The upheaval that followed Almond’s gift guaranteed that any diplomacy we hoped to accomplish would have to be delayed, and in that spirit we turned from our original aims to cementing a schedule of talks across all three nations and peoples. Our first summit would take place in Troth’s winter, in Serala to take advantage of the climate. After that, spring would find us in Evertrue, and summer in Vigil. If more discussions were necessary, we would continue the rotation… but for now we all agreed to a recess so that the genets could consolidate, the Archipelagan humans could return to Serala, and the rest of us could settle wherever we decided. Guy agreed—with some irritation—to become liaison to Serala, but only because this involved working with Chester, whom I’d appointed my deputy there. Radburn, fascinated by the new Kelu, had become the impromptu human advisor to the genets, and when he wasn’t advising the new males on how to cope with manhood, he was expounding on either poetry, magic, or siege weaponry, and God help me but some of the genets were curious about all three… Emily in particular. “Maybe we can sell you cannons,” she said, eyes twinkling.

“Winfred, have mercy on us,” I said. “Genet-made cannons. Your teeth are fearful enough without adding shot to your arsenals.”

It was the beginning of winter before we were able to separate ourselves from Evertrue and return to Vigil, and I had no sooner arrived than I begged leave to depart. One of the first buildings Kemses had ordered erected in the new Vigil was what amounted to a palace for Amhric’s use when he was in town, a palace of bridges spanning what would soon again be a river: this to replace the former palace underground, which had been cordoned off as a future shrine. The restoration of Vigil was well underway and even now it was a place of delicate architecture, high stairs and bridges and towers that gleamed like opals beneath the winter’s cool sun. It was in this palace that I advanced my request to Ivy, who was unpacking.

“And where do you want to go now?” she said. “I was hoping we could settle down for longer than a month…!”

“And I think here we shall do so,” I said. “But I have an errand to run to the Archipelago and I fear to leave it any longer.”

“Something one of us can accompany you on?” She glanced at me, but knew the answer already.

“No. But… I promise it isn’t a dangerous one. And I’ll explain when I return.”

She sighed, chuckled. “You know you don’t have to ask my permission. Or anyone’s. You’re a prince now.”

“It’s because I’m prince that I must,” I said. I smiled at her. “Perhaps not for permission so much. But I must make excuses for my absences.”

“You’re a wanted man these days,” she agreed, and laughed. “All right. I have enough to do here, what with the politics and the athenaeum and the genets and everything else...! And this palace... really! I’m going to be a while figuring out what Kemses was thinking. How are we going to furnish a place this big? And did he expect Amhric to use it?””

“I think he expected me to use it. And where I go, the king is sure to follow, at some point.” I kissed her brow. “I’m for provisioning. I will see you ere I go.”

I made then what I felt was my last journey in the interstice between the life of Morgan Locke, crippled human scholar and cynic, and Prince Morgan, who had been washed clean of his bitterness and given a new life and rather more to fill it than any one person could hope to encompass, and that… that too was a blessing. The drake and I walked through the Door, and from there I pulled myself astride. Beneath a gathering thunderstorm that never quite breached the coast, we flew, with the darkness weighing the sky at one shoulder, and the clear bright sky on the other… like a revelation of choices made plain, and the drake flying directly between them. I laughed in delight at the sight and held up my arms to the wind, breathed in the heat and the distant actinic sparkle of lightning.

We came, at length, to the sorcerer’s tower.

As Amhric reported, Sedetnet had rooted it in the earth, and yet it looked no less uncanny: a single spire in the middle of a featureless plain, with nothing to be seen on the horizon save the sky and grass, and the occasional distant palm. The drake glided to the ground—did it remember coming here before?—and disposed itself to wait, head in its arms, as I approached. No sign betrayed anyone else’s coming; no one had disturbed this place since it had been left. I expected no differently.

I set my hand on the door and pushed, and it let me in.

And laughed, because the bottom of the tower was empty. Of course? Why would he have bothered to create any rooms or décor in it, who had never used it? I started up the sole feature of the tower’s base, the stairs, and climbed, savoring the few memories I had of Sedetnet: strange and menacing and mad and beautiful, with his unexpected kindnesses lancing through him like starlight through a grimed glass pane. Those memories clouded my vision when I reached the topmost room where we’d had our interview. I caressed the seat where he’d bound me, there to show me in the mirror what I might be. From there I wandered to the bedroom, to sit on the sheets, smell them, think of that night. A challenge? A gift? Of hope, perhaps, to draw me onward in defiance of my agonies. Had he known everyone so well, or was it only me he’d had this insight into?

I stroked the nearest pillow, then rose and continued my wanders. It was not a large suite, and yet I missed the small table until I was almost ready to quit the premises. There, as I somehow knew there would be, rested a folded piece of paper, held down by a pair of dice. I gathered them in my hands, rolled them in my palm, then read the note he’d left me.

 

Now you know it all.

Live well, Grey Prince.

—S

 

I thought of the genets, of the magnificent arrogance of it, of the madness of creating in hopes of bringing forth an angel to save the world. For a long moment I could not move, only stand there with the paper pressed to my breast and the dice digging into my palm. I found myself praying, not that I would not be consigned to a challenge of the magnitude that had faced my predecessor… but that, as Amhric had said, I would be strong enough to see it to an end. But I thought that my life would be gentler, and that too had been a gift.

I pocketed the dice and hid the paper in my vest pocket, and then began the work for which I’d come. It took the better part of a day to pack Sedetnet’s books in the panniers I’d had tied to the drake’s saddle, and a lesser beast could surely not have managed their weight. But the sum of those possessions fit in the bags I’d brought, and so I closed the door on Sihret’s era and entered, resolute, my own. As the drake hefted itself into the air, I watched the tower dwindle.

“Goodbye, Sihret,” I whispered. “I promise to take a few risks for you.”

And then the drake finished its arc, and the tower dropped out of sight, and I turned myself to the Door, and the future, and all the glad future before me.