"Hezhi, what did you think of?"
"That maybe… Maybe there is a way to stop it. To stop the Royal Blood from working. To keep the River asleep in me."
Ghan's head hung as if it weighed a hundredweight. She had never seen him look so old. "There can't be," he muttered.
"Why?"
"The priests would do it, don't you think?"
"They do do it, Ghan. They stop it in themselves!"
"By castration, before the change starts. That won't work for you. You aren't a man, and if you were, you would already be too old."
Her voice strengthened, as she gained a little courage. "If there is one way to stop it, there might be another." She watched him rub his head hopefully.
"I don't know. There might be. I don't believe so."
"It doesn't matter," she remarked bitterly. "Not if I can't see the books anyway."
Ghan looked up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time in several exchanges. "No," he said. "But I can look at them, if I go there. They have to let me, if I say it is required for the index."
"That would be dangerous for you," she replied.
"Yes. As this conversation, right now, is dangerous for me." He gripped her shoulder, pointed his index finger squarely at her nose, so that she almost went cross-eyed. "Stay calm, for a day or two only. Stay off of the roof, and act normally. Work here in the library, tell anyone who asks that I have demanded it. I will find out what I can, do what I can. But you have to trust me. Me, and no one else. Have they tested you once already?"
Hezhi nodded, dumbfounded by Ghan's sudden passion.
"Then they are watching you, you can be sure of that. Somewhere, in the shadows, following you. He will see you, Hezhi, but you won't see him."
"Who?"
"The priests set watchers on children like you, children that worry them. Members of the Jik sometimes."
"The Jik?" she repeated, her voice quavering.
"I know you've read about those Blessed who were discovered too late. The noble children who went wild, caused destruction. The priesthood won't let that happen again. When they fear it, they turn loose the Jik—not to spy on foreign diplomats, not to kill overly ambitious merchants—but to watch children, to stop them while there is still time."
"It sounds like you agree with them," Hezhi murmured, suddenly unsure.
"I'm just explaining your danger and the reason for it," he explained quietly. "I have no wish to see my library and the rest of the palace come down around my ears. But rather that than know you were below the Darkness Stair. Bide, Hezhi, and let me see what I may. And watch the shadows! Your half Giant will not be able to protect you from one of the Jik."
When they returned to the central room, she noticed Yen, a half-dozen books open in front of him. He looked up and smiled at her. She waved but did not approach him. Her life was compli-cated enough without becoming better friends with the son of a merchant. Instead, she went home, silently watched Qey go about her tasks, and at last retreated to her own room, where she could hear the comforting sounds of the house without danger of having to speak to anyone.
As she lay there, turning thoughts and images over in her mind, her ghost appeared, a man-shaped blur touched at the edges by rainbow. She watched with some apprehension as he meandered around the room, as if performing some stately spectral dance. He did not approach her or threaten to touch her as he had before. Eventually the shimmering that marked him twisted, became thin, a line, vanished.
Left alone once more, she reflected on what small comfort came from answers. After all, she now understood most of the events of the past few months. Her power began to waken when she began to bleed. The Riverghost had sensed her, lurked in the fountain while her father summoned its lesser brethren, and then come after her. Whether it meant somehow to feed on her or was merely drawn to her like a moth to a flame was immaterial, though she suspected the former, considering how the ghost in her room was able to draw form and substance from the merest contact with her blood. Who had the demon ghost once been? Someone like her, of course. A child filled with forces she neither wanted nor understood. She had lived below the Darkness Stair—for how long? She had died there, and the River, torpid and uncaring, had drunk her into himself.
She scratched at her own scale, her own sign of exile.
Evening found her still there, and in the entry room across the courtyard, she heard a door open, and voices. She bolted up in her bed. If it was the priests, she was doomed. She wondered, wildly, if she could climb the wooden trellis to the roof, make her way to the Great Hall, steal their victory from them. But it was too late; footsteps slapped across the courtyard, hushed in soles of soft leather.
Her visitor was no priest. The woman who uncertainly entered her room and leaned against the doorjamb was the last person she ever expected. Almost, in fact, she didn't recognize the woman. Slim, beautiful despite being a few years past her prime, coiled hair shot with a magnificent streak of gray. Eyes as wide and black as Hezhi's own, the same eyes, so many were wont to say.
"Mother?" Hezhi gasped, even then uncertain.
"So," the woman said, her voice cool, but edged with some almost concealed emotion. "You know me, at least. That is more than I expected."
Hezhi nodded her head, unable to speak. She tugged at her sleeve, making certain the scale was concealed.
The two women gazed at each other, neither speaking, for a long moment. The elder finally broke the silence. "You've grown into a pretty thing," she said. "Soon you will have many suitors."
"I have one already," Hezhi corrected quietly, sitting up and brushing at her disordered hair.
"The Yehd Nu boy? Yes, I've heard about that. You embarrassed him quite soundly."
Her mother's speech was glacial, each word carefully shaped as if just recalled from a distant memory. Hezhi noticed the discreet black stain beneath her nose, the dark cast to her lips.
"I didn't mean…" she stammered, but her mother held up a hand.
"No, you should keep him guessing. And soon…" She paused, wrinkled her angular face, brushed at it with a finely manicured hand. "Yes, soon you will have many suitors, and have your pick of them."
Hezhi nodded, still unwilling to offer anything to this ethereal creature, this woman she had seen only from afar for most of her life. When was the last time they had spoken? In her garden, two years ago? It seemed at least that long.
"Well, I…" Her mother seemed to search for words and frowned down at the floor as if she might find them there. When she looked back up, her glazed eyes held a frankness in them, an unspoken truth. "I just wanted to see you, Hezhi. It's been a long time since we talked." She smiled, a false and painful smile. "After all, I did bear you, didn't I? Nine months in my belly you were, though you struggled to escape much earlier." She shrugged. "I just wanted to see you, tell you I'm looking forward to you joining us soon. That will be nice, won't it?"
Hezhi could see Qey, across the courtyard, wringing her hands, pretending to slice onions. She was crying, but of course, she always cried when she sliced onions. Halfway across the courtyard was a handsome, smart-looking man in royal livery, trying not to seem uncomfortable. Her mother's bodyguard? Or a Jik? But no, the Jik she would never see; they were less visible than ghosts, and when their knives found your heart it was always from behind.
Her mother smiled at her for a score more uncomfortable breaths. "I just wanted to say hello," she explained. "You're really a very beautiful young woman."
"Thank you."
Her mother nodded. "I hope we see you soon," she concluded sluggishly, turned. Signaling her man with a slight crook of her wrist, she departed.
Her visit left Hezhi with a tight heart, a need for air. Dizziness crept up on her, and she realized her breathing was too hard, too fast. Why would her mother come see her now, of all times, after all these years? But Hezhi knew, she knew.