The King's Blood

think about it is a fairly weak way to hold a family together, but we had it once, and now we don’t. And so there’s all this walking.”
    Shut up, shut up, shut up , she thought, but her mouth kept tripping on ahead without her.
    “And then there’s the question of mourning. How long does one wait, because on the one hand there’s a right and a wrong in court, but I’m not in court any longer, and so I don’t know what rules apply. I have to go about making them up. It’s terrible. It really is.”
    “But you haven’t been conspiring against me or the throne?”
    “No,” she said.
    There was a pause.
    “All right, then. Thank you for your time. You can go.”
    Clara walked out into the open air. She was in the Kingspire. Her head was spinning a bit, and she stopped at the street gate to catch her breath. She felt absurdly relieved. As if she’d been attacked and escaped only through luck. Perhaps that was true. She understood the pinched faces now. The feeling of fear and oppression that hung over everything like black crepe. She wondered how many people had been taken away without warning and made to play Geder’s game of magistrate. More than only her, she was certain.
    When she felt steady again, she made her way to the street. The Division was before her, and the Prisoner’s Span looked terribly far away. The sun was low and red and swollen in the sky, turning all the buildings west of her to silhouettes like a painting for a burning city. And what was worse, somewhere in the confusion, she’d lost her apples and cheese.
    The sun had set long before she got back to her boarding house. Her feet were shouting with each step. Her spine felt like a column of fire. The smell of Abatha’s stew was actually attractive, which only gave an idea of how hungry she’d become. She made her way to the kitchen with the sole intention of paying her rent and buying a bowl of greasy stew, but Vincen was there, sitting by the oven. When he saw her, he leaped up, crossing the room in a stride, and lifted her in his arms.
    “They told me you were gone,” he said. “They said the Lord Regent’s men took you.”
    “They did,” Clara said and let herself fall into the embrace. Just a little. “You can put me down now if you like.”
    “Never, my lady.”
    “Very romantic,” she said. “Put me down.”
    She sat by the oven, and Abatha gave her a bowl for free, so she bought a pipeful of tobacco instead. She told about her meetings with Ogene and Jorey and Sabiha, and then coming home only to be stopped by Geder’s men and carried away with a cowl over her face. She finished the last of her stew as she got to the strange dark room with the soldiers and Geder Palliako towering before her, demanding that she answer questions. She felt herself growing calmer with the retelling, as if she were seeing for the first time what had happened. The distance was reassuring.
    She lit her pipe from the stove. Abatha’s stew might be salty and bland, but she did manage to find genuinely decent tobacco. Clara sat at the stove, puffing thoughtfully for a long moment before she realized Vincen and Abatha were waiting for her to go on.
    “And then they let me go,” she said, rather gamely.
    “But what did they ask?” Abatha said. Her face looked really animated for the first time since Clara had met her.
    “Oh, that. They asked if I’d been conspiring against Geder Palliako and the crown.”
    “What did you say?”
    “That the thought hadn’t occurred to me,” she said.
    “And?” Vincen said.
    Clara raised an eyebrow.
    “And now it has.”

Master Kit
     
    S
    uddupal was at first a community of cities, their buildings and structures tall and solid, and then it was a dark and monstrous hand reaching out toward them with piers for fingers, and then it was gone, and they were alone on the wide sea. Adasa Orsun could sail the little ship by herself, moving from one line to another, lifting up the sails and shifting the angle of the rudder until everything was exactly as she wished it to be. Every now and then, she would tell Marcus to help her with some task where three hands were better than two. She never asked Kit, and honestly Kit didn’t mind.
    It had been a very long time since he’d set out in a small craft over large water. He had almost forgotten the way the horizon-wide water and the open arch of sky conspired with the smallness of the boat and left him feeling overwhelmed and constrained at the same