Listen, she said, because something else was hurting her. Will you tell me . . . She paused. Briefly sang a few notes for courage. Will you tell me why the humans would make a thing like that?

Chapter Ten

A blade of light woke Giddon, blinding him, then dragging him into a consciousness he did not want.

Everything hurt, especially his neck, especially his hands and feet. They’d had to drag him out of the frozen sea yesterday like a drowning dog; they’d had to go through an entire rigmarole to warm him, for he’d made himself sick, trying to find her even if it killed him. Hava’s face had been tight and scared with worry for him when they’d pulled him back aboard. He was supposed to be taking care of Hava, and instead he’d given her something else to fear.

“Bitterblue,” he said. “Bitterblue.” Then he wept, as he hadn’t been able to yesterday, desperately, like a man who was choking, pressing his face into pillows so that his neighbors wouldn’t hear.

—

When Giddon began to understand, with some alarm, that his cistern of tears was bottomless, he forced himself to sit up and calm down. This had never happened before, that he hadn’t been able to cry himself out. A new discovery about himself that he’d have to learn to manage.

Bitterblue, he said. I’ve mucked it up already, without you. You would not be proud.

Except that he knew she would be proud, always, whether he deserved it or not.

Tears began to trickle again. He cleared his throat, wiped his face, and took a breath.

All right, he said. Tell me what to do.

The answer came in her clear voice. Make sure Katu is safe. Take care of my sister. Write to my uncle and our friends and tell them what happened to me. Keep an eye on my advisers. And find out about Mikka and Brek: Investigate those importers.

The family names on the importer list had included Cavenda, Tima, Balava. There had been people with those names at dinner last night.

Giddon was going to kill the importers.

He reached for his clothes.

—

By the time Giddon stepped out of his bedroom, he had his face in order.

He was on the second floor of Quona Varana’s tall, many-windowed house above the sea. Light streamed into the corridor from the gigantic stairway at the far end, where the walls were made of windows. The light was an assault.

A straight-backed, bearded man in white stood in the corridor and nodded a greeting as Giddon approached. His skin was brown but his hair and eyes, his beard, were the same dark shade as Giddon’s.

“Breakfast is served in the dining room downstairs, sir,” he said in Keepish.