anything. But it's understood. It's arranged. I don't see why he can't

do that much for me."

"I lave you asked him?"

"He should know this," Eiah snapped, pacing between the open door and

the fire grate. "He's the Khai Machi. He isn't stupid."

"lie also isn't . . ." hlaati said and then bit down on the words a

child. The woman Eiah thought she was would never stand for the name.

"He isn't fourteen summers old. It's not so hard for men like me and

your father to forget what it was like to be young. And I'm sure he

doesn't want to see you married yet, or even promised. You're his

daughter, and ... it's hard, Eiah-kya. It's hard losing your child."

She stopped, her brow furrowed. In the trees just outside his door, a

bird sang shrill and high and took flight. Maati could hear the

fluttering of its wings.

"It's not losing me," she said, but her voice was less certain than it

had been. "I don't die."

"No. You don't, but you'll likely leave to be in your husband's city.

There's couriers to carry messages back and forth, but once you've left,

it's not likely you'll return in Otah's life, or Kiyan's. Or mine. It's

not death, but it is still loss, dear. And we've all lost so much

already, it's hard to look forward to another."

"You could come with me," Eiah said. "My husband would take you in. He

wouldn't be worth marrying if he wouldn't, so you could come with me."

Maati allowed himself to chuckle as he rose from his seat.

"It's too big a world to plan for all that just yet," he said, mussing

Eiah's hair as he had when she'd been younger. "When we come nearer,

we'll see where things stand. I may not be staying here at all,

depending on what the Dai-kvo thinks. I might be able to go hack to his

village and use his libraries."

"Could I go there with you?"

"No, Eiah-kya. Women aren't allowed in the village. I know, I know. It

isn't fair. But it isn't happening today, so why don't we walk to the

kitchens and see if we can't talk them out of some sugar bread."

They left his door open, leaving the spring air and sunlight to freshen

the apartments. The path to the kitchens led them through great, arching

halls and across pavilions being prepared for a night's dancing; great

silken banners celebrated the warmth and light. In the gardens, men and

woman lay back, eyes closed, faces to the sky like flowers. Outside the

palaces, Maati knew, the city was still alive with commerce-the forges

and metalworkers toiling through the night, as they always did,

preparing to ship the works of Machi. There was bronze, iron, silver and

gold, and steel. And the hand-shaped stonework that could be created

only here, under the inhuman power of Stone-Made-Soft. None of that work

was apparent in the palaces. The utkhaiem seemed carefree as cats. Maati

wondered again how much of that was the studied casualness of court life

and how much was simple sloth.

At the kitchens, it was simple enough for the Khai's daughter and his

permanent guest to get thick slices of sugar bread wrapped in stiff

cotton cloth and a stone flask of cold tea. He told Eiah all of what had

happened with Athai since she'd last come to the library, and about the

Dal-kvo, and the andat, and the world as Maati had known it in the years

before he'd come to Machi. It was a pleasure to spend the time with the

girl, flattering that she enjoyed his own company enough to seek him

out, and perhaps just the slightest hit gratifying that she would speak

to him of things that Otah-kvo never heard from her.

They parted company as the quick spring sun came within a hand's width

of the western mountains. Maati stopped at a fountain, washing his

fingers in the cool waters, and considered the evening that lay ahead.

He'd heard that one of the winter choirs was performing at a teahouse

not far from the palaces-the long, dark season's work brought out at

last to the light. The thought tempted, but perhaps not more than a

book, a flask of wine, and a bed with thick wool blankets.

He was so wrapped up by the petty choice of pleasures that he didn't

notice that the lanterns had been lit in his apartments or that a woman

was sitting on his couch until she spoke.

4

"Nlaati," Liat said, and the man startled like a rabbit. For a long

moment, his face was a blank confusion as he struggled to make sense of

what he saw. Slowly, she watched him recognize her.

In all fairness, she might not have known him either, had she not sought

him out. Time had changed him: thickened his body and thinned his hair.

Even his face had changed shape, the smooth chin and jaw giving way to

jowls, the eyes going narrower and darker. The lines around his mouth

spoke of sadness and isolation. And anger, she thought.

She had known when she arrived that she'd found the right apartments. It

hadn't been difficult to get directions to Machi's extra poet, and the

door had been open. She'd scratched at the doorframe, called out his

name, and when she'd stepped in, it was the scent that had been

familiar. Certainly there had been other things-the way the scrolls were

laid out, the ink stains on the arms of the chairs-that gave evidence to

Maati's presence. The faintest hint, a wisp of musk slight as pale

smoke, was the thing that had brought back the flood of memory. For a

powerful moment, she saw again the small house she'd lived in after she

and Maati had left Saraykeht; the yellow walls and rough, wooden floor,

the dog who had lived in the street and only ever been half tamed by her

offerings of sausage ends from the kitchen window, the gray spiders that

had built their webs in the corners. The particular scent of her old

lover's body brought back those rooms. She knew him better by that than

to see him again in the flesh.

But perhaps that wasn't true. When he blinked fast and uncertainly, when

his head leaned just slightly forward and a smile just began to bloom on

his lips, she could see him there, beneath that flesh. The man she had

known and loved. The man she'd left behind.

"Liat?" he said. "You ... you're here?"

She took a pose of affirmation, surprised to find her hands trembling.

Maati stepped forward slowly, as if afraid a sudden movement might

startle her into flight. Liat swallowed to loosen the knot in her throat

and smiled.

"I would have written to warn you I was coming," she said, "hut by the

time I knew I was, I'd have raced the letter. I'm ... I'm sorry if ..."

But he touched her arm, his fingers on the cloth just above her elbow.

His eyes were wide and amazed. As if it were natural, as if it had been

a week or a day and not a third of their lives, Liat put her arms around