"But the living are always stronger than the dead." The words sounded hollow in her ears. She did not feel strong. She felt weak as water.

"Stronger, but sometimes not so desperate, nor so frightened, nor, at the worst, so angry," Iakush told her gently. "Your parents did not die easily. To call them back from the Land of Death and Spirit so soon will be to call them back to their hearts' best loves and worst fears. They may not be able to let go again."

"If I bring them back, I can send them away again." Medeoan did not look at the lord sorcerer. Her gaze remained fastened on the white-shrouded figures that were all that remained of her parents in the living world.

"It will be a struggle, Imperial Majesty. Would you wish on them more struggle now that they have gone to rest?"

"It is Vyshko and Vyshemir who are your living parents now." Keeper Bakhar rounded the pedestal of the gods, coming to stand at her other side. "They protect you, and expect your duty in return."

Medeoan turned her gaze up to the gods in their black gowns, especially to Vyshemir with her cup and her dagger, the tools she had used to save Isavalta when Isavalta was only one city and Vyshemir was only a mortal woman. It was Vyshemir's sacrifice of her life that saved Isavalta from invasion from the barbarians of Tuukos, and blessed it so that it could grow into the empire that had been placed into Medeoan's hands.

Not so long ago she would have cried, "But I do not want this duty!" She had, so many times, thrown herself prostrate at the foot of this pedestal, begging the gods for some way out. She was too small, she was too scared, she did not know enough, she did not want this duty. They had not listened. Instead, they had taken her parents and left her here.

"I know what you feel," said the keeper gently. "But if the gods trust you to rule their house, in their name, how can you fail to trust yourself?"

You are the heir of Vyshemir, her mother had told her long ago. This is not a gift that can be returned. In the end you are the one who will decide how to make use of it.

She had scorned those words then, and if she had not stormed out of the room on that occasion, she had on many others.

"I just wanted to tell them that I understand now," she said, wondering at her own words, but knowing the truth of them.

"When death comes so close, we find we understand many things," said Keeper Bakhar. "Come, Imperial Majesty, let us not trouble your parents, but pray for their rest and comfort."

So, for the first time, the new empress of Isavalta allowed herself to be advised, and let the keeper of her god house lead her to the audience alcove so that she might speak to her parents properly, through the gods. So that she might say she would do her best.

So that she might say that she truly did understand.

Kacha lay in his wife's bed for a time after Medeoan left, listening to how, after a few dozen heartbeats, the rustlings of ladies disturbed by their mistress's passage faded once more into the sounds of gentle breathing and sleep.

The withered fingers of his right hand tapped restlessly on the covers. He could not be absent when Medeoan returned, nor could he risk one of those ladies waking up and finding him engaged in improper activities. His fingers tapped more urgently, reminding him that he had other concerns.

You will simply have to be quick. Kacha slipped from his wife's bed. The darkness confounded his left eye but made little difference to his right. He waved the attending lady away and moved surely across the dank stone chamber to the unprepossessing door that led to his own suite.

The room on the other side was also shrouded in darkness, and his own flock of attendants snored in their rude beds, except for the two on night duty who sprang to their feet as he entered. He waved them back and did not spare them any other thought. Many of these were men he had brought with him. Those who had been assigned to him by the Isavaltan court, and could not be bribed, had long since been replaced by those who could. All of them knew better than to take any undue notice of what their master did after dark. Soon he would have to take similar measures with Medeoan's ladies.

The single advantage to the eternal cold and everlasting stone of this place was that there was always a fire burning somewhere. Kacha carried the smoldering brazier from his bedside behind a carved screen to the inlaid work desk where he wrote his letters. He set the brazier carefully in the waiting stand. He uncovered it with his right hand and blew gently on the coals to raise a cluster of delicate flames.

As the flames strengthened, Kacha felt a hunger seep into his mind. It flowed from his right eye and his right hand. Fire was gate and guardian. Fire was power and peace. These were truths he had not understood before his transformation, but now they were as much a part of him as his new eye and hand.

Prepared ink and paper waited for him on the desk. With his right hand, Kacha picked up the pen. He spat on the silver tip before dipping it into the thick black ink. Closing his left eye, he forced himself to relax and let his hand work. It was never easy, but it was necessary. Kacha knew himself to be a tool as well as a prince, and this was hard knowledge.

His hand worked busily at its task, sketching out particular sequences of letters, not to form words, but to form patterns, waves, tight, interlocking circles, and stars. His right eye saw the work, and it reached out to see beyond ink, spittle, and paper to places Kacha's mind would never touch.

When eye saw that hand had finished, hand laid down the pen and picked up the paper. Sweat prickled Kacha's forehead and the strain of his spirit reaching outside his flesh made his temple throb. He turned to the brazier and laid the paper down atop the coals. With his right hand, he smoothed the flames over the page.

Pain flared down through his skin to the bone. Kacha clamped his jaw closed to keep from screaming.

It does not burn. It does not burn. He tried to fill his mind with that thought. He had done this before and he knew his skin would emerge whole. If he had been a sorcerer in whole rather just in part, there would not even be any pain. But he could not stop his hand. He could not even pull it from the fire, so he must endure. Tool as well as prince. Conqueror and surrendered. But it hurt, by the names of the Seven Mothers, it hurt.

But while the fire blazed and filled him with pain, to his eye it appeared to have lost the power to consume. His skin, although it was surrounded by flame, remained untouched. So too did the paper on the coals. Only the ink began to smoke. It bubbled as if boiling in a pot. Kacha's fingers stirred the flame. The ink sizzled and the smoke took on a bitter smell. At last, all the ink turned to black steam and drifted away.

Kacha's hand twitched the parchment out of the flames. The pain ceased at once and the chill air was like a blessing against his skin. Relief buckled Kacha's knees and he dropped to the floor. Tears of remembered pain and present relief mixed with the sweat running down his face.

Kacha impatiently dashed the tears away with his left hand. His right hand smoothed the paper out against the floor. He peered at it closely and his right eye saw a series of faint, gray tracings, pale words that seemed to have been written with nothing but smoke.

I do not like that Medeoan has left your side now, read the words. Keep close watch on her. It may be she has realized she can no longer play at being free from her birth. Concentrate your efforts on the Lord Sorcerer and the Mistress of the House. If we may secure those two, nothing may be done or said within the palace walls without our knowing of it.

Soon it will be time to move to the Summer Palace. Before then, you must find your way down into the Isavaltan treasury. There you will be able to find the means to secure your wife should she begin to pull away from your side. Send word to me as soon as you gain access, and I will guide you further.

Kacha nodded in thoughtful silence at what he read. As usual, his father's sorcerer, Agnidh Yamuna, spoke with keen understanding. Kacha allowed himself a moment to pity Medeoan. His child bride would lose her empire without ever having truly gained it. It would be sad to watch her when she realized what happened.

Her death, when it came, would surely be a relief to her.

Chapter Three.

"I'm taking the soup down to Mrs. Whitkoff," called Ingrid to her mother, bundling up the two crockery jars in the burlap satchel. "Is there anything we need from the store?"

Mama remained bent over the washtub and shook her head. For a change, Ingrid was glad of her mother's indifference. Since Mama stopped watching her, her task had become much easier, although her life had become that much lonelier.

For two weeks, Grace had languished in her bed. Ingrid had spooned broth, milk, and beer down her, and she swallowed, but it brought her no strength. At least she had stopped her nocturnal roaming. Avan's advice had done that much already.

Everett had made good his promise the day after Ingrid had seen the ghost. He'd come to the kitchen door at dusk and stood there with his worn, blue cap in his hands. "He said," Everett did not bother to use Avan's name, "that you should tie a piece of iron around her neck, and put another under her bed. This will keep her in the house. He has begun work on a stronger cure."

Iron. Of course. When Ingrid was small, when Mama still felt inclined to tell fairy stories, she had said that cold iron was proof against magic. Hadn't Avan said as much last night? "Thank you, Everett."

She expected him to bow his head bashfully then, as was his usual habit. Instead, he fixed her with a look of unusual determination. "Ingrid, what is happening?"

Ingrid took a deep breath. He had earned the truth, but this time it was she who could not look directly at him. She watched her fingers pick at the edge of the kitchen table. "Grace is haunted. Avan has knowledge of these things. We hope to lay the ghost, and free her."

"You believe this?" Incredulity filled Everett's voice. She could find no fault with that.

Ingrid nodded. "I saw it."

Silence stretched out long and tight between them until Ingrid saw Everett's shadow move across the table. She looked up. He had taken two steps inside the door, coming in just far enough to touch the tabletop, as if by touching the same surface she did he would be able to create some vibration of communion between them. "Is ... is there any way I can help?" He did not doubt her. He would not. Everett dealt honestly and expected honesty in return.

For the thousandth time Ingrid wondered why she looked at Everett without love. He would marry her in an instant. Papa and Mama would raise no objection. He would build a new house for her and they would live in it together. He would never raise his voice to her. He would never think of raising his hand to her or their children. It would be so easy. All she had to do was say yes to him.

Perhaps, after all, that was the reason. It would be too easy a release. She would never know if she went with Everett out of love, or out of a final need to escape her parents' house. Without that certainty, she would have to live with the fear of her heart's life washing out of her, as it had washed out of her mother. "I will let you know, I promise."

Her words caused a gentle grin to form on Everett's face. "I'll hold you to that, Ingrid." He started to turn away.

"Everett ..." Ingrid raised her hand as if to snatch at him.

"Yes?" He looked back over his shoulder, his eyebrows arched.

"I can't ... I don't ..." Ingrid's voice shook, and her hand fell to her side.

But Everett spared her the necessity of finishing her sentence. "I know." He shrugged easily. "It doesn't matter."

But it does, she wanted to say. You should love someone who is able to love you in return. You should be happy. That, however, was not something Everett would want to hear, and she would not disgrace this moment he had given her by saying it. Instead, she said the only words left to her. "You are a good man, Everett Lederle."

He smiled. "I am at that. I'll look in on you later, Ingrid."

"Thank you, Everett."

He waved his cap as a farewell before setting it back on his head.

So she had done what Avan said. She fetched a broken and rusted hinge from the shed and tied one half around Grace's neck on a piece of twine, and slid the other under her side of the bed. That night Grace had struggled, and she had cried out, but she had not risen.

"I hear him, Ingrid," she whispered.

"I know." Ingrid had tried to smooth out Grace's brow. "But not for much longer."

The Whitkoffs lived on the edge of Eastbay nearest the cove that gave the settlement its name. Mrs. Whitkoff was down with the croup, leaving her eldest daughter Lucia to manage on her own. Mrs. Gustavson was coming in to help, though, and so far the Loftfields' gifts of bread and broth were not being turned away, although no one seemed to have time to stand and chat anymore. Perhaps no one wanted to take the chance that Grace's madness was contagious, or perhaps it was just Papa and Leo's scowling at every man on the island was finally beginning to wear on their neighbors' patience.

Lucia Whitkoff, who had dark circles under her bright blue eyes, met Ingrid at the door with a broom in one hand and her infant brother balanced on her hip. Ingrid left one of the two jars on the kitchen table, and hurried away before Lucia had time to get really uncomfortable. She had no time to linger anyway. She had her own errand to complete, and she could not take long, or Mama would want to know where she'd been, and Ingrid was fast running out of lies.

The sun sparkled on the bay, turning the water silver and blue. Despite the warmth of the summer sun, Ingrid wrapped her shawl around her head, so that from the boats out on the lake, she'd be an anonymous woman with an anonymous bundle tucked under her arm. If Papa saw, if Leo saw ... it didn't bear thinking about. But now was the time she had to come, because now was the time when the fishers' shacks were deserted, and there was no one to see her scurrying between them. No one but Avan.

We must bring the ghost's bones up from the lake. I am making a net for the purpose.

He'd delivered that message by Everett. Ingrid kept it tucked under her pillow as if it were a love letter. It was written on a scrap of brown paper with grease pencil in a bold, flowing hand, like none she had ever seen.

At the dark of the moon, we will go fishing. Come find me when you can.

But as she approached his rickety shack this morning, she did not see a plume of smoke rising from the tin chimney. Worry struck her. She rounded the hut to the door, and knocked for form's sake.

"Avan?" she whispered, when there was no answer, pushing the door open.

Avan slumped in the hut's one chair, the great net he had been weaving spread out across his legs like a quilt. Ingrid gasped, almost losing her grip on the jar of soup she carried. Avan's hand twitched, scrabbling at a single knot, and even in the hut's gloom, she could see the blood staining his skin.

Quickly, Ingrid set the crock down by the door and ran forward. She pulled the net out from under Avan's hands, letting it fall in a heap onto the ground. As soon as the strings slipped from his fingers, his hands stilled and fell limp at his sides. The weight of them threatened to drag him out of the chair, but Ingrid caught him under the armpits.

"Come, you must help me," she grunted as she heaved him to his feet.

Avan didn't even groan, but he must have had a little strength in his legs, because he staggered beside Ingrid as she hefted him over to the rickety wooden cot that was his bed and dropped him onto it. She snatched the frying pan off the stove and ran out to the lake, scooping up some water to set on the stove. Upon opening the stove's door, she found three coals still glowing amid the ashes and was able to coax them to life with some of the tinder from the woodbox.

Avan groaned. Ingrid strode to the bedside, taking off her apron. She saw no cleaner cloth. His skin was fever hot against hers as she wiped away the blood from his tattered finger ends.

"What in God's name happened to you?" she murmured. He'd said the task would be hard. He'd stopped going out on the boats to save his strength, he'd said. She'd become used to seeing Avan growing more pale, but this, this was gruesome.

Steam began to rise from the water on the stove. She washed his hands again in the hot water, cleaning away the scabs so they could bleed freely for a while. She propped them up on her apron. She'd have to find something to use as bandaging. She surveyed the hut and saw rope, and sacking, and two chests, one bound in rope, the other bound in iron.

"Forgive the intrusion, if you will." Ingrid opened the rope-bound chest and found a spare shirt and trousers, some linens and socks and four huge, worn, but serviceable handkerchiefs.

"Thank goodness. I've enough explaining to do. I come home without my apron or with my petticoats torn, I'd never be let out of the house again."

She pulled the chair up beside the cot and wrapped one handkerchief over his fingers, making a crude mitten. As she did, she saw again how graceful his hands were, and she could not help but notice that his calluses were fresh, as on the hands of a boy who had just started out regularly in the boats, not like the ancient knobs that coated her father and brothers' hands. He had scars too, three long, white slashes on his palm, and a whole series of old nicks on his wrists.

What are you? she wondered, winding the second kerchief around the first and tying it tight to make a secure, if improvised, dressing. What are you doing here at all?

She picked up his left hand and felt the tips of her ears heating up. His hand was heavy and warm against hers, and from her secret self came the sudden wish to press the back of it against her cheek, to feel how that smooth skin would feel touching her face, how it would be to press her lips against it.

By the time she tied the second dressing off, she knew she was blushing furiously. She pressed her palms against her cheeks, willing herself to calm.

Then she saw Avan's eyes open and watching her, and all the blood in her heart rushed burning to her face.

"Keep still, sir," she said, rising swiftly to her feet and turning away. "You need a cool cloth for that head ..."

"No," he croaked. "Don't leave me."

"I'll be back in a heartbeat." She moved away, but she hesitated.

"No," he said again. "Please. Stay here."

Ingrid's heart thumped hard against her ribs. "All right." She pulled the chair back so she sat by his head. "But you shouldn't talk ..."

"Yes," he said. "I must. I must ... come back. Too far gone." He had to drag in several long breaths. "Too long away. I must touch earth again."

Ingrid frowned in incomprehension. "What can I do?"

He rolled his eyes toward her and said quite seriously, "Sing for me."

Ingrid wanted to protest, but only for a moment. The time for questions would come later. She must have Avan strong and well to save Grace. So she licked her lips, and began.

"Oh yes, my lads, we'll roll a-lee, Come down, you blood red roses, come down.

We'll soon be far away from sea.

Oh, you pinks and posies.

Come down, you blood red roses, come down."

She did not look at him as the verses wound along, the slow, old song of a man coming home from sea, sung to keep time while hauling on the ropes. She wanted to keep her mind on Grace's need, on how she might explain her lengthy absence to Mama, and how she would get out of the house tonight, but her hands still tingled from touching Avan's hand, and she could not pull herself away from the sensation.

"Come down, you blood red roses, come down ..."

"Thank you," he said when her song was finished, and his voice sounded stronger. "That cool cloth would be welcome now."

Ingrid all but ran from the hut to fetch a fresh pan full of water.