“I got a problem you can maybe help with. Mist’s kids.”

“Nepanthe was talking about them this morning. They’re her brother’s kids. We’ll take them off your hands as soon as she can cope with them.” He had no enthusiasm for the task. He suspected he was too old and set in his ways to father Smyrena properly, let alone to foster a band of stepnephews.

“What are your plans? I’m pretty well through this crisis.”

“But this wasn’t the crisis you summoned me for. My friend, you played a little game with your eastern obsession and won. That’s over. Now you have to come back and face your real problems. And you’ve got big ones. You’ve been using Mist’s coup to distract yourself.”

“Michael and I can handle Kavelin. My big worry is still Shinsan.”

Then you’re a fool, Varthlokkur thought, but didn’t say it. “I doubt it. Well, I’m done here. I’ll get back to Nepanthe. Seeing as you don’t need me anymore, she’ll want to get ready to travel. She’ll want to make long lists of things we just have to drag along with us.” He got out before the King irritated him more than he had already.

He thought he’d better stall Nepanthe for a week or two. It shouldn’t take Michael that long to show the King how much trouble he really had.

“He’s having dinner with the Queen,” Dahl Haas said. “I can’t disturb him. I thought you went back to Shinsan last week.”

“I did. And now I’m back here. And if you don’t take that message to the King right now I’m going to bless you with a spell that’ll leave you sterile and impotent. Do I make myself clear?” Mist was tired and frightened and angry.

“All right. On your head be his wrath.”

“You let me worry about the wrath. Just drag that note upstairs.”

Haas returned in five minutes. “All right. He says come on up.”

Mist turned away from the mirror where she had been considering herself. She looked older by a decade. She’d had very little sleep for a week. As she followed the King’s adjutant through the halls, her legs felt twice their normal weight.

Haas showed her into the Queen’s sitting room. The King met her there. “Through here. Been rough?” he asked, leading her through the apartment to a dining room. “It may not be polite for me to say so, but you look awful.”

“Hello, Inger.”

“Hello, Mist.”

There seemed to be a mild frost. Mist shrugged, told Bragi, “I feel awful. Could you spare a meal for a tired old woman? I’ve been eating on the run since I left. Haven’t had anything since yesterday.”

Inger said, “Of course.” Though she’d never gotten along with Mist, suddenly she was all solicitude. She gestured. One of her women departed.

Mist sagged into a chair. She noted the quick change but was too wrapped up in her misery to care. “I’m exhausted.”