“I'm not, you are. I slept too much.”
“I barely drank last night.”
Kimia pushed herself upright.
Her head felt packed with damp wool.
Oversleeping did this sometimes. A yinglet body usually interpreted five or six continuous hours as though someone had filled the joints with sand or lead.
Kimia stretched.
Something in her shoulder popped.
She winced.
Vehm slowly rolled onto his back.
Neither of them looked remotely prepared to participate in government.
The Diet did not care.
Kimia checked her pocket watch.
Five fifty-eight.
Three hours.
Enough time.
Too much time.
The demons noticed this immediately.
She got out of bed before they could organize.
Water first.
She drank directly from a bottle, then another half.
Vehm remained horizontal.
“Do you intend to rise?”
“No.”
“You said you were coming.”
“I lied.”
Kimia looked at him.
Vehm opened one eye again.
“Give me ten minutes.”
“You said no.”
“I revised my estimate.”
“Very Diet of you.”
Vehm raised one hand in acknowledgment.
Breakfast came from room service.
Kimia ordered enough for both of them because Vehm in his current condition could not be trusted to make choices involving food.
The trolley arrived.
Algae porridge.
Not the palace version. Fancier. Whipped smooth. Fruit arranged over it as though geometry could make algae aristocratic.
Honeyed nuts for humans that Kimia ignored.
Soft gulluk eggs. Water. Coffee.
And several packaged protein bars.
One was syrupbloom flavored.
Kimia inspected the wrapper.
“Too much syrupbloom.”
Vehm had finally sat up.
“Zhat is a flavor?”
“Apparently.”
“Sounds zhreatening.”
“It is.”
Kimia ate it anyway.
Sweet. Dense. Something vaguely floral beneath the artificial protein taste.
The algae porridge was better.
Fruit helped.
She forced herself to eat enough that Tarkhe, if he appeared, would lack ammunition.
He did not.
This should have comforted her.
Instead Kimia became aware of the fatigue again.
Heavy. Slow. Wrong for the day ahead.
She looked toward the luggage.
No whiteblood.
That would soften.
She needed sharpening.
Kilcane.
The thought came with immediate clarity.
Kimia disliked how reasonable it sounded.
Still.
She opened the case. Found the bottle.
One tablet.
No.
Half.
Still too much.
She broke one into quarters, held the smallest piece, and stared at it.
A brownish-pink fragment barely worth naming.
Enough.
She swallowed it with water.
Vehm watched from the bed.
“Breakfast seasoning?”
Kimia looked at him.
“Don't.”
“I didn't.”
“You were going to.”
“I was.”
The fragment took time.
Kimia showered again while waiting, trying to soothe her sore body, then dressed.
Kaftan. The red-brown one again.
Hair. Tail. Collar. Cuffs.
By the time she finished, the kilcane had arrived.
Not like the half-tablet.
No sudden internal engine roaring to full speed.
This was subtler.
Fatigue receded.
The heaviness remained somewhere beneath, but now a narrow strip of alertness ran through it.
She felt balanced upon an edge.
One direction:
Awake.
The other:
Too awake.
Thought accelerated.
Not yet badly.
Kimia looked at herself in the mirror.
Eyes brighter. Body straighter. Mind beginning to make connections faster than necessary.
Enough.
No more.
She put the bottle away.
Far back.
Closed the luggage.
Vehm emerged from the bathroom eventually looking like someone who had reconstructed himself from witness testimony.
Clean shirt. Dark coat. Hair combed. Hat.
He drank coffee with both hands.
Kimia looked at him.
“You're really coming?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Curiosity.”
“About Tilmuhl?”
“About how many expensive people can sit in one room and still fail to know what happens next.”
Kimia smiled.
“Fair.”
The carriage arrived.
Tarkhe met them in the lobby.
His eyes found Kimia.
Paused.
She knew that Tarkhe probably pieced together that she surrendered again.
“You ate?”
“Yes.”
“Slept?”
“Yes.”