“See, Sister Carlyle? Our Mycroft, like thee, has been blessed with plenty of that ‘greatness’ named wretchedness, offered to the human beast by its unkind Creator.”

The title ‘Sister’ warmed me, made me think of the bright young Cousin when I first met her, lively in her trailing wrap. Madame keeps trying to force us to use male pronouns for Carlyle, to remind everyone that the Carlyle Foster-Kraye she has ensnared here is indeed the Prince-héréditaire de La Trémoïlle, a future duke. But this broken offspring of broken politics is also still the kind Carlyle I met and wished I could call friend. Even Dominic is not so heartless as to call this diamond a spade. Let some unfeeling censor change our words, if when this chronicle is finally released Madame still has power enough to censor. We who truly care about Carlyle—even if it is Dominic’s dark caring—shall respect her choices and say ‘she.’

Dominic placed his finger between the pages of Pascal to keep his place, a motion no more reassuring than if he had taken a red-hot poker off my flesh to reheat it in the fire. «Well?» he invited. «What news?»

I gazed down at my vomit on the floor. It was a small splash, just a trace of citrus and goo, which worked its viscous way toward the brushlike soles of my Ahimsa shoes. These shoes, with their many bristles, used to be soft enough to let me step on an insect without harming it, but they were so worn down now that I suspected the nubs would prove deadly to passing ants. I need new shoes. Just as well. In war I will need better traction, and it was hard to think of ants when even Utopians were casualties. Besides, we now know that, even if ants are Gods, then, like Jehovah, Their deaths would not destroy Their universes, merely their Earthly form. See, reader, how even now my mind dodges and ducks away from thinking of that cell? And dread Pascal?

«Spit it out, errant,» Dominic commanded, addressing me by my domestic title as ‘stray dog.’ «What news from notre Maître?»