“I’ll see to it at once, my lady Regent. God give you good day.”

The escort from the Protector’s Guard fell back as well, when Tiphaine raised one pale brow at their commander.

“I think I can take care of the Lady Regent, Sir Tancred,” she said dryly at his hesitation.

The Baroness of d’Ath was like a slender silver statue in a full suit of plate, and her fingers rested on the pommel of her long sword. The grip had scales of dimpled black bone; they were cut with twelve small notches, and each had a tiny piece of silver wire hammered in for emphasis. Those represented only the noble Associates she’d killed in formal duels, of course. Mostly on Sandra’s clandestine orders; a few had just been people she thought needed to be dead.

“Certainly, my lady Grand Constable,” he said, saluting stiffly.

Though you can feel their paranoia burning, convinced that Cutter assassins with curved knives are lurking behind the tapestries, Sandra thought. Or possibly that the Lord High Chancellor and his family will strangle me and the Grand Constable. Then again, you don’t want much of a sense of humor or proportion in your bodyguards.

A solar was always on the higher levels of a keep’s towers; that was the only place where it was safe to have larger windows. Castle Odell didn’t run to elevators, either. She lifted her skirts slightly and toiled upward, reminded of the loathed but conscientious hours she put in on the Steppercizer back home. The floral motif continued in tile and wall-paintings as they climbed—a castle had to be strong, but that didn’t necessarily mean bare concrete. Her soft shoes scuffed upward through the narrow bands of light cast by the arrow-slits, beneath the ring and clang of the Grand Constable’s steel sabatons—Tiphaine could walk like a cat in anything else, and didn’t apparently feel the fifty pounds of armor at all.

They were as alone as possible; in fact, she couldn’t recall being more alone anytime recently, and spent a moment enjoying the unfamiliar sensation. Then she halted at a landing, as if for breath, and spoke quietly.

“What do you think of Operation Lúthien? From your own experience doing special operations for me back in the day.”

“I was your assassin, my lady.”

“Same thing, and answer the question.”

“It’s insane, my lady,” d’Ath replied. Grudgingly: “That doesn’t mean it won’t work, necessarily. The Rangers are good at what they do, and they’ve pulled off stunts nearly as weird. It’s just . . . I’d prefer fewer trappings out of myth and legend. Astrid Loring is always the starring lead in her own production of Middle-Earth: the Fifth Age and the Rebirth of Glory, playing on the inside of her eyelids.”

Sandra laughed, a gurgling sound. “Baroness d’Ath, where are we? At this moment, I mean.”