“There’s always at least one fishing boat, and usually a dozen, within hail of the docks.”

“Then gather up Anonoei’s remains,” said Wad, “while I undress the Queen.”

It took Keel very little time to gather the sad ashes of Anonoei, along with her half-charred clothing, and put them in a pot that previously held nuts, which now were strewn on his writing table. Wad did not remove the last of Bexoi’s undergarments until the man was gone. She was the Queen, after all, and once he had loved her. With his hands on her unresponsive body, with the warmth of her flesh under his fingers, old feelings came flooding back. He had loved her with the intensity of a boy’s first love, for she was his first love after the long amnesia of the tree, and when it began he was a boy again, though old memories came back quickly enough, along with his knowledge of how a woman might be pleased. By habit he found his fingers stroking her as if in lovemaking, but he caught himself and stopped. She was no longer the woman he had been besotted with. Now she was the murderer of their son, the boy whom she called Oath and he called Trick, and he did not love her. Yet those feelings were so strong within him that he could hardly drive them away. He had to stand up and pace the room until he judged that Keel had been gone for long enough that it was worth checking on his progress.

Yes, he was at the dock, and already heavily engaged in conversation with the foreman and a couple of workmen. Wad looked out across the water and chose the ship, an inbound vessel with a crew that seemed alert enough as with long sweeps of two oars on a side they rowed upstream.

“Don’t inhale,” he told Queen Bexoi, “and you’ll be fine. Or if you can’t control your body well enough to manage that, I’m sure the fishermen will be able to revive you. Trust me: After saving you from the ravages of fire, I will not let you drown or freeze to death. Whatever the sailors do to revive and warm you, I can promise it will work.”

Then he gated her into the water, just below the surface, so she would bob up between the portside oars. He watched them notice her, drag her into the boat. He was glad to see that she was capable of choking and sputtering and struggling to breathe—it meant she wasn’t paralyzed. But when the sailors peppered her with questions, she said nothing. And so they took her in to shore, where Keel performed his show of recognizing her, modestly covering her, and taking her to Nassassa, where King Prayard rewarded the sailors, and Keel as well, for bringing his wife and unborn baby home to him.

*   *   *