The colony. This was the first time Derek had ever heard her use this word. Derek liked it, the word “colony.” We are indeed a colony in this world, he mused.

“Why don’t you stay close,” asked the Prince, “and work along with Seth and Fareed? You know Fareed’s eager for this. Okay, so some sparks flew last night, but it was nothing. He’s eager to work with you. Think what you might achieve together, you and Seth and Fareed.”

He even talked like a Hollywood cowboy gunslinger, thought Derek. He looks like a princely porcelain statue but talks like a gunslinger, with a low easy drawl. French can be beautiful when you speak it with a drawl, and his English was beautiful with the French accent and the drawl. But however he spoke, he seemed sincere, and this warmed Derek’s heart. The Prince’s smile was brighter than Marius’s smile because the Prince smiled with his eyes and his lips, and Marius smiled mainly with his lips.

“Surely we will achieve great things together,” said Kapetria. “This is the future we all want. But we need our time alone before anything further happens. And I ask that you trust us. You do trust us, don’t you?”

“Of course,” said the Prince. “And what would we do if we didn’t trust you? Do you think we’d try to force you to stay? You think we’d try to seal you up under the Château the way Roland kept Derek in Budapest? Of course not. It’s only that I didn’t expect you to leave so soon.”

She wasn’t budging, Derek thought. She wasn’t giving them anything. And he wasn’t sure why. Why didn’t they remain here in the safety of the Château or better yet set up some new residence for themselves in Paris in the shadow of the great Gregory Duff Collingsworth? He’d offered to give them whatever they wanted. He’d promised resources beyond their dreams.

“And what will you do now with the information Amel gave you?” asked the Prince. “We’ve opened our doors to you. And the doors remain open. But I can’t help but wonder what you will do. I wonder because of what I am and what I once was.” Just like a cowboy, so straightforward.

“Please remember,” said Kapetria. “We do see ourselves as the People of the Purpose—the new purpose we embraced in Atalantaya. We will never do anything to harm sentient life. We are like you. You are like us. We are alive, all of us. But we must have some time to ourselves.”

“What about Amel?” asked the Prince. “You don’t want to learn more directly from Amel?”

“How can we be learning directly from him,” asked Kapetria, “when such communication risks causing you excruciating pain and that pain is felt by the tribe when you feel it?”