Well, that settles that, Ritva thought. This can’t be a put-on to set me up. Cunning elaborate plans like that only happen on the spur of the moment in stories. She’ d just yell for the guards, and I can’t get out of here. And I’ve hardly ever seen anyone so frightened . . .

She remembered fighting the Seeker who’d cut out Mary’s eye; his own gaze, like a spiral downward into a depth that wasn’t even black, was nothing, un-being where even meaning was no more. Then she tried to imagine waking up and seeing that on the pillow next to her, and felt a rash of sweat break out under her arms and around her neck, along with a twist in the stomach.

“Euuuu,” she murmured to herself.

Juliet scrubbed at her face, and called mastery back to herself with a series of deep breaths. “How . . . what can you do?” she went on steadily.

Ritva shook her head. “This change in your husband, it happened after he came back from meeting the Prophet, Sethaz, in Bend?”

“Yes. Before then, he was . . . he was Martin. Now it’s as if there’s two people in his head, or another one that can put Martin on like a mask.”

Like one of those grubs that eats out an insect from the inside, Ritva thought. Only with the soul as the host. I won’t say that, though.

Cecile was glaring at her daughter-in-law; Ritva could fill in that too. As long as it had merely been a matter of parricide and usurpation, Juliet had been all for it. Only once the whole web of betrayal had turned on her had it become bad. The older woman took a deep breath and obviously pushed the matter aside for later. She did say: “It wasn’t Fred, was it.”

The inflection didn’t have a question in it. Ritva replied gently but firmly: “No. It wasn’t.”

Then: “Do you have a map of the city?” she said. And to Juliet: “When is your . . . when is Martin due back?”

“The day after tomorrow,” she said. “There’s a report of some sort of force moving through Nevada . . . but there are always Rovers and bandits down there.”

And we went through that way for a while, Ritva thought; it was the path that avoided Boise’s all-too-active patrols.

“Can you get out of the Compound?” Ritva asked. “Taking all here with you?”

Juliet cast a quick glance at the others. Ritva caught it and went on: “The mission is to rescue Lady Cecile and Janie and Shawonda . . . Fred’s kin. To them we have a debt of honor. You were no part of our plan and it’s an added risk.”

The bloodshot eyes were shrewd. “And you need them to undermine Martin’s position.”

“Yes. Will you, too, denounce him?”

Juliet took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes. I can’t stay, I can’t.”