril sat up, watching Solie instead. Heyou stepped in front of her, watching him.

Solie sighed. "Ril, this is an order. No matter what you've been told, you will not harm me or the Widow Blackwell, or any other human in this Valley. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Leon spoke up. "He won't be able to defend himself now."

"Like you were ever planning to risk him in a fight again," she snapped. Her back was starting to hurt, and the stress was making her tired. So was the late hour. She turned to Mace and asked, "Happy?"

"Happy enough," he replied. "The hive is safe."

It was. Solie turned away. Maybe now the more overprotective sylphs would calm down; she was tired of getting complaints from their beleaguered masters.

"I'd like to see this diary in the morning-and anything else you find." She walked with Heyou toward the doorway, then stopped. "Where's Claw?"

Mace paused, checking. "He went back to his master."

"Oh." Solie pictured Sala for a moment, whom she still didn't like. She hadn't seen Claw since Rachel died. Sometimes she wondered if he was avoiding her, but that didn't make any sense, so she headed out the door and back toward home.

After about forty steps, Heyou took pity on her waddling gait. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her the rest of the way.

Claw walked slowly down the underground hive pa.s.sageway and past several open rooms. With the sun down and their masters asleep, dozens of sylphs were a.s.sembled for cla.s.ses, lectures given mostly in the mental speech they all shared. He peered in at the a.s.sembled sylphs, most of them in their elemental forms, only a few maintaining human appearance.

He missed being in these cla.s.ses, missed sitting at the cramped little desk while Rachel taught them to read, or write, or to do all those things with numbers. He missed so many things, and his walk slowed to a shuffle. He began trembling.

Sala didn't like it when he trembled. Maybe now she'd be pleased with him-though he certainly wasn't pleased with himself. He'd killed that boy when she'd said to: before he could protest his innocence for all the crimes she wanted him blamed for. Then Claw had "found" the diary she'd written, detailing all of the things she'd actually done and ascribing them to Justin. He'd accomplished these things while avoiding the queen.

He continued on, pa.s.sing another cla.s.s he wasn't allowed to join. He had really hoped Sala's plan would fail, but its success was unsurprising. She was too good at the details.

With the threat to the hive dead, the sylphs would settle down and stop guarding their masters so obsessively. These cla.s.ses would be three or four times this size, and Sala would be able to do whatever she wanted again. He didn't know what she wanted, not entirely. He didn't want to. He just wished he could be ordered to forget, like Ril or Wat. Wat didn't have to remember a thing, and he didn't shake when he was in the presence of his master. He didn't have to stay celibate, either, though Claw was glad of that aspect. For all his instinctive nature, he didn't want Sala touching him. He was lucky that she preferred Wat.

Of course, that just made him even gladder for Wat that Wat never remembered.

He reached her apartment, the absolute last place he wanted to be, and went inside. Sala sat primly in a chair, sewing a skirt for herself.

"Tell me."

Claw closed the door and leaned against it. "The boy gave the order you wanted. Ril's pain alerted the hive, and I killed the boy before anyone could question him. Then I planted the diary. Ril and Justin took the blame for everything."

"Did they kill him?"

Claw shuddered but forced himself to stop before she noticed. "Ril? No."

Sala shrugged. "Pity. Spend time with the others tomorrow, encourage them to relax and leave their masters alone again."

He didn't want to know why. Dismissed, he shuffled into the next room and shut the door, wanting to lock it but not daring. Going to the corner farthest from the bed, he slid down and laid his head on his knees, dreaming yet again that Rachel hadn't died-or better yet, that he'd managed to die with her.

Sala felt Claw's misery, and she tried to put it out of her mind. It wasn't easy. His emotions weren't anything he could entirely banish, though he hid them well from other sylphs. That was something, but she'd be much happier if he could also hide them from her. He couldn't. Apparently that little flaw was why enslaved battlers. .h.i.t their masters with a constant aura of hate. Sala would have preferred hate, but such an aura would have brought her far too much attention.

His emotions kept her from sleeping with him. Wat was better for that, anyway, with the added bonus that knowing she slept with Wat instead of him had to be driving Claw mad. Sala certainly hoped so. She'd been investing quite a lot of time in making him insane, and he was being far more resistant than she'd expected. She wasn't entirely sure she needed him crazy, but it seemed better to be safe than sorry.

Justin had certainly turned out well, despite the limited amount of time she'd had to work on him. His public hatred for Ril had made him a perfect scapegoat.

Sala knew she'd been lucky. She hadn't expected the battle sylphs to react the way they had to the deaths and accidents she'd arranged. Killing Rachel to get Claw had made the battlers move closer to their masters. Killing Galway to isolate Solie had made them even more protective. The attempt on Moreena had made them impenetrable. Single-minded creatures. She would never get a chance to kill Solie if she hadn't given some other focus for their fear. Even so, nothing was working out the way she planned.

Despite her attempts to become Solie's friend, the woman didn't trust her. Somehow she had better instincts than her battlers. Hence Sala's work to make Claw crazy. If Sala couldn't kill Solie herself, Claw would. So long as he could mate with her afterward, it didn't matter how insane he was. Once would be enough to make her queen. After that, she likely wouldn't need him.

This time, everything was going to work out. She wouldn't be impatient, not like she'd been in Yed. She should have waited longer to kill that magistrate, used a method other than poison, been more discreet in her rearrangement of his finances so that everything went to Gabralina. She'd planned to inherit after Gabralina met with her own accident, but the magistrate's family was smarter than she'd hoped, and she supposed that she really had been sloppy.

It would be harder to stop her this time. She had to be careful for the time being, but once she was queen, every battle sylph in the Valley would protect her, and every sylph would obey. She'd have to kill a few more people: Heyou, to see if Solie really needed him. And, she would have murdered Leon already if she didn't know it would have the sylphs even more upset. Still, he'd be the first one to die after she ascended. Once he and a few others were gone, there wouldn't be anyone else to concern herself with. Not unless she wanted to.

Sala finished sewing a b.u.t.ton on her blouse and bit off the end of the thread. There would be others to do this sort of thing for her once she was queen. She eyed the b.u.t.ton critically. It was a bit crooked but good enough. For now. She set the garment aside and went to find something to eat.

Chapter Seventeen.

High atop the tower that marked the center of town, Ril sat on a ledge below the tallest pinnacle, his arms encircling his drawn-up knees. Claw sat to one side of him, Wat to the other. Dillon floated in cloud form before them all, regarding them through ball lightning eyes.

Ril didn't want to talk to any of them, had actually struggled to make his way up here alone. The others had just shown up. Still, Leon and Lizzy couldn't reach him here, and Betha wouldn't eye him warily for going near her children.

Gingerly, Claw reached out and put a trembling hand on his shoulder. "I know how you feel," he mumbled.

Ril shot an angry look at the other battler, but there was such misery in Claw's eyes that he was silenced. If anyone could know his pain, he realized, it was Claw. Well, Mace too, but Mace hadn't come out of his slavery broken.

His anger faded. How could Claw even speak to him? He'd been Rachel's master, and Mace had found the little bottle of poison used to kill her in Justin's cottage this morning. Ril didn't know whether to be happy that he couldn't remember lacing her food with it. Ultimately, it didn't matter. He'd killed women before, and apparently he'd done it again.

But this one hadn't been threatening him or Lizzy. She'd been nothing but kind to all of them.

"I'm so sorry," Ril said. "I don't know what to say."

Claw looked down, swallowing. His emotions felt unstable, just as they always had, and layered with a tremendous sadness that hadn't been banished even with the arrival of his new master.

"It's not your fault," the sylph whispered. "Please, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Okay," Ril whispered in return. He changed focus, straight ahead, and saw Dillon's sparking eyes in the shadow of his body. That was no better, given how he'd come close to killing Moreena, too. If Blue hadn't been close by, Dillon would be as miserable as Claw.

It's not your fault, stupid, Dillon told him as he sagged.

Ril glared at him in response.

Up and over the top of the steeple, another cloud appeared and dropped down beside Dillon. Ril's eyes rolled. So much for getting away.

Is he still moping? Heyou asked Dillon.

Yeah.

Ril grimaced and dragged a hand through his hair. "Look, Heyou, about Galway . . ."

The lightning inside Heyou increased in speed. Oh. Um, it's not your fault. I know this. I understand it. I don't blame you at all.

Really? Dillon said. You told me you hated him.

Yeah, but then Solie explained to me how it wasn't his fault and he had no control because Justin was his master.

Really? And that worked?

Well, not really, but then she ordered me to stand on my head all night. The young battler turned and faced Ril. I miss Galway, I really do. I loved that guy a lot. He was the first one to get me to figure out that all men aren't evil. But you didn't kill him, Justin did. He just used you to do it.

Alongside Ril, Claw had his hands clasped in his lap and was shaking terribly, whimpering almost silently under his breath. On Ril's other side, Wat stared in confusion. "Why did Justin do it? Why did he kill people's masters?"

They were all quiet for a moment, none of them really sure. It certainly didn't make much sense to Ril. Justin had wanted Lizzy to be his wife, but she wasn't interested. Justin hated Ril for being with her, but then why hadn't he gone after Ril directly? Why had he hurt innocent bystanders before giving Ril the order to drink poisonous energy?

Heyou finally answered. Mace was talking to Solie about the diary they found. Justin hated battle sylphs and he wanted us all to suffer, so he went after our masters. He got a sick charge out of ordering Ril to help. Plus, that kept him safe, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Then why did he try to hurt Ril?

Heyou seemed a bit less sure. Well, he still hated him, didn't he? He wanted him to suffer most of all-but he was hardly going to kill Lizzy to do it. He wanted Ril to die so that he could finally woo her.

"I would never have hurt Lizzy," Ril whispered. "No matter what he ordered, I wouldn't have."

Wat frowned. "Oh."

He was dressed differently from the rest of them, but didn't seem affected by it. He wasn't trusted with anything important anymore, but he was still part of the hive. Claw was the miserable one; Ril didn't know what to say to him. Claw had always been damaged, and Ril felt a little too vulnerable himself at the moment to try. He simply clapped a hand on the other battler's shoulder.

"At least it's over," he said.

The other battlers agreed. But, Claw just buried his face in his hands, his heart still full of grief.

"Ril!"

Everyone looked down. Five stories below, Lizzy stood at the base of the building, her hands on her hips. She stared up at them, one foot tapping on the ground.

Ril stared down at her, not sure what to say. He loved the girl desperately, but what was she thinking? He knew and he didn't, and he didn't know what to do. He'd been avoiding Leon for the same reason.

At the sight of her, he felt a strong desire to go and hold her. He also wanted to stay where he was and sort through his emotions.