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Wow! Singe was well and thoroughly pissed off. And she was just getting warmed up.

"Go back in there. Go on being a jerk. But before you start, tell me what will come of it after you get your moment of strutting around congratulating yourself on how you showed somebody?"

"All right, Singe. I get it. I'll jump in there and kiss his ass and lick his boots and beg him to use a little lard when he bends me over."

She slapped me.

That stunned me silent.

Her arms were not long enough to let her get a good windup but the impact stung plenty anyway.

My little girl was seriously upset. I might want to invest a few seconds in trying to work out why.

I had told Prince Rupert that things were not all about him. I suppose Singe wanted me to recognize that they were not all about me, either.

That unhappy man across the hall had the power to make me and everyone I ever met extremely unhappy. And he was just one breath away from having the power to make that unhappiness eternal.

Rupert might be a fool but he was not just some passing moron that I could sneer at and disdain to his face.

"I get what you want me to see, Singe." But I couldn't surrender completely. "I'll go kiss the idiot and make it better."

The way Singe moved then, I feared she might be looking for a club big enough to pound me into a shape she found acceptable.

95

"I want to apologize for my antagonistic attitude, Your Grace. I have been under a great deal of stress. I shall do my best to defer to your wisdom henceforth-except in the matter of going to work for you, which you should not view as any reflection upon yourself."

Singe showed me her teeth. That was not good enough, apparently.

Other than being renown for having promulgated his First Law, Morley might be most famous for having observed that the world would be a better place if we just had sense enough to kill the right people.

I don't disagree-so long as I get to make the list.

Prince Rupert was determined to become a featured name.

He said, "I expect some social gaps are too broad to bridge even with the best intentions."

I started to open my mouth. Singe lifted a knickknack off her desk and wound up.

I said, "That's true. Before you leave, couldn't you indulge us with just a hint as to why General Block and Director Relway can't pursue the mission. ."

"Stop. There are times. . There are special circumstances. ."

Perhaps. But he, Block, and Relway had been savagely diligent about crushing that justification. Till now. "If you want to change the rules suddenly you need to support it with something more than, 'Because I said so.' Because that is total bullshit. Which you have said a hundred times yourself."

"My brother needs it. He'll die otherwise. I don't want to be King."

What the hell was that?

Singe had that bookend thing in hand again.

Rupert sputtered some, then said, "Even more, I don't want my brother Eugene or nephew Kansa to be king. Either would be a disaster. As has been this visit. I must go."

I escorted him to the door. Before I could shut it behind him, he told me, "Stay away from this, Garrett." His tone said he didn't hold out much hope that he would get his way.

I told Singe and Strafa, "There's a political angle after all."

Strafa said, "It's one that turned up, for Rupert, only in the last few days."

"I'll buy that. We have a little night left. I'm going to go catch a nap. Singe. No luck with the Dead Man?"

"Not yet. That last incident really wasted him."

No shit.

96

I did not fall asleep right away, though not because Strafa crawled in and snuggled up. She went away instantly.

She had worked hard.

My mind had snagged on the possibility that the King was involved in the bad stuff to the point of trying to protect the evildoers.

Though there was no testimony yet I was sure the bad guys were buying prisoners from the Little Dismal operation and using them to build their thread men. Why, though, was beyond my imagination. The thread men were not aggressive unless driven. They were less dangerous than the zombies they resembled.

I reviewed each attack, over and over. I came up with nothing new, except that the lines of flight from Fire and Ice not only headed toward the Hill, they passed Knodical, supposedly currently untenanted.

That deserved investigation. The plunder from the Elf Town warehouse had gone there.

Were the Hill folk treading carefully because the King was entangled in something dark?

Waking was brisk but intense. Strafa Algarda turned loving into a religious experience. She whispered, "I can't wait till we can take our time."

"Me, neither." I became part of a strange and wonderful beast when I failed to show character enough to say no.

"So get yourself up, love. We have work to do."

"For example?"

"Today we are going to confound the Crown Prince and all the instruments of the night."

I glanced out the window. It was raining.

"Let's go, sourpuss!" She giggled. "Put on a smile. It will make itself at home. It's going to be a wonderful day."

I didn't want to be that guy who spins around and looks to the past as soon as the future hits. But I wasn't sure I could survive a diet of cheerful, happy, and positive-all before noon-for the rest of my life. And I knew, with no need for an outside consultant, that I'd signed on for the duration.

Strafa was perfect. She was everything a guy wove in his fantasies. Her sole flaw was that she lacked a sense of despair. She couldn't work up a good gloom to save her own delectable patootie.

I nearly laughed. And then found out that I could be wrong.

As we dressed, I said, "We never got a chance to talk about what you found out when you visited Barate. And the kids."

"Nothing useful. Their names may have been used but they weren't the ones wearing them."

The cheer had gone right out of her.

"Barate said he was going to check out some family legends."

"He did. Though they were more like rumors to the effect that some of the old people weren't actually inside their coffins when they went into the ground. The only way to be sure would be to dig them up."

"I don't think it will come to that." I moved behind her and pulled her back against my chest. "What's wrong?"

No artifice. "I saw my grandmother, too."

"Shadowslinger?"

"Yes. She wishes us well. You and me, together."

That came out of nowhere. "She knows?"

"Everyone seems to. I'm not sure how." She pressed back and crossed my arms in front of her.

"Is that a problem?"

She found some slight bounce. "It's a weight off, actually. I was worried about how to break the news."

"Then what's the problem?"

"My grandmother has been under a lot of pressure to use her influence to get me to back away from all this."

"That's it? You have to stop? You can. It's all right. But I won't."

"Neither will I. And nor will my grandmother."

"Then what. .?"

"My grandmother Constance felt obligated to relay the anxious desires of her class. She decided she was on our side only after I described Bird and Penny's artwork. She may come by for a closer look. She wouldn't explain but its obviously old family history. Probably to do with what Barate had in mind."

She seemed small in my arms right then, like a frightened little girl.

She said, "What we're doing may change the city as much as the end of the war did."

"How so?"

"I don't know. I'm not one of the insiders caught up in a froth of anxiety. But I feel the shift lurking out there, waiting to pounce. Why don't we forget all that stuff I said we need to do and go back to bed. Right now I'd be much happier if the world was just you and me."