Our arrival at Far Horizon was a shock for so many reasons. I had become accustomed to palm trees and hot breezes and sultry weather; to humans who looked exhausted and depleted; to the presence of elves like fire at the edge of my vision. I returned to cold autumn, to healthy human bustle, and to an unexpected sense of both homecoming and loss. I would miss the sea. I still missed my brother. And I felt lost, realizing I would never again walk in human company as one of their number. I had never been normal, but on my best days I could go into the capital and know myself one of the great masses that had powered the revolution in government and natural sciences that had brought Troth to this great estate.

Fate had given me one singular brother, and deprived me of a million less intimate ones. I now belonged to an older, less innocent race, one currently mired in depravity and ennui. God save me.

Last joined me at the prow early in the evening, several days after we’d moored. We’d sent the genets to contact the humans we’d worked with before; it was through them that we were making arrangements. It was more time-consuming, but I judged it a better idea to err on the side of discretion. This was the same reason we were both cloaked with the hoods drawn up; fortunately the weather made such garb unremarkable. “Lord Locke? The horses have been procured and the supplies loaded. We can ride at any time.”

I drew in a breath and nodded. “Let us, then.”

It was odd to be able to walk down the gangplank without fearing a fall. In the past, I’d had help to keep my recalcitrant limbs from dumping me into the water—indeed, they had the first time I boarded a ship. This time, I followed my guard without issue, and felt strange in my own body—

—until my foot hit the ground and the entire world erupted around me. The groaning of distant mountains moving, the pressure of layers of soil and rock beneath me contesting with the ocean’s weight, the constant motion of the air on the back of the land, on my back—

I collapsed onto my knees, which made it worse before someone grabbed my arms. Then I could feel my own much smaller body. Last had one of my arms... Nine, one of the Black Pearl genets, the other. The rest of the guard was standing in front of me in an array that seemed almost casual, blocking me from view without seeming to.

“Lord Locke!” Last exclaimed.

“Nothing,” I said, catching my breath. “Just... I...”

The world lapped at me, like waves. I swayed.

Fangs closed on my shoulder. I jumped as Kelu pricked blood from my flesh straight through the cloak and two layers of clothing, and the pain centered me very firmly in my body.

“Genet!” Last said, his voice positively scandalized.

I held up a hand. “No, no. It’s all right.” I licked my own teeth as if I could taste the blood in her mouth. “It was a needful thing.” I rose shakily.

“Master!” Almond said, running down the plank to join me. “Master, oh, are you well?”

“Yes,” I said, cautiously. It seemed true. “The world just seemed... too real for a moment.”

Last eyed me, frowning.

“Some symptom you recognize?” I said, only a little wryly.

He was still studying me, brows lowered. “The worldsense is one of the prince-gifts.”

“The... the what?” I said, startled. Even asking I hadn’t quite expected an answer.

“The worldsense,” Last said. “It allows the Prince to speak with the land.”

I had a sudden memory then, of being in a ditch with Amhric while escaping the blood-flag Suleris, and the gift he made me of a talent, he said, that I should have myself, and could not manifest with my magic bound by enchantment. “Oh,” I said, quieter. “Yes. That makes sense.” I drew in a metered breath and allowed the soil beneath my feet ingress. The feel of the world seeped back into me, and I found it both pleasing and dismaying... the first because it was home and somehow it recognized me, and the second because it lacked the rising sparkle of the breath over elven lands, the brightness I associated now with the magic of living things. Like the depleted humans of the Archipelago, Troth was dull to the touch. Did the continent not have magic? Or was I simply unable to locate it?

My guards were restive, and Last and the genets were staring at me. I wondered how long I’d been tarrying in my reverie and pushed the sense back out of myself. “Well. Time is wasting. Let us depart.”

Last nodded and with a low command dispersed his men to the hired horses while I boarded my own mount. The two Black Pearl genets were settled behind guards. Kelu pulled herself up into the saddle in front of me, and Almond behind.

“You don’t think people are going to find the drake something of a giveaway that you’re not normal humans?” Kelu asked.

“I can’t leave him behind,” I said, reaching forward to stroke the drake’s neck. It twisted so it could look me in the eye with one of its own lambent scarlet ones. “We’ve been through too much together. We’ll just have to hope he’s taken for some exotic beast from distant lands.”

“It’s well, Master,” Almond said, slipping her arms around my waist and leaning into my back. “A prince should ride a prince’s mount.”

Kelu sighed. “Well, do what you want, then. You will anyway.”

I grinned and squeezed my legs against the barrel of the drake, and my guard fell in behind me. My plan had been to leave in the evening, when it would be more difficult to see us go. It had been a good plan, I thought. And the particulars that involved no one stopping us, those were observed.

But the part about us being more difficult to see at night... that I had not arranged very well. Had we been human, it would have made sense. But I had not realized until I glanced over my shoulder that elves... glowed. Even at night. Particularly at night, when they seemed to shed their own light. It was a dim glow, to be sure, enshrouded in cloaks and clothing. Somehow that made it more conspicuous. Like something out of the legends of my studies, we rode in a dim fairy-light, the hooves of the horses beating a tattoo against the hardened earth as we rode toward the edge of town. What a sight we must have been! The drake pouring from step to step like some liquescent predator, and in its wake seven riders, all trailing that soft light.

We would be remembered, there was no question. Hopefully, as a dreamlike occurrence, and not reality.

At my sigh, Kelu muttered, “I didn’t think of it either.”

Behind me, Almond said, “We’re not elves, to have thought of it.”

“Nothing for it,” I said. “From here out we ride through the wilderness anyway.” I loosened the reins in my hands and said, “Go on, great heart!”

The drake huffed softly, then drew in a breath that inflated its ribcage between my legs... and took off. Behind me, my host spurred their mounts to a gallop to keep pace, and we drew away from the places of human habitation and fled into the darkened fields, where legends are more at home.

For days, then, we traveled through the wild. It suited us better than the road, where we would have been questioned, and the elves did not seem discommoded by the need to camp even in the cold. It was strange to see them in the heavier clothes we’d had brought on-board the ship after months of being abraded by the beauty of their bare skin and loose hair, and even stranger to realize that as accustomed as they’d become to the Archipelago, this continent had once been home to them, and they must have once dressed this way... hiding their shining. In plain coats over vests and shirts and trousers and boots, they looked as if they’d donned costumes, and the gleam of their supernal skin where it emerged from beneath the cloth seemed even more extreme in contrast to the coarse fabric. I myself found it... unsettling.

Nor was the sight of them the sole source of my unease. I had not worn anything like my old wardrobe in months and despite my reservations had acclimated to the extremely immodest elven standard of loose pants and stole or sleeveless coat. Nothing else would have served in the Archipelago’s climate. To resume my former standard of dress should have been a comfort, but as with everything else about my return home, I felt great ambivalence about my ill-fitting clothes. I had worn such things poorly on my gaunt and wasted frame, and they seemed to sit as uncomfortably on my new one.

The land, however, was a solace, even in autumn. Perhaps particularly in autumn, for I’d never seen one without the dread of what it would do to my wracked body. To be able to experience the cold breeze without that fear or discomfort was novel... exhilarating, even. And always, the world whispered to me through my hands, my boot soles, through my side when I slept on the ground, cuddled by genets. It whispered poems of harvests, of bounty given in preparation for rest. It spoke of sleeping animals and birds fleeing south, the tiny perturbations of the air beneath their wings making a delicate ripple pattern over the grasses. It sang wind directions and hints of storms and changing weather and I learned it all like a caress on the inside of my skin, as if that skin was the sole impediment separating me from falling into the world and dissipating there.

I found it glorious and humbling. I, who had never known the wild as anything but the promise of hardship and humiliation, to be avoided at all costs, fell in love with the land as ardently as I had the sea.

Such a disappointment it was, when I realized that we would reach the city the following evening. I sat up that night on grass a frost had crisped the night before, and craned my head back to look at the boundless stars. When Almond crept out to join me, followed by Black Pearls Nine and Seven, I gathered them under my arms, and together we sat in communion with the world. I didn’t know what they heard with those large and sensitive ears, but they seemed as peaceful as I was.

I think we were all surprised when Nine broke the silence, Nine included. “What will the city be like?”

“Well,” I said. “If I have any control at all, the city will be a fleeting impression of darkness as we ride through the streets at night, and then safety in someone’s house.”

“We haven’t been inside a house,” Seven murmured. “We knew only the cages.”

“And the showroom, once or twice,” Nine said.

“Houses can be nice,” Almond offered. “As long as the people there are nice.”

“The people in these houses will be kind,” I said. “I promise.”

A contented silence then. I indulged myself in a fantasy of escorting the genets to my parents’ house and having them experience what it was to be treated equitably—

—which is when my fantasy dissolved. I said, “There is something you should know, however. The humans of Evertrue... they keep no slaves. Nor do they know of animals that speak. They will be surprised by you. Nor will they treat you the way elves would.”

“If they don’t keep slaves,” Nine said, slowly, “how should we act toward them?”

“Politely,” I said. “But they are not your masters. You need not obey their commands unless it seems sensible to you to do so.”

This silence had a great deal less of contentment in it.

“I think we can do that,” Seven said at last, reluctantly, though her fur was standing from the stress of it.

“Just remember that the Prince is our master,” Almond offered. “Obey him. Everyone else is like... a guest in his house. You need not obey them if their orders contradict our master’s.”

“Ah!” Seven said. “That makes sense.”

Nine purred her agreement.

I felt a touch as if I’d been overruled, but there was no use upsetting them. They had been bred and trained to absolute obedience, and had not the first notion of how they might express their own will, if indeed they could identify a thought truly their own, rather than one implanted in them by their magical molding. I planned to introduce the basics of self-will to them, but it would take time... and some part of me knew that it might not be possible to help them past the blocks put in them by their training. At least, not before they expired, for they had been designed to die within five or six years. Kelu’s rebellious spirit had been an accident. Subsequent models had had their defiance and free will engineered out of them.

Eventually the Black Pearls slipped free to curl up on my blanket and wait for me to retire. Almond remained, head tucked against my ribs.

“You are kind to them, Master, to allow them the comfort of a way of life they understand.”

“It’s all they have,” I said, quiet. “To deprive them of it would be cruel.” I stroked her back as I thought. “Still, perhaps I should give them names of their own.”

“It won’t help them become individuals,” Kelu said, dropping down next to me on the opposite side.

I glanced at her, surprised; she did not cleave to me the way the other genets did, and I respected what limited autonomy her magical creation allowed her.

“Well, it won’t,” Kelu said. “We both know it.”

“I know,” I said after a long moment.

“Names aren’t enough,” Almond said. “But love will accomplish what words alone won’t.”

We both looked at her then. She had her eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of my side and the wind on her damp nose, so she didn’t notice. But she continued after a moment, “That’s what you taught me.” Rousing herself to open her eyes, she added, “Maybe you need a new name, Kelu.”

“I’m used to my name,” Kelu said, ears flattening. “It’s honest.”

“But you’re not a slave anymore,” Almond said. “Are you?”

That silenced the older genet for a long moment. Presently, she said, “I don’t know who I’d be, if I wasn’t Kelu.”

“Maybe you’d be the prince’s counselor,” Almond said, stunning us both.

“I—w-what?” Kelu stammered.

“You give our master advice,” Almond said. “You tell him things that he needs to hear, even if they’re hard things. You’re very practical, you think of all the details. Doesn’t that make you a good counselor?”

I started laughing. “She has you there, Kelu.”

Kelu flicked her ears back, the starlight catching in the silver ink on their inner surfaces. “Genets can’t be that important.”

“You’re that important,” I said. “So obviously, you’re wrong. Even I remember that much of logic class, and logic was never my strongest subject.”

Kelu licked her nose, then said, gruff, “Well, if you do take my advice, then here’s my latest. Let the Black Pearls name themselves.”

“Ah?” I said. “An intriguing idea. Give them the opportunity to do something for themselves in a way that lets them express their individuality.”

“That might help,” Almond said, thoughtful.

“I like it,” I said. “I’ll advance the idea to them when we’re more settled.”

“You see?” Almond added. “He likes your advice.”

Kelu rolled her eyes and said, “Then here’s some more. Get to bed soon. Even indestructible bodies need rest.”

“I will,” I said.

After she’d left, Almond murmured, “She loves you too, Master. In her own way.”

“Yes,” I said, smiling. “With teeth.”

“If you didn’t taste so good,” she said meekly, but with a hint of wistfulness.

The reminder that I had left one duty undone, one that I had better do before gaining the city, sobered me. I said, “I know.”

We were not due to enter Evertrue until long after the city had gone to sleep, so in the morning I called the four genets to my side while the rest of the guard was at ease.

“Kelu needs blood,” I said to them after they’d joined me. “But I know that all of you derive sustenance from it. This is the last time I know for certain we will be among those who understand your needs.” I pulled off my coat and started unlacing my shirt. All of them were staring now, not at me, but at my skin as I revealed it. Once I’d undressed from the waist up, I called to Last, who came with incurious eyes. He knew what I was about.

“You have a knife I could borrow?” I asked.

He drew it with a gravity I found appropriate and offered it to me on both hands. As I took it, he drew back, out of the way. I looked at my collection of genets and felt a frisson of fear. I had seen elves literally dismembered and live; I knew, firsthand, what it took to kill one. Indeed, in one of these very fields between Evertrue and Far Horizon I’d tried to take my own life with a piece of glass, and even bedeviled by a terrifying enchantment my crippled body had sealed itself up again. I knew that I could put a knife in my own arm and drag it from palm to elbow without dying... but knowing it and doing it were entirely different matters.

I could not, however, face those four sets of eyes without making the offering. Kelu was the only one who needed it to live, that defect having been corrected in later iterations of the genet experiment. But the others craved it for the magic that sang to them in the blood ladders, and mine in particular for its similarity to their sire’s, the Fount of the genets, my own brother... whose magic had been raped from him so it could be used to seed the genet dams with his own stolen energies.

I clenched my teeth and ripped the blade through my flesh, and had only enough time to feel the shock of it before the genets descended on me. They were pulling me down by that arm, so I quickly did the other and sank to my knees beneath their teeth and licking tongues.

I’m not sure what I had been expecting. The last time I’d fed the genets I had been in the grips of the enchantment, and the pain had been excruciating. I suppose I’d been anticipating more of the same. To be honest, I would have preferred it to the feel of their warm bodies pressed against me and the magic in my blood lapping the magic in theirs. Their little whines and whimpers of pleasure didn’t help. I shuddered and bent, hiding my face, and let them suckle at my veins until they were sated... and then the feel of my body closing its wounds without the genets to worry them open both nauseated me and filled me with a sense of unwilling pleasure. I fought both and won, barely, opening my eyes to find all the genets curled around me in warm, drowsy balls.

“That was well done,” Last said quietly from above me, where he had no doubt drawn near just in case.

I found his knife and gave it back to him, regretting the lack of a cloth to clean it with. “It is not their fault that they were made so.”

“No,” Last agreed, and surprised me by bowing before he withdrew.

It was dearly my wish to see my parents again—to see them first, to assuage their grief and anxiety over my abrupt departure. I had left them a note, but it had not been an encouraging one, confessing as it had my reasons for leaving. What mother would hear that her son had gone seeking a cure to his disease, or elsewise his ending? The guilt of having burdened them with that admission plagued me. But I could not arrive on my parents’ doorstep with a contingent of elves out of fairy tales and four animal servants, along with the drake and all the horses required to get them here. They had no room.

There was only one place I could take my dependents and only one person I trusted with them. Which is how, in the dead of night, I found myself knocking at Chester’s door... God forgive me. The circumstances by which we’d parted had been amicable enough; he’d even lent me the family carriage for the trip to Far Horizon. Unfortunately, I had been driven from that carriage by its master after they’d discovered me with Kelu and assumed her to be someone’s child.

I still remember that beating. I could hardly imagine what news had been brought back to Chester following the incident, and could only hope our friendship had not been tarnished by the rumors that I was a drug-addicted child molester. Perhaps that humility was in my voice when the door was opened at last by the butler in his dressing gown, who narrowed his eyes at my cowled face.

“Yes?” he said at last.

“I have come to see Master Chester,” I said. “You may tell him that Morgan Locke has returned.”

I expected to be left on the doorstep, or even, worst case, to be turned away. So it was a shock entire to have the butler open the door and say, “Come in, please.”

Chester’s house was large enough for him to have his own parlor in a separate wing, which is where we were escorted. I asked the elves to stand against the back wall; there was no hope of them being unobtrusive, though they’d kept their cloaks, but at least their shining was less aggressive when distanced from the hearth; fire in particular seemed to love elven skin. I myself sat gingerly on the divan, with the genets arrayed at my feet... save Kelu, of course, who chose to stand at the divan’s arm, with her arms folded and long tail curled into a corkscrew of disdain.

I heard his voice before I saw him. “...sure, Marley, certainly there must be some mistake, it’s the middle of the night—”

And then he entered the room and stopped there at the sight of quite so many people.

He had not changed, my dear friend. The same ale-brown hair, smoothed back into a tail for sleeping that left the good lines of his tawny face more clearly defined in the candlelight. The same earnest, focused, intelligent eyes. Perhaps he was a touch thinner; when I’d left he’d been beset by troubles much too civilized to be solved in any drastic or satisfactory manner. But God and His saints... the same man who had come to my student flat every day to write notes for our dissertations, who had weathered the knowledge of my illness without dramatics or pity, and who had moved to help me in every practical way he could afford. Young, driven...

...human. As I had been, or had thought myself to be.

“Can it be?” he said softly.

I rose as he approached, pushed back the hood, and saw my changes reflected in his face, in the shock, in the way he stumbled to a halt and simply gaped at me.

“My God!” he exclaimed. “Locke! Is that—”

“It is,” I said quietly. And then, feeling it in my joints and blood and bone and not yet having said it, I finished, “I’m home. Finally.”

“But...” He trailed off, coming close enough now to study my face in some detail, an act that caused me to flush. The wonder in his eyes discomfited me.

“I know,” I said at last, wishing my voice was less freighted with the hint of distant bells and the whispers of the sea. “It hardly seems likely, but... it appears I was that lost prince, the one on the medallion, after all.” With a touch of chagrin, I finished, “It is a bit of a long story.”

“It must be, at that,” Chester said, still with that wonder. “I imagine you’ve had a long journey....” He stopped, tilted his head. “You’re here, and not at your parents’.”

“I have horses to stable, and a drake,” I said. “And I need a place to conceal eight elves and four genets. I came to beg your indulgence, and your aid once again... if my previous conduct has not poisoned you against me.” I flushed. “I apologize. The matter with the baggage train... it can be explained....”

“It was my fault,” Kelu said unexpectedly. “I trapped him in… um... a compromising position. And then ran off and left him to suffer the consequences alone.”

Chester looked from me to the genet, then said, “I’ll have chambers made up for you all. I’m sure you’ve had a long journey and will want rest.”

But I saw the light of curiosity in his hazel eyes, and God knew I wouldn’t be sleeping myself. “Please, and I’m in your debt, again. But if you’d like, we could have a tot of brandy and I’ll tell you the tale of it complete tonight.”

“Brandy!” he said with a laugh. “Have you now become a drinker?”

“And a sailor, and a user of rather profane language, and...” I faltered, thinking of the head of blood-flag Suleris dying on my staff, “...and rather more things besides.” I met his eyes, trying not to grieve when he flinched beneath the brunt of their inhuman beauty. “I’ll tell you all of it, if you wish. I would not mind to be unburdened of it.”

“Then brandy it is,” Chester said. “Hold here and I’ll arrange the rooms and the drink both.” And left with alacrity, vanishing into the sepia-tinted shadows of the hall.

“Master,” Almond said hesitantly. “Is this wise?”

“That’s my line,” Kelu muttered.

“And not yours?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at Last, who stirred himself at the question.

“Lord Locke,” he said. “We are in a realm with which you are more intimate than we. If we do not trust your judgment, then we are adrift.”

I sighed out. “Thank you for your confidence.” I looked at the genets. “Chester will keep our secrets. He is a man of great discretion. I trust him.”

“If you say so,” Kelu said, but she seemed ill at ease.

Chester returned with a tray and the butler.

“This way, sirs,” said the servant, and I nodded to my entourage.

“I will be by to see you before I sleep,” I told them. To the genets, I said, “Wait for me in my bed, if it pleases you, or on the furniture if it doesn’t.”

Watching them leave in perfect obedience, Chester observed, sotto voce, “Well then.” Turning back to me, he said with a touch of humor and uncertainty both, “Locke. Should I be bowing?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, exasperated, and sank back onto the chair, throwing off the cloak. I ignored his stare to pour for us both. “No matter the ostentation of my present body, I’m still the man you knew before I left, if rather more enriched in worldly experience than I ever cared to be.”

Sitting back and folding a leg over the other, Chester said, “This should be good.”

I sighed. “You have no idea.”

“Talk then,” he said. “And start with what made my carriage driver run you off. I was quite beside myself when the sword came back.”

“I imagine you were,” I said, and handed him the glass.

And then... I began my confession. Strange how so few months could feel so long in the living, and yet so short in the telling... though for all that, the telling took long enough. I told him that the elves were indeed real. That they treated humans as livestock to fuel their magical needs. That I had come very near to that fate myself in the hunt to cure my own disease through magical means. I told him that I had met a sorcerer as old as the legends of demons, fighters who could not die, and entire populations of created slaves.

With some reluctance, the more sordid bits fell from my mouth as well, but I could not hold them back. I spoke of killing, and of giving myself to an insane power in trade for a quest, and of having the indecency to fall in love with a king, whom I subsequently lost to a madman against whose power I could not contest... yet.

When I was done, we were silent, listening to the muted crackle of the fire. The tension in my shoulders made them throb. I did not crave absolution, but something more vital: acceptance. I was home, but home meant nothing to me without the society of my friends and family.

“God Almighty,” Chester said at last, leaning forward to refill my glass. “You’ve been hard-used, haven’t you, Locke.”

And with that, the tension fell away, and my shoulders dropped with them. I put my head in my hands. “I hardly feel able to admit it, surrounded as I am now by those who expect my leadership, but I feel utterly undone. The forces arrayed against me are significant, and my own resources paltry in compare.”

“Well, I hardly call myself an ally of little power,” Chester said with a grin.

“If you’re willing,” I began, reluctant.

He waved a hand, dismissive. “Don’t be ridiculous. What else?” He grimaced. “At this point, I’d take mad wizards and demon incursions over my life as it stands.”

I glanced at him, frowning. “Have things changed so, then?”

“Not in so world-shattering a fashion as they have for you,” he said, refilling his own glass now. “But you left a... hole, when you departed, Locke. When you didn’t return to fill it....” He stared at the glass for a moment before lifting it and sitting back again, his spine rigid. “I had no idea, and probably you did not either. But it was difficult to hold things together without you.” Before I could react to this extraordinary statement, he continued, “and that is without the practical damage it dealt. I was forced to divulge your mission to Professor Eyre; he helped settle things with the university. As far as they know you’re on sabbatical for personal reasons. I told Douglas and Du Roi that you’d gone in search of a cure for your disease, as they already knew of it. Ivy, though, I have been lying to, and I fear she is a bit too perceptive not to have noted. You will have to repair things with her yourself.”

“Ivy....” I said, my heart tightening in my chest.

“Yes,” Chester said. “I don’t suppose humans and elves….”

“No,” I said, curt. Presenting myself to my parents as a different species was difficult enough to imagine. The thought of doing so to the woman for whom I’d carried a torch since our first meeting, the woman for whom I’d saved myself—with one confused exception—that I could barely imagine. Embarrassed at my discourtesy, I finished, quietly, “Even if I find a way to unmake this enchantment, the elves live... a very long time. Nor are they capable of... interbreeding. There would be no issue. What kind of life is that to offer to a woman?”

“You might try anyway,” Chester said. At my stare, he said, calmly, “Explain the risks and let her decide. Should it not be her decision also?”

“God, Chester,” I said.

He smiled bitterly. “Things between man and maid are complex. Ask me how I came by that knowledge.”

“Are you still engaged to the shrew, then?” I asked.

“You have become plain-spoken,” Chester said with a sigh. “But yes. We will be wed in a month.”

“A month,” I murmured. “That may not be long enough for you to go and come with me.”

He sat up. “You mean to say you were going to ask me?”

“To accompany me to Vigil?” I said. “Yes. And Radburn and Guy as well, if they are so minded. Ivy....” I bit my lip. “I am not certain at the proprieties. But it seems unjust not to ask her also. And Eyre will have my head if I don’t make him the offer. I thought he might lead the expedition, actually, given his credentials and his familiarity with the subject matter.” I looked up at him. “So yes. I was going to ask you all, after explaining the dangers. But the trip will take longer than a month. Just arriving there with be a matter of weeks, and then who knows how long the research will need?”

“I’ll postpone the wedding,” Chester said, sitting forward, palms on his knees. “I will.” At my glance, he said, “Winifred’s grace, Locke! This is not just an academic opportunity beyond all possible hope of being equaled. This is history in the making! The research of enchantments? To see magic done! The chance of a lifetime! And you would have me miss it to marry Minda!”

“Duchess Minda,” I said, dryly, remembering.

“Oh, by now it is Princess Minda, no less,” Chester said with a curled lip. “The parlor games grow more ridiculous with each passing month. Soon enough they’ll all fancy themselves royalty and we’ll be fighting another revolution to satisfy their egos.”

“God!” I exclaimed. “Chester, have a care with words!”

“Would it be so bad?” he asked with a humorless grin. “You yourself have come around to the notion of kings.”

“My king,” I said slowly, feeling the words in my mouth, “bleeds when the land suffers the touch of demons.” I looked up at Chester. “Not hyperbole. Rents open in his flesh. He gives up worldly power to cloister himself and manage the flow of magic throughout the world. He has neither jewel nor palace nor treasury... and his sole guard is his prince, without whom he is so defenseless his own subjects may rape him with impunity. An elven king is not a human king.”

“An elven king sounds more like a priest,” Chester said.

I nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“And you are in love with him,” Chester said, shaking his head.

“When you meet him, you’ll know,” I said. “There is no avoiding it. So much gentleness, Chester. I had no idea.” Quieter, I said, “I had no idea how desolate the world was, without gentleness. Perhaps we are all suffering for that dearth, and merely never knew for its lack.”

Radburn would have made a joke at this speech, and Guy would have looked at me askance. Chester respected the silence that followed it, and touched my pale hand with his golden one once it had drawn on long enough. In this I saw the influence of the Church, and was grateful it had made him comfortable with such truths. “We should rest,” he said. “We have a great deal to do to put this expedition together.”

“Chester,” I said. “I... I came on you unannounced, and...” I stopped, then said. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” he said, and that was that.

I checked on my guards before retiring myself; they were comfortable enough and, I saw, in the rooms most distant from both the road and the well-traveled halls. I had been assigned chambers not far from them, and there I found a mound of sleeping genets in my bed and one stretched out on the floor. One of Kelu’s eyes slitted open as I stepped over her.

“Go well?” she asked with a yawn that curled her narrow tongue and exposed all her scythe-like teeth.

“Better than I expected,” I said, and undressed. A nightshirt and robe had been provided; I shrugged them on, then slid under the covers and the blanket of genets.

“Tomorrow?” she asked as I closed my eyes.

“Tomorrow,” I murmured, “my parents.” And slept.