The River of No Return

You will experience your death quite slowly, as the bullet first touches you, then pierces your skin, and begins to flatten out as it bores through your skull. By the time it blows off the back of your head you will of course no longer be able to experience what is happening to you. I suggest that you choose sides now. Blink if you agree.”
    Alice spoke with embarrassed urgency. “Nick, my good friend. I’m very sorry it had to come to this. We like you very much, and admire you. But you don’t have a choice.” Nick listened to her and watched the bullet crawl toward his head. He was curiously unafraid.
    The bullet began to deform as it sped, slowly, through the air. Fascinating.
    So many conflicting loyalties. The Guild, his sisters, Julia . . . even Kirklaw and Jemison. And now there was Alva. They were right about her—she was an enchanting woman, and she had already staked a claim in his affections. It wasn’t her beauty, and it wasn’t even the fact that she had rescued him from that moment when the river had rushed through him, dragging him back to that memory of group rage, that collective desire. It was because she had offered something—sex—and stepped away, unfazed, when he had refused. Like a gentleman. She hadn’t slandered his sisters, or reminded him of all that he owed her, or pointed a damned gun at his head. She hadn’t tried to tie him down with duty or debt. Instead, she had told him that, if he wanted one, he had a friend. And then, for no reason other than that she seemed to like him, she had revealed her greatest secret. She was Ofan. Instead of warning him that he must keep his mouth shut, or telling him that he was now bound by some blood brotherhood of shared knowledge, she had put her finger to her lips and twirled away. As if she trusted him—he, who was so obviously a Guild spy.
    The bullet was close enough now that, had he the use of his limbs, Nick might have plucked it from its course himself. But apart from his eyelids, his captors wouldn’t let him move a muscle.
    Well, he thought, as the bullet got so close that he couldn’t focus on it anymore, there is nothing like staring your own slow-motion death in the face to bring clarity to a situation. He had no intention of being the Guild’s good soldier and vicarious lothario, but the time for argument was at an end.
    He must pretend to do their bidding. He must learn everything he could about the Ofan and tell none of it to the Guild. He blinked. Yes, Bertrand Penture, he would choose a side. The side of the angels.
    When the bullet touched his forehead, as lightly as the kiss of a raindrop, Penture reached out, took it, and put it in his pocket. With a rush of blood in his head, Nick felt time resume its normal course. The air in his lungs came out in a whoosh, and he collapsed, gasping for breath.
    Everyone was silent, waiting for Nick to regain his dignity. Saatçi poured him a drink from a decanter and put it next to him.
    When he could breathe normally, he downed the contents of the glass without even noticing which liquor it was that burned his throat.
    Penture watched Nick drink. “You are a brave man,” he said.
    “I enjoy melodrama.” Nick set his empty glass down on the table. “That was rather cheap melodrama, mind you, but at least it captured my attention. I applaud you all.”
    Nick was shocked to see Penture smile, a big, natural smile. It transformed him from a grim politician into a dashing ruffian, with a deep dimple in one cheek—from Gregory Peck to Cary Grant. “I thank you,” Penture said. “I was an actor in a former life. I am glad that our little performance was able to convince you of your loyalties.”
    Nick put his hands together as if in prayer. “‘Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.’”
    “My priest!” Arkady proclaimed. “I told all of you that he would come around.”
    For her part, Alice reached across the table and took Nick’s hand. “Thank you, my friend. Please forgive us.”
    Fat chance, Nick thought to himself. But he said otherwise: “Really there is nothing to forgive.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
    J ulia stood by the window of her bedchamber, holding the little white book of poetry in her hand. But she wasn’t reading. She was watching Count Lebedev. He was standing down there in the dark street, tossing his stick from hand to hand, and scowling up at the door. And here was Blackdown coming down the stairs, his hat at a rakish angle. It was after midnight, and