Kimia sat again after the revenue officer had gone.

The terminal remained on.

Its screen had fallen back to the House directory, several lines of green text suspended in the black glass. Kimia looked at them without reading. Beyond the letters she could see herself.

The reflection was poor.

Her eyes appeared almost black, like it had in the reflection in the glass she saw a few hours ago. The Peshtulan kaftan absorbed what little light the screen returned until her body became a dark shape beneath a red-furred head, a mass without interior detail. Something about the image made her feel briefly as though she had been cut from the room and pasted back into it.

She leaned closer. The reflection leaned closer. Something about this caused her great discomfort, so she focused on the letters on the screen.

The green letters remained between them.

HOUSE CHITYALA INFORMATION SERVICE
AUTHORIZED SESSION
REVENUE CONSULTATION CLOSED

She read them, then read them again.

Words were useful when images became dishonest.

The monitor said the consultation had ended. The computer had no reason to deceive her. Machines possessed other sins.

Kimia focused on the words until the shape behind them ceased demanding interpretation.

Then she turned away.

Her pocket watch came out.

Ten thirty-one.

She closed it.

Opened it again.

Ten thirty-one.

The mechanism was good. A Dinnish movement, hand-fitted and expensive enough that anyone who knew watches could identify the manufacturer from the rhythm of the escapement. It had lost less than twenty seconds in six months.

Kimia trusted it. She returned it to the kaftan.

Kalgkur remained at his table. Tarkhe remained farther off beneath the shelves. The indrel remained beside the door.

Kimia considered each in turn.

Kalgkur was still studying dead irrigation law. Tarkhe was pretending not to study her. The soldier was perhaps studying everything.

Then there was Kimia.

That required greater effort.

Something had begun pulling inside her.

Not pain.

The promise of relief from pain. That was worse.

Kilcane first entered her thoughts as taste. Not even the true taste of it but the remembered chemical bitterness left beneath the tongue and the knowledge of what followed. The loosening. The brightening. The glorious false conviction that every part of herself had finally agreed to inhabit the same body.

Whiteblood followed.

Heat.

Clarity sharpened beyond usefulness.

The sudden sensation that she could move through the world without friction.

Then came the other temptation, older and less chemical: if she could not become numb she could become manic. Move faster. Speak faster. Outrun every thought before it had time to develop teeth. Make appointments. Issue instructions. Rearrange furniture. Begin six letters and finish none. Laugh at inappropriate things until exhaustion restored the limits she had temporarily abolished.

She knew these roads. Knowing a road did not make one less likely to walk it.

Kimia placed both hands flat upon the table.

No.

Not yet.

The phrase occurred automatically and frightened her more than a cleaner refusal would have.

Not yet implied later. Later was always waiting.

She amended it.

No.

There.

A complete word.

She looked toward Kalgkur. The old baxxid had shifted one paper atop another.

She imagined walking over and asking him something: Kalgkur, tell me something tedious.

He would.

He could discuss irrigation law until desire itself died from neglect.

Perhaps she should.

Then Tarkhe would see. Tarkhe saw too much already.

Kimia disliked needing people in ways they could detect.

She checked the watch.

Ten thirty-four.

Twenty-six minutes.

The next delegation represented the oldest and most stable center of power in the Heart.

House Ivenmoth proper, and something perhaps older than Ivenmoth.

The delegation from the Val Salian Passage included one representative of the Great Tradehouse and one representative of baxxid diplomatic authority whose formal title Kimia could remember only when she was not required to say it.

They were not enemies. She reminded herself of this.

They were not coming to extract concessions at swordpoint.

No ultimatum. No accusation. No disciplinary summons.

An ordinary visit. Political maintenance. The lubrication of machinery already functioning.

This should have been comforting.

It was not.

On some days the palace foyer was merely a foyer.

Stone floor. Staircases. Tall windows. Banners. Guards.

On other days it resembled an abattoir before the animals arrived.

Nothing physically changed. That was the difficulty.

Fear without object left nowhere to direct resistance.

Kimia rose.

Tarkhe immediately closed his book.

She disliked that too.

“Zhe delegation,” she said. “Let’s go.”