“In your dreams,” said Pat. She got up and started walking down the hill. Despite their effort to come and go without making a path that other people could follow, the ground sort of forced them into a couple of routes, and paths were forming. Some random hiker might find this place and already be here when one of them showed up by gate. But if they used the amulets all the time in order not to make a path, somebody was going to see one of them disappear.

He didn’t call after her. He didn’t follow her.

Danny would have. But the Belmage, caring nothing for the relationship, and apparently believing that “no” meant “no,” didn’t bother.

Chapter 2

2

It was hard for Wad to find a time to visit Bexoi’s inert body, for he did not want to let anyone else see him, and King Prayard made sure that she was almost never left unattended. Nor could he constantly watch through a viewport; he had other things to do. But now and then he thought of her, the Queen whose life he had saved, who had taken him as a lover, who had borne him a child, who then murdered that child and then burned to death his friend Anonoei.

Bexoi, the woman whom he hated above all other human beings, yet whose life he was going to protect until she bore King Prayard’s baby.

One night he saw that both the doctor and the young servant girl who attended her had fallen asleep, and King Prayard was gone. So he made a gate and came in person to sit on the floor beside the bed where she lay in a coma, responding to no word, never opening her eyes, but able to drink and swallow some of whatever was poured into her mouth. Her dress was stained with old spills, damp with new ones. Behind the liberally applied perfume she smelled of various kinds of putrescence, and Wad passed a gate over her, in case she needed healing.

Did she feel it? Did she know that he was there? Was she afraid that he would kill her? No one in Iceway had more cause. But no, he had promised her that he would not harm the baby, and she knew that was a promise he would keep.

He put his hand in hers. It was warm. Her chest rose and fell slightly with each shallow breath. But as he held her hand, it gave no motion, responded to him not at all; nor did her face change in any way.