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gave myself a cursory wash with tepid water from the morning’s basin and crawled onto my pallet. There I lay, wakeful, listening to the sounds of others returning. It was not often I had that chance. I knew their steps-the Akkadians’ heavier treads; Nazneen the Ephesian, who moved like a weary dancer; the swift, angry pace of Jolanta. I heard Imriel among them, too, his agility gone, his steps stumbling and leaden.
    But alive, and walking. I lay down my head and slept.
    And awakened to piercing screams.
    The sound was indescribable, ear-splitting, deafening. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed a mortal throat, a single boy, could utter such a sound-and I say that as one who endured the mourning wails of La Dolorosa for days on end. There was nothing of grief in this sound, only utter terror. It sent me bolt upright in bed, my heart racing like a distance-runner’s, knowing beyond surety it was him.
    In the zenana , women groaned, complained, uttered curses and orders to be silent, covered their heads with cushions. Clad only in my shift, I make my way amid the couches.
    “Nightmares,” Drucilla said in Caerdicci, meeting me halfway. Her shawl was clutched about her, her eyes dull with sleep. “He had them in autumn, too. I have valerian.”
    “No,” I said. “I’ll go.” After a moment, she nodded and stepped aside.
    Shrill and endless, the screams echoed from the walls, until I had to grit my teeth against the sound. Only a few lamps were burning, and by the dim light, I saw Imriel curled into a thrashing ball, his hands fisted, eyes clenched tight, mouth stretched wide in a rictus of terror.
    The cords in his throat stood out like cables as he screamed and screamed, never seeming to draw breath.
    “Imriel,” I whispered, speaking in D’Angeline, kneeling at his side, not daring to touch him for fear of what it might invoke in his dreams, “Imriel, I’m here, it’s all right, I’m here.”
    His eyes flew open, and the sound stopped. He stared at me uncomprehending, then drew in a long, ragged breath and burst into tears.
    It was like a dam breaking. His arms came around my neck, chokingly tight, and I held him while he sobbed, raw and gasping, his entire body wracked with the force of it. Tears stood unheeded in my eyes as I murmured meaningless reassurances. His cheek was hard against mine, silky child’s skin, sticky and hot with anguish, his shoulders heaving.
    He was afraid of anyone seeing him cry .
    I am not strong, but I am strong enough; he was only ten years old, and light with it. I picked him up in my arms and carried him to my chamber, the private chamber of the Mahrkagir’s favorite, his arms wound tight about my neck, his grief echoing at my ear. And there I lay down with him on my pallet and he clung to me, Melisande’s son, burying his face against my throat, still jerking with the force of his misery, soaking my shift with hot tears, until at last his sobbing subsided and his limbs grew still and he passed, grief spent, into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion with a child’s thoughtless ease, one hand still clutching my shift, the other knotted in my hair.
    “Imriel,” I whispered, kissing his brow. “Oh, Imriel!”
    And I lay for a long time sleepless, aware of the unaccustomed weight, slight though it was, of a child at my side, of his clinging arms. I knew, that night, that my life had changed. I was not sure how, nor why. And since the gods gave no answer-not cruel Kushiel, nor Naamah, nor Blessed Elua himself-in time, I slept.
    When I awoke, I knew myself watched.
    He sat perched on the stool, heels hooked on the rung, elbows propped on knees, watching me sleep. It was passing strange to wake to that gaze, his mother’s sapphire eyes, in a child’s considering face.
    “Did Elua send you here to die?” he asked me.
    Only in the zenana of Daršanga would that question sound so natural.
    “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.” And I told him my plan.
    He listened carefully, frowning, all traces of the nightmare-ridden child gone. I did not overstate our odds. Imriel had been in Daršanga too long to believe a pleasant fiction; longer than I. And besides, I would not consider it wise, at any time, to mince truths with Melisande’s son-nor Ysandre’s cousin. I saw it for the first time that day, the lineage of House Courcel in his features.
    I hadn’t gotten through all of it, only the zenana’s part.” The Mahrkagir wishes to