Nolan used the last of his energy to inspect their quarters. As he had guessed, it was composed of the sitting room, a shared necessary room, and two bedrooms. The fountain was playing off a small balcony that looked from the window of his room. Here, the bars that kept him from the outside world were a decorative verdigris that did not block the sun at all, but they were thick, sturdy and sunk in stone at both their top and bottom edges. There was no escape here.

He didn’t want to escape. He had put himself willingly and unreservedly in Chay Zanlan’s hands. He would not have tried to leave the compound if he had been given free run of the place.

And anyway, he would never have been able to leave Kit behind. Not tonight, certainly; not ever, perhaps.

But this was impossible. How could he have fallen in love with this blueskin girl, this fierce, strange creature who cared nothing for the life Nolan prized, who had rejected every doctrine and canon he had grown up believing as absolute truth? Putting aside the fact that she could never care for him—a man who had abducted her from her home!—putting aside the fact that he was not free to love anyone, how could he have fallen for her? He had only known her two days. And she was nothing like his picture of an ideal woman. And she was in love with another man.

And yet he knew it was true. And he did not know how to change it. He had no serum for this particular disease. He might have vaccinated himself in advance, if he had known the malady was lurking, but he had no cures for it now. And he would suffer with it until he died.

*   *   *

Two hours later, guards brought food and the luggage Nolan and Kit had surrendered when they entered the palace. There was, in addition, a pile of silks and cottons thrown onto one of the tables. The guard pointed and explained, but Nolan merely shrugged. Kit would have to translate in the morning.

However, sifting through the pile once the guards had left, he learned that Chay had sent them clean clothes, which seemed a favorable sign. At first, Nolan was unsure of which items might be intended for a man and which for a woman, for in Inrhio, only women wore color; men dressed exclusively in black and white. Yet here was a tunic much like the one Chay had worn that afternoon, and these were the sorts of leggings Nolan had seen on the commuters at the various train stations. Surely, they had been intended for him.