“Well, then, perhaps one day I will be fortunate enough to travel there. But since I have returned from the city, I have found myself weary and disinclined to travel again anywhere, at least anytime soon.”

Nolan infused a faint note of concern into his voice. “I hope your health has not been troubling you?”

“A slight cough merely. I so rarely suffer any illness that even the smallest one takes me completely by surprise.”

“A cough?” Nolan said casually. “Did you fall ill while you were in the city? A place so crowded with people breeds disease, you know.”

“Perhaps I contracted something while I was away from home,” Chay conceded. “It is not a matter I am concerned with. What I would rather talk about is your reason for traveling all this distance to see me.”

“In fact,” Nolan began, but Chay held up one large hand to suspend him.

“But is this an issue that can be discussed freely before a woman? You are the one who traveled here in secrecy. Do you desire Kitrini to overhear your words?”

“She may hear them,” Nolan said bleakly. “I did not tell her because I thought this was news you should hear before any other.”

“Then she may remain,” Chay said. “Speak. Tell me.”

Nolan took a deep breath. He had rehearsed it a hundred times, a thousand times, and it always sounded horrific. “In fact, my reason for seeking you out directly concerns your health,” he said. “I believe that on your visit to the city you were, at the behest of Ariana Bayless, deliberately exposed to a dangerous virus that is fatal to gulden unless treated. Not only is it fatal, it is highly contagious, and you and everyone who has come in contact with you since you returned from the city could be dead before the year is out.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The silence in the room was complete. Nolan could feel Kit’s eyes on him, marveling, disbelieving, but Chay Zanlan’s serious expression did not change while he considered the pronouncement.

Finally, the gulden leader said gravely, “Do you have more information? How was the virus administered? For I was very careful about the foods I ate and rarely took anything from the hand of a blueskin.”

“There was a banquet one night. At a gulden restaurant. A place where you would not be suspicious.”

“And I was exposed then? In my food?”

Nolan shook his head. “It wasn’t mixed in your food. You were seated at a table with a number of high-ranking indigo. Including a woman named Cerisa Daylen. You might not remember her. She’s about the same age as Ariana Bayless—”

“I remember her. She is the head of a scientific laboratory.”