Astar trailed after Lila and her guards. They passed from the hall through walks glimmering with wave-lensed light, beside gardens of weed filled with incredible varieties of fish curiously nosing up against the air world of the interior. Rooms filled with fountains, walls tumbling with falling water…Lila only looked to notice entrances and exits and to map the way. She tested the strength of her guards, pulling this way and that, and realised they were tough, but much lighter than she was in spite of their bigger size. She fought the urge to vomit with the nauseating pain of being held around her burned right arm. To distract herself she talked to Tath and tried to discover anything that might make it more likely she could get into the same room as Zal.
Now that we've bought some thinking time, tell me, does Arië know that I was Zal's guard?
Unless Dar has told her so I would think not. She has little interest in your function, although if she ever found out that Zal had caught you in a Game, that would be a different matter. A lever against Zal is something she would value more than my life or Dar's, that is certain. She will not accept your mastery of me at all and I believe she would sooner kill us both than suffer the continued embarrassment of that, for she sees me as her property, but she would gladly spend Dar and myself in the achievement of mastery over you. Like us, you must decide exactly how much you value the lives of those with whom you must deal and how much you value the greater good of your people.
This was good news of a sort. As long as Lila played things right, she at least could survive long enough for an attempt at escape. Tath's statements about his relation to Arië made her cringe however. Her property?
Arië is the leader of the light elves of the Valar inheritance, among whose number I count myself. As she is our leader, according to her authority I am hers to spend. It is why I became a necromancer. If not for her engagement of me, why would I pretend to such a loathsome office?
Lila guessed elf loyalties in the spy business might run to extreme altruism. For the Jayon Daga?
Even they cannot require such a sacrifice of service.
Lila was turned to face a door. Like all doors in the lake palace it had no solid barrier involved, being a magical barrier which vanished at the her guards' touch. A small room lay beyond encapsulated within a dark area of weeds which overgrew the sides of the bubble walls. A bed, a table, and a minimum of other furnishings graced it, looking as though they floated in midair from most angles. It was hard not to stagger when she walked because it was so hard to judge depth of space. Astar followed her inside and watched as the magical wall shut itself at their backs.
As soon as they were alone, the graceful female elf turned Lila to face her and held her hands, pleading, “Say it is you, Tath, and this some dreadful Game playing and not the truth!” Her elongated eyes were rimmed with red, their dark irises huge in the low light. As she finished speaking she made to dab her tears with a filmy handkerchief out of which fell a scatter of flowers, as though she had been picking them at some point in the past, and forgot them within the handkerchief's folds. She bent quickly to pick them up, a slight pressure on her hand drawing Lila with her. Among the pretty things one white daisy…
Inside her, Tath doubled in intensity, sad, his andalune over Lila becoming strong enough to reach out and touch Astar's carefully restrained aethereal form. His sadness was worse than the burning pain in her arm.
Lila picked up the daisy and held it towards the black-haired elf. “Sadly, it is the truth, but hardly all of it.”
Astar held Lila's hand but she felt Tath's fingers as she took the flower carelessly and then drew the hand to her lips and kissed each of the knuckles gently. “I have missed you so much. Say it's you that speaks and not the impostor.”
Lila had been about to attempt soft politeness in the face of this sympathy but found herself grating out impatiently, “It's the freak, not your brother.”
Astar put Lila's hand away from her but stared boldly into Lila's face. “You wear him well, then, whoever you are, for his andalune is his own where it and mine are joined, and he is not suffering because of you. Will you let him speak with one who holds his heart dear?”
How many girlfriends have you got, exactly? Lila said to Tath.
One exactly, though she died as I did, upon the hillside where you left us. I have three sisters.
Hell, oh hell, Lila thought. If you're lying to me…She let Tath have the whole show. Give the elves their due, she thought, as Tath used her body to embrace his sister, they're fey and strange but they know who's who and they don't freak out like I would if I could go back to my family and hug them one last time. A stab of pain in her heart made her wince.
But there was no point in thinking about that. She concentrated on lining up repair systems, prioritising, cueing up harmonics in the nerves causing her the most discomfort so that their efforts to tell her she was in trouble became simple information in her AI-self rather than a sensation of pain in her body. Probably Dar would be okay, she thought as she wondered what she would do with the largely destroyed surface of her right arm. Sathanor was that kind of place. Probably he would be better already.
Lila quietly mended the fingers of her left hand as Tath used it to hold Astar close to him. They sat down together on the narrow bed.
“Can we persuade this person to release you?” Astar was saying. “I would hold your spirit within mine and release it to a child of your heart…Give me the flower. Where is it?”
What the hell? Lila thought. Elves clone! Are you crazy? Is that what she's saying?
It is extremely rare. Aloud to Astar Tath said, “I do not wish to leave my host.”
“What?” Astar and Lila said simultaneously.
Tath took the handkerchief out of his sister's hands and found the white flower again. He would not give a reason aloud although to Lila he said, If I leave you and Arië discovers what you are she will not kill you. It will be worse. Arië loves Sathanor, but beneath her love lies fear, and the thing she fears most is technology like you. It is quite irrational. She will continue with her disastrous plan involving Zal, and she will certainly kill Dar, very inventively I expect. There is nothing good in any of that.
What did she mean about the flower? Lila insisted.
The flower bound me in life to my true friends. All necromancers carry one. Without it, if one of us dies, we cannot be restored by any means. Thus it is when you burned it that I became bound to you, Lila, because without it I cannot cross over. If you die, I die, and when Arië tries to separate us, if she succeeds, then I certainly will.
But if you still had it then you and…whoever…they could have resurrected you in some way and…does Dar know? Lila was outraged at being kept ignorant about this, especially by Dar. Letting her think he'd slaughtered Tath when all along there was this chance of resurrection—she was furious for a second, but Tath was still talking.
It does not mean the same thing to Dar because it is also a mark of the Revolution, But yes, when he saw you burn it he did know that whatever chance there was for me to survive was gone. When it went, he had effectively murdered me most surely.
Oh, so now it's my fault? Lila snapped, though she didn't get an answer.
“You are talking together,” Astar said quietly. “I can feel your attention shifting.”
“Oh crap!” Lila said, not meaning to speak her sudden fresh doubt in Dar aloud but unexpectedly finding that she had command of their voice.
Astar started.
“Not you, I mean…”
“You are the host,” Astar said attentively. “Why does my brother not wish to leave you?”
Do not… Tath began hesitantly, full of the delicate subtleties of elven politics, not sure if he could trust Astar or even the water not to betray them, but Lila was watching Astar's face which was soft and sympathetic on the surface but with eyes rather more suited to a patient lizard than a trembling rabbit, and she was reasonably sure that the woman wasn't quite as spineless as Tath seemed to think.
“He can't leave,” Lila said. “The daisy soulkeeper thingy he had is toast. He's stuck with me, and if you want to see him alive in any form for much longer then you'd better start thinking of a way to get me to Zal before Arië rips his spirit out of me and feeds us to the fishes. So, know where Zal is?”
Astar, mute, eyes like saucers, gave her a long, thoughtful elven stare.
“Anytime in the next ten seconds would be good,” Lila prompted.
Brilliant, Tath observed sarcastically.
“You're most direct,” Astar said. “I hope you are as effective in pleading for your life and that of my brother as you are at issuing questions. Zal is far below the surface, where the darkness and cold plunge over the edge of the lake bed and into a chasm of extreme depth—a ley chasm of great aetheric potential where Arië seeks to…” She continued to say something about raising power and using it to purify Sathanor and some other kind of semibiblical flood analogy that Lila thought sounded uncannily like a form of Whole Earth fascism. The ideology didn't interest her except inasmuch as it was now clear that Alfheim was about to enter a civil war and that was worth reporting. But the really interesting thing was A bomb fault! Lila thought, translating the elfin way of thinking. Under Sathanor, how peculiar. I wonder if it is linked to the recording studio in Otopia or is the same kind of thing?
“…He is contained by a separate sphere which hangs free in the lake water, connected to the palace by a single hair from Arië's head,” Astar concluded. “More than that I have been unable to discover. We are not permitted so far below.”
“He has to come to us,” Lila said, “That can happen how?”
Astar shook her head helplessly. “Nothing but the Lady can command it.”
“So she just needs a reason.”
We need more help than this, Lila said privately to Tath. I'll be straight with you. Unless you have any more friends here who are on the white daisy side then we aren't looking so great. Let's say I do get to him, then how can I get Zal out of this place? Oh wait…I know. Her AI-self had been checking possibilities and had decided the best thing must be to wait until they were all united, for any reason, and then to power her way out, carrying Zal. She could certainly make the surface alive, and probably use her internal oxygen systems to support at least one other if it was a long way up. As for how to get together in the first place, she and Tath could most likely break through the charm wall and swim down…
Tath picked up her thoughts quickly, much more than he used to. He even clocked the AI-self's neat chart of survival possibilities and its redlined conclusions.
No!
Yes. It's the only way. And look on the bright side, if it fails and I have to, I can blow us all to doomsday and back. It's a plan. You don't have one. We'll stick, with it.
Dar was quite correct in his analysis that you are poorly placed for diplomacy, Lila.
Lila recounted her explosives, ammunition, and the chances that Arië was insane. Most likely Arië was not insane but frighteningly intelligent and well-motivated, if wrong. It all looked extremely bad.
Astar looked up. Their time was over. “Arië likes to keep what she fears in sight,” she said in quiet, rapid tones. “And she would enjoy making a fool of Zal. She has no fear in her own house. Offer her the chance and you may get yours.”
You do know that Astar used to turn me in to our father when I stayed out after dark, dont you? Tath complained. She would betray me for oneapproving smile and gloat at my punishment. One look from our mother was enough to make her come to heel.
I'd betray my sister for the promise of a half-sucked breathmint, Lila said. But not here and not now.
The door vanished abruptly and her guards stood there.
“Lady Astar,” one said deferentially.
Astar stood up and preceded Lila out.
Tath, do you know anything about demons? Do you have any—relatives? Lila asked as she followed, kicking the floor. It bent slightly. She thought that the water must transmit every sound and vibration quite well, and sighed.
You are taking about Zal, he said. I have heard of his theory that demons and elves are a bound aetheric duality, but it is heresy here, you must understand. I have no idea if it has any truth in it. Nobody in Alfheim knows what he did in Demonia. My concern with this lies in the salvation of Alfheim, from one destruction or another.
I guess I suit your purpose quite well so far. If we stop Arië you get to save the world.
I guess you do. How does your arm feel now?
Lila hadn't been concentrating and realised that she wasn't feeling even slight discomfort. She tried her arm and found that it was well-healed. The plastic and metal damage was still there, but her skin, her bone, the human parts of her—they were fine.
You may thank Astar for helping me. I hope it is the last time.
The last time for the next five minutes, Lila said, acknowledging Tath's own irony with a rueful smile. Don't get too sweet now, Tath, or it'll start feeling like we're friends.
He didn't reply.
I had an idea, Lila said. I know how we can get to Zal. She explained as they finished their short walk and arrived back in the lake hall.
It seems a bit convenient, Tath grumbled although Lila could feel a sly kind of gladness in him at the level of trust between them she would have to rely on. you will have to be very convincing.
Not me, Lila said. You.
Arië and her entourage were seated around low tables there, for all the world as though they were out for a picnic. Dar was close to Arië's left side, changed, dried, and cleaned up. He looked quite the part in his lilac and lavender finery. Lila felt completely sick at heart with what she was about to do because it was, as Tath said, very dangerous. She longed to cry. Instead she gave him a big smile and a wave. It was all she could think of that might act as a warning of any kind; a gesture so out of place that it must carry meaning. She saw Arië's green eyes narrow slightly as she was marched up to the gathering. Astar walked quietly to her Lady's side.
“I regret my entreaties were in vain,” Astar said and sat down.
Lila felt the strong andalune presence of the guards at her sides withdraw as they stepped away from her. Now was the moment.
Okay, Ilyatath Elenir Voynassi Taliesetra, she said inside. Sell me down the river.
Lila Amanda Black, I surely will.
“But the Lady's effort was not in vain,” Tath-in-Lila said, as Lila felt her body change the way it moved, to his style. “I have gained the upper hand within our struggle thanks to Lady Astar's strength.” Tath dropped the glamour.
Lila had to admit that the look on Dar's face was quite gratifyingly astonished. The rest of the faces however, those that didn't turn aside with revulsion, stared at her with the kind of expressions that it took all her courage not to react to. She supposed that her dirty state, her stolen clothes, her scars, her mangled hand and the metal that showed must be quite something if you were used to the kinds of flawless beauty that decked the halls around here. Still, as the silence rang on and twenty pairs of elfin eyes flicked over her as though the sight of her were poison, it wasn't so easy to bear.
Tath spoke quietly, with a surprise entirely of his own. He was surprised that he was surprised. I can feel their hate.
Welcome to my world, Lila said to him, staring straight ahead now, wanting to look at Dar but knowing she wouldn't find any support there, most likely. Couldn't risk it anyway. Then doing it. His face was rigid and intense, the face of her nightmares. What the hell was that look about?
That look is Dar thinking at top speed. And… But Tath didn't finish. Lila sensed his curiosity burning though she could not decipher its cause. Tath's presence, which had been so all-consuming it had become natural, was now focused on the tiny space he occupied within her solar plexus and he was difficult to read. Suddenly she was on her own.
The Lady of Aparastil was first to rise and, as though commanded in silent languages, the others remained quite still around her as she came forward to inspect Lila more closely.
Arië said nothing but that didn't stop the rest. Lila heard a lot of elvish words that her AI-self unwittingly translated before she turned off that function: hideous, abomination, monster, freak, disgusting, perverted, ugly, repulsive…The sly giggles, gloats, and sneers could not be erased so easily.
Lila held fast, as though Tath controlled her, and stared into the distance, into the deep green where the fish suddenly darted and flashed their silver semaphore of alarm. They were replaced by a huge, horned, tentacled face, long and triangular, with colossal golden eyes whose star-slit pupils gazed at her for an instant before vanishing into the water and weeds. She saw golden scales and black scales in diamond patterns winding on and on after it, seemingly forever, long amber fins and powerful, clawed feet: a water dragon. Because they were fixated on her, none of the elves noticed it, except for Tath. He reacted to the sight of it with intense excitement and fear, but he was soon distracted.
At close quarters Arië's allure was almost overwhelming. Lila could feel Tath melting with the very idea of being so close to the Lady. Lila was melting in a different way, every piece of her attention focused on maintaining calm homeostasis on her skin, in her muscles, in her breathing, in her energy patterns, giving away nothing of the seething molten anger that made her want to activate all weapons and bury Arië and her retinue in the muddy bottom of the lake. And as she held the line and gave nothing away, as she burned, she felt Tath inside her chest, a new kind of sensation from him that she didn't expect or look for even in allies at times like these: respect.
Just don't fucking say anything, Tath, either way, she thought. Don't make it harder than it already is.
He didn't.
“Are you able to show us what this…thing…is capable of?” Arië asked.
“Yes,” Lila said, quite herself and trying to talk Tath-speak. “Though I advise you to stand aside.” With hands that didn't sweat or shake she began to undress.
She took off Tath's baldric and belt, his dagger and his bow. Arië took them from her, holding them reverently. Lila took off Tath's jerkin and his shirt, revealing her stained singlet underneath. She removed what was left of his boots, undid the laces that held his britches closed and took them off—careful not to think of the last time she'd done that, although she would have loved to see Arië's expression if her liaison with Dar were to become public knowledge. She stepped out of them to stand in her regulation underthings, stinking of human sweat, as naked as she ever wanted to be again. The prosthetic arms and legs, the rivers of interrun flesh and metal, their unhappy pairing, the scarlet stain of Dar's magic…she let Arië take a long look and thought she saw the stirring of pity in the elf queen's face. She wanted to hit that face.
“What manner of terrible surgery has been foisted on this person?” Arië demanded. “It cannot be intentional that—she—has found herself thus made so abominably malformed. Look at her eyes! Nothing but metal. What could she see with those except the hardness and coldness of things?”
I see you, you trite bitch, Lila thought. She activated all her weapons systems into attack configuration and watched with deep satisfaction as pieces of her arms and legs which had seemed to be a flush surface with her skin lifted out and apart, flicking into new positions, her limbs a blur of moving metal parts, the air filled with the sound of a thousand snicking precision-made components shifting like a storm of mechanical insects taking wing. Battle armour, multifunctional self-adapting guns, missile launchers, an extra five inches of height…
Lila watched the elves recoil from her flat silver eyes as her hair activated and became charged sensory and comms transmission systems. Blades grew out of her hands. From her heels, killing spurs emerged, coated in poison.
Arië was the only one who did not recoil. She looked Lila up and down. “Can you operate these things, Tath?”
“I do not have complete access to that. The machine…” Tath said in his own voice, trusting that Arië's imagination would fill in the blank.
“How is it powered?”
“I cannot ascertain the method.”
“As you were,” Arië said thoughtfully and Lila returned to her civilian self in less than a second; the incredible shrinking girl.
“There is something else,” Tath added at Lila's prompt, making no move to take any of Lila's clothing back. She turned her head and stared into Arië's green eyes with her solid silver ones, knowing the elf would only see herself in them. “This agent was one of those assigned to Zal in Otopia to protect him from the Jayon Daga. She and he were involved in a Game which is unresolved.” It was her final card, the only card she had. If Arië didn't pick it up, they were all done. She had to bet that Arië could not resist using this information.
“What kind of Game?” the Lady demanded softly.
Lila hesitated. Tath took over seamlessly and used her mouth for her, “A love match.” Her voice. Her mouth. Tath's words. Suddenly they were too close for comfort and she almost panicked at the notion she would never get out and that he could take her over so easily if he wanted to…Tath felt it too. For a second they were on the brink, each realising the other's power.
But if the atmosphere had been bad before, it was as nothing to the depths it plunged to now. Someone actually gagged. Lila saw Arië's face tighten compulsively.
“To the death?”
Tath did not know the answer. He was watching Arië and made no attempt to seize power. Lila supplied it. “The death of love,” she said and resumed command, turning her face back to its attention position so that she didn't have to see the triumph and hate and loathing flood Arië's beauty with a whole new kind of vertiginous attraction, every strong mood of hers magnetic and charged with magic. As she revealed her secret she heard Tath say, You're full of surprises, Lila.
You should see me on a good day, Lila told him, though it was only words to her, she felt nothing of the assertiveness she pretended to. She longed to be unconscious, to be anywhere but here.
“Such a Game,” the Lady mused, the company there hanging on her every breath. “Such a dangerous Game with such as this. Surely…but there is no end to his degradation it seems. Truly, you did not return him a moment too soon, Dar. Now come, Tath, you have suffered long enough in such an unbefitting prison. Give me the token of your necromancer's soulbond with Death and I will give you back to your sister, or to whomever you wish. Any of my retinue will serve you.”
That damn flower!
Stop moaning and think, Tath snapped.
“I think it would be more interesting if I remained here,” Lila said via Tath, passing him ideas as she had them, not even sure how she did it. “Zal will not know that I am not the real Agent Black, after all. Maybe we can be useful. Zal will be difficult to manage. He was at the best of times. But the Game and his affections for this creature may make him ductile.”
Ductile? Lila shot at Tath. Nobody in their right mind uses words like ductile.
Nobody but me. That is why she is still going along with this madness. You do the thinking and leave the talking to me.
The Lady smiled. “You reason prettily enough, Tath. But give me the token, so that I can restore you immediately if things go ill. Neither of us can trust a being such as this one, whose spirit such as it is has been infiltrated and bound by the impenetrable blankness of metal and electricity.” Her smile was like the sun coming out of the clouds after a long, dull day of grey skies. Tath and Lila both felt its warmth and promise of goodness.
Oh crap, Lila thought. She was out of ideas.
I could not have put it better myself.
“I have it,” Astar interrupted quietly, coming forward with a daisy in her palm. “He gave it to me for safe keeping.” She gave it to Arië and the Lady closed her fingers over the token.
Inside Lila, as she felt a rush of gratitude for Astar's quick thinking, Tath became extremely dense with tension.
“That is well then,” Arië said, clearly relieved. “For I would not have you used against me, Tath. I hold you very dear.”
Sure, that's why she sends you into Thanatopia against your nature when she won't go herself.
I am aware of my position, Tath said ambiguously. And if you want her to swallow this you had better leave the rest to me. You have not the graces yet.
“You do me great favour, Lady,” Tath said, and performed the elegant, supplicating bow that Lila didn't have in her. Lila was slightly nauseated by Tath's deference—at the way it made him feel so good. Tath did the andalune equivalent of pulling a face at her.
Arië gave Astar Tath's gear. “Please dress and resume your glamour for the time being if you would, Tath,” she said. “I must say that I prefer your fairness to this mockery of life and beauty. You were always most comely.”
“Thank you, Lady,” he said and Lila felt the surge of Tath unfolding over her like a comfortable old coat.
How peculiar, Lila thought, to be more comfortable as somebody else. How nice to know you are pretty and how nice not to draw the wrong kind of attention.
Lila looked down at herself as Tath getting dressed. There really was not much comparison. Tath was sculpted muscle and acres of smooth, perfect skin. It was quite startling to see how much the sight of that apparent physical health calmed the others in the room. Even Dar was relaxing and that sense that the whole place was about to shatter had gone. Beauty junkies, that's what you are, Lila thought sadly, even Arië, especially Arië, who has never looked in a mirror that didn't like her or a face that wasn't humbled by her.
Is that other daisy a big mojo spell daisy or just a daisy? Lila asked Tath, trying to keep matters practical.
It is only a flower, a sign of her solidarity with us and nothing more.
Too bad. Anyway, you like Arië an awful lot, for an enemy.
My heart is my own problem, Tath said coolly.
Lila took the silver Thanatopic amulet from Astar last and put it on. As she did so, Tath sighed inside her, a heavy, long-suffering sound, and her chest felt as though it sank a degree. The office hurt him. It was a literal weight in his spirit.
“Come with me now,” Arië said to Tath. “Tell me of how you came by this robotic nightmare and the spells by which you hold it under mastery. Dar has told me of how it was he came to Alfheim in mortal pain, but I would like to know what happened to the lovely Silalio. Why is she not with you? Her heart would break to see you so.”
Tath switched command position with Lila again, as though they'd been a tag-team doing it all their lives. He was graceful about it, and only Lila felt the sadness and the anger as he said lightly, “Her heart lies with my body in the woodlands south of Sathanor. The Lady Silalio is dead, killed by Saaqaa as we travelled fast by night to catch up with Dar. Wild magic was everywhere around us, indeed, I have never seen so great a concentration of it as I did that night. It led us astray from the path and we were surprised by the hunters. She fought,” Lila felt a catch in his thinking, in his emotions, like a stumble, “very well, but the beasts were too powerful for all of us. Their ferocity and numbers have grown like wildfire in the last few months. They slaughter across Alfheim with impunity.”
Sighs and sounds of grief and surprise broke across the gathered elves around the Lady Arië, not least from Astar, who walked quickly away from them all and left the Hall. The sight of it cut Tath to the core, but he held his position and Lila felt her face change only the slightest amount, sinking at the corners of the mouth. Lila wondered if Silalio had carried a daisy too, forgetting how easy it was now for Tath to hear her.
Indeed she did not, he said acidly. So put away that pity you were beginning to feel, unless it was for her.
“I am grieved to hear it,” Arië said. Tears stood in her eyes and she displayed her emotions so openly and with such force that to look at her was to feel the epitome of all sorrow. Lila didn't look. She let Tath carry on and tried not to experience the way that Arië's expression tore at him.
“Tath,” Arië walked forward and put out her hand, then hesitated for a fraction of a second, and let it down again. Her andalune body touched his for the briefest of moments and he almost swooned in the combination of pleasure and agony. Lila felt the strange charge it carried, more than sympathy and more than attraction. She knew that heady, intoxicating rush—Arië and Tath were involved in a Game that went beyond the obvious one of political struggle! The citrus, effervescent tang of wild magic sparkled in her mind.
She betrayed you with love?
Tath did not answer.
“If you will not be undone from this creature, then I cannot offer you any further consolation, though your self-command does you great honour in my presence,” Arië said. “Come, before we continue this difficult task, eat with us. There is someone I would like you to talk to.”
She turned and her retinue got up quickly and silently to follow her. Dar hung back, but not enough for either of their aethereal bodies to make contact, and Tath would not meet his eye.
Lila reconsidered the wisdom of her position as they passed out of the lake hall and into another glorious room of glassy walls and living wallpaper. Either of the elves would kill anyone for the stakes that she was still only dimly aware of, all tangled about them like weeds here in this room: politics, families, magics, love. She only wanted to save Zal's skin, not create an international incident. Those two things seemed impossibly far from her control. And then they sat down at a beautiful curving table shaped like the curl of a gentle wave. It was laid out with a feast. In spite of her revulsion at the idea and the knife-edge they were balancing on she was very hungry, so Lila ate the food of Sathanor and, just for the moments that she did so and before guilt had time to manifest, she forgot everything but the sheer pleasure of being alive. And then she watched and waited, and hoped that Arië would not be able to overcome temptation.