He looked her in the eye. “Truthfully, no. That had never occurred to me. If anything, I’d say I ended up there because I didn’t love well enough, not because I ever loved too well.”

She sighed. “You’re hopeless. It’s a good thing I’m here to take care of you.”

“And here I thought it was I taking care of you.”

They left the cellar and re-entered the bedlam of construction that had taken over the manor.

The headache began that night.

Venera knew exactly what it was, she’d suffered these before. All day her jaw had been bothering her; it was like an iron hand was inside her throat, reaching up to clench her skull. Around dinner a strange pulsating squiggly spot appeared in her vision and slowly expanded until she could see nothing around it. She retired to her room, and waited.

How long was this one going to last? They could go on for days, and she didn’t have days. Venera paced up and down, stumbling, wondering whether she could just sleep it off. But no, she had mounds of paperwork to go through and no time.

She called Garth. He exclaimed when he saw her and ran to her side. “You’re white as a new wall!”

“Never mind,” she said, detaching herself from him and climbing into bed. “Bring in the accounts books. It’s just a headache, I get them. I’m sick but we need to go through these papers.”

He started to read the details of Buridan’s various contracts. Each word was like a little explosion in her head. Venera tried to concentrate, but after ten minutes she suddenly leaned over the edge of the bed and retched.

“You need to sleep!” His hands were on her shoulders. Garth eased her back on the bed.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she mumbled. “If we don’t get this stuff straight, we won’t convince the council and they’ll cart us both away in chains.” A blossom of agony had unfurled behind her left eye. Despite her brave words Venera knew she was down for however long the migraine decided to hold her.

Garth darkened the lamps and tiptoed around while she lay sprawled like a discarded doll. Distant hammering sounded like it was coming from inside her own head, but she couldn’t hold up the renovations.

Sleep eventually came, but she awoke to pain that was abstract only until she moved her head and opened one eye. This is how it’s going to be. These headaches were the bullet’s fault; when it smashed her jaw it had tripped some switch inside her head and now agony ambushed her at the worst times. Always before, she’d had the safe haven of her bedroom at home to retreat to—her time on the Rook had been mercifully free of such episodes. She used such times to indulge in her worst behavior: whining, accusing, insulting anyone who came near her, and demanding that her every whim be catered to. She wallowed in self-pity, letting everyone know that she was the sad victim of fate and that no one, ever, had felt the agonies she was enduring so bravely.

But she really was going to die if she let the thing rule her this time. It wasn’t that there was nobody around to indulge her; but all the sympathy in the world wasn’t going to save her life if she didn’t follow through on the deception she and Garth had planned. So, halfway through morning, Venera resolutely climbed out of bed. She tied a silk sash over her eyes, jammed candle wax in her ears, and picked up an empty chamber pot. Carrying this, she tottered out of the room. “Bring me a dressing gown,” she said in reply to a half-heard question from a maid. “And fetch Master Flance.”

Blindfolded, half deaf, she nonetheless managed to make her rounds of the work crews, while Garth followed her and read from the books. She told him what points to underline for her to look at later; inquired of the work and made suggestions; and, every now and then, she turned aside to daintily vomit into the chamber pot. Her world narrowed down to the feel of carpet or stone under her feet, the murmur of words in her ear, and the cataclysmic pounding that reverberated inside her skull. She kept going by imagining herself whipping, shooting, stomping on, and setting fire to Jacoby Sarto and the rest of this self-important council who had the temerity to oppose her will. This interior savagery was invisible from without, as she mumbled and queried politely, and let herself be led about passively.

All of this busywork seemed to be getting her somewhere, but that evening when she collapsed onto her bed, Venera realized that she had no memory of anything she had said or done today. It was all obscured by the angry red haze of pain that had followed her everywhere.

She was doomed. She’d never be ready in time for the interrogation the council had planned. Venera rolled over, cried into her pillow, and finally just lay there, accepting her fate. The bullet had defeated her.

With that understanding came a kind of peace, but she was in too much pain to analyze it. She just lay there, dry eyed, frowning, until sleep overcame her.

“What is this?” Jacoby Sarto glared at the rickshaws clustering in the courtyard below the Buridan estate’s newly-rebuilt entrance. It was seven P.M. and Candesce was extinguishing itself, its amber glories drenching the building-tops. Down in the purpled courtyard the upstart princess’s new footmen were lighting lanterns to guide in dozens of carts and palanquins from the crowded alley.

Someone of a minor noble nation had heard him and turned, smirking. “You didn’t receive an invitation?” asked the impertinent youth. “It’s a gala reception!”

“Bah!” Sarto turned to his companion, the Duke of Ennersin. “What is she up to? This is a feeding frenzy. I’ll wager half these people have come to gawk at the legendary Buridans, and the other half to watch us drag her out of the place in chains. What does she gain out of such a spectacle?”

“I’m afraid we’ll find out shortly,” said the duke. He was as stocky as Sarto, with similar graying temples and the sort of paternal scowl that could freeze the blood of anyone under forty. Together the two men radiated gravitas, to such an extent that the crowds automatically parted for them. True, most of those assembling here knew them, by sight and reputation at least. The nations of Sacrus and Ennersin were feared and respected by all—all, it seemed, save for newly reborn Buridan. These two were here tonight to make sure that this new situation didn’t last.

“In any case, such entertainments as this are rare, Jacoby,” continued Ennersin. “It’s sure to attract the curious and the morbid, yes. But it’s the third audience that worries me,” Duke Ennersin commented as they strode up the steps to the entrance.

Sarto glared at a footman who had the temerity to approach them at the entrance. “What third audience?”

“Do you see the Guineveras there? They’ve been keeping Buridan’s horses for generations. Make no mistake, they’d be happy to be free of the burden—or to own the beasts outright.”

“Which they will after tonight.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Ennersin. “Proof that this Amandera Thrace-Guiles is an imposter is not proof that the real heirs aren’t out there.”

“What are you saying, man? She’s been in the tower! Clearly it’s empty after all. There are no heirs to be had.”

“Not there, no… But don’t forget there are sixteen nations that claim to be related by blood to the Thrace-Guileses. The moment this Amandera’s declared a fake the other pretenders will pounce on the property rights. It’ll be a legal free-for-all—maybe even a civil war. Many of these people are here to warn their nations the instant it becomes a possibility.”

“Ridiculous!” Sarto forgot what he was going to say next, as they entered the lofting front hall of the Buridan estate.

It smelled of fresh paint and drying plaster. Lanterns and braziers burned along the pillared staircases, lighting a frescoed ceiling crawling with allegorical figures. The painted blues, yellows, and reds were freshly cleaned and vibrant to the point of being nauseating, as were the heroic poses of the men and half-clad women variously hanging off, riding, or being devoured by hundreds of ridiculously-posed horses. Sarto gaped at this vision for a while, then shuddered. “The past is sometimes best left buried,” he said.