The coach rolled into the entry hall as people shouted and scattered. It kept on through the open front doors and glided a hand’s span above the steps before settling to earth on the graveled forecourt. The horses stamped, a mist steaming off their pearlescent skin. The coachman tipped his hat to me. His blue eyes tightened with a smile that did not touch his lips. The footman jumped as lightly down from the back as if she had hidden wings. She flipped down the stairs and opened the door.

“What is your wish, Cousin?” the eru asked. In the eyes of everyone else she appeared as a man. Perhaps I just found her more comfortable to talk to as a woman.

“If you will convey us, I would be glad of it. Bee, Rory, get in.”

The eru swung the bags of provisions up onto the roof.

“What means this, that those who served us now serve you?” The mansa looked ready to ignite.

“They do not serve me, nor did they ever serve you,” I retorted. “But if you wish, Mansa, you can come with us. We could use a powerful cold mage.”

“So it has come to this,” he muttered. “I am being led by two girls.”

His irritation brought a smile to my lips for the first time in days. I made an elegant courtesy. “Yet you must admit, Mansa, that my dearest cousin Bee and I are two exceedingly fine young women, with quite unexpected depths.”

Only a man of his stature and birth could manage an expression that so purely combined a censorious frown shaded by a wrinkle of amusement at his eyes, for as much as he disapproved of my bold way of speaking, it was equally obvious a part of him found it appealing.

“That is one way to describe it, Catherine. We have not the leisure for me to explain the other. My predecessor could not have imagined that the bargain Four Moons House forced onto the Hassi Barahal clan sixteen years ago would lead to this peculiar end.”

But he wanted Vai back as much as I did, so he dismissed his djeli and gave orders to his nephew to follow with the surviving Four Moons soldiers and mages as soon as they could get horses. Then he got in.

The door was shut. The squinty gremlin eyes of the latch stared at me in what I thought might be surprise to find me back again. The coach jostled as the footman swung up onto the riding board in back. On the whip’s snap we rolled, on our way at last.

44

Drake’s trail led north in fire and ashes.

The first staging post lay in smoking ruins. Locals poking cautiously through the remains of a cottage, kitchen-house, and stable yard told us of fire and confusion none of them had been close enough to observe. The staging-post attendants were missing and the horses had all been stolen.