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The roof was ripped from the inn and flung up into the sky in a thousand pieces. Afterwards Ashe wished she might have seen the spectacle from outside: at the time it happened she too involved in keeping Calliope, Sam and the virtually slavering Gowdie from being killed to have sufficient time to think about anything else.

A dozen small cyclones went spinning round inside the inn. Ashe knew without an ounce of doubt that they were on the same side. Later on, that insight would puzzle her, but she was beginning to have more faith in her own first impressions. Two of the cyclones showed for an instant as human in shape and gathered up Sam and Calliope. Gowdie seized the slight freedom offered by the space gained, and transformed. It was quite a sight. From a young woman of medium height and slight build to a creature all teeth and claws. But even the karg did not take all the limelight on this occasion -there was Ashe to think about.

Every lesson Ashe had ever learned about swordplay was coming to the fore. Nor did she forget to employ the street-fighting tactics that Cora had taught her during their travels. With Calliope and Sam safe, Ashe and the karg went to work. Life was so much easier when Gowdie was gone and the karg had replaced her. Ashe was almost happy.

The remaining small cyclones transformed fully into women, the tallest of whom gave Ashe the warmest and quickest of grins before grabbing a townsperson on the verge of bringing a chair down on Ashe’s head, and tipping them down the stairs. Ashe heard the grunt of pain and figured out the rest for herself. After that, it was all paws to the wheel.

The fight lasted perhaps another ten minutes, but it seemed much longer to Calliope and Sam. Ashe went into a kind of frenzy when someone caught the karg a sharp blow across a fore-paw, drawing both blood and a howl so horrible that Sam screamed and covered her ears. After that, it was no longer just the karg that was snarling: Ashe was, too.

She heard a voice say, “We’re ahead on points. This might be a good time to go,” and the woman who had first saved Ashe put an arm around her shoulders, lifting her up and out of the situation into the cool air above them. Another wind spirit lifted the still-growling karg from the debris that had once been an inn.

*******

Alexis shifted in the bed and wondered if the soup had been a good idea. It had seemed a good investment of time and energy, but she was becoming dizzy, and she could feel that the blood was again trickling over her back. She bent her head to the pillow and wondered if death really would be such a bad thing. So Ashe was feeling better. Oh, goody.

*******

From the battlements of Caer Arianrhod Betany looked to the far east. The cloud there was shaded as if with incipient snow. Cirrus glanced in the same direction. “Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea to have Gowdie on envoy duty,” she remarked. “I might need to beg her pardon for thinking ill of her.”

Betany shook her head. “No, you were probably quite right. I don’t think she managed to fix things, but someone has. I’d save your apologies for some time that they’re really needed. Have you…” her words trailed away.

“Rooms are being prepared even as we speak.”

“And there was me thinking that I had the edge on you.”

*******

The funeral pyre had been built in the city’s main square. Aromatic woods were piled high, and enough incense to purify the country had been lit in dishes all around the central form. Laure stood between the two mounds and wondered if it would be such a bad idea to fling herself upon one or other, once they’d started burning. Perhaps this idea had communicated itself to Calypso, because she had ordered two of her close guard to keep an eye on the new queen. The new queen… Calypso just couldn’t get used to the idea. She was standing to one side, watching the final preparations, when one of the Elders approached her. This was not unusual: the Elders never used servants to carry messages, believing that their power was diminished by each piece of information shared. Calypso let her mind go blank, and then she shook herself free of lethargy: she was used to losing a single night’s sleep, there was no excuse for drowsiness. The words were quickly whispered and Calypso left the square at a jog.

She passed Laure, who called out to her. Calypso skidded to a halt. “Is it Alexis? Is she worse?” Laure couldn’t know, of course, and it was better to keep things even. Calypso nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”

Calypso honestly thought for a moment, do I? She shrugged her shoulders. “Thanks, but you’re more appropriately placed here. I’ll send a servant back to let you know how things stand.”

“The funeral rites will begin this evening.” Calypso nodded. “I’ll be back with you long before that.”

“Tell Alexis that I hope she’ll feel better soon.” Calypso was moving too quickly to be affected by the unlikely quality of Laure’s remark. She really means it, too, she thought. How bizarre. If our situations were reversed, I’d have had Alexis’s throat cut, the first opportunity I had. Well, each to their own… Maybe she’s just a more generous soul than I am.

Alexis knew Calypso by the sound of her boots on the floor. “It’s alright,” she said. “I’m not dead yet.” Calypso sat down beside the bed. “But the bleeding, it’s started again. I don’t think I can have much blood left in me.”

“A transfusion?” Calypso had seen this done, although it had first shaken and then sickened her. Doubtless the Elders would be capable of something along those lines.

“No. I doubt if they could, and besides, it’s ultimately pointless. I’d only bleed out whatever they could bleed in.”

“It’s a big city, Alexis. I think we could keep you going quite a while. Even if we took just one person a week we- ”

“Would you bleed Lascar dry for me, Calypso? I never thought I mattered so much to you. Go back to Laure: what remains of her mother goes up on a funeral pyre today. Laure will have need of you.”

Such an old-fashioned phrase, thought Calypso. How odd that they’re both becoming so nice about one another. She shivered. Enough with the niceties. But she stayed where she was, though, and waited until Alexis had been given another sleeping draught. Then she waited until she was sure that Alexis was sleeping, before she began the walk back toward the square.

On her way one of Calypso’s messengers reached her. The roll of paper held nothing but bad news. Ashe had last been seen approaching a township. Well, it was a pretty negative place, uninformed and ignorant. There was no great risk to Ashe – and therefore to Alexis – there, surely. The messenger added a few spoken words and Calypso hit her. It was a blow of some power, although not planned. The messenger staggered but did not fall, due to the employment of some nice foot-work. Calypso shook her head. Companions! The little freak had companions. And one of them a karg. A karg! The little freak was collecting other freaks. What a pity that freaks such as the karg had such fine, sharp teeth. Calypso took several deep breaths before asking, “You’re sure of this?”

The messenger was almost recovered: Calypso’s moods were well-known and pretty much tolerated. What was the alternative? “That is what I was told. They had been spotted heading for the township. Two young women, a karg and your…” Calypso’s servant hesitated, hunting for the right word.

Calypso decided to help out the servant. “My nemesis, for all I know. The freak! The splinter in my foot, the grit in my eye. The rot in the rafters. Oh, all the Gods take it! Ashe.” Calypso’s servant looked confused. “So, was that the last that was heard of them? Tell me the worst before I have you hung out of the window by your tongue so that the eagles can feed on you.”

“There was a rumour that they had been in some kind of conflict.”

Calypso beamed. “You can live. If you find out that the little freak got hurt in said conflict, I’d be delighted. Although,…” thinking about what she’d just learned about Alexis’s condition, “No, that’s not likely. Or wanted.” Calypso’s servant was eyeing her with some puzzlement. “Go find out whatever else you can.” They parted company. Calypso headed for the palace.

*******

Arkana. The leader of the wind spirits. Arkana and Ashe stood on the battlements at Caer Arianrhod. Ashe had a bandage round her right hand, and a painful graze across her forehead that she could not remember getting. And although the fighting had been over for some hours, her pulse continued to sing.

Arkana said, glancing at Ashe, “It’s the adrenaline. It flew around your system during the fight, and it needs you now to slow down. That reminds me: Betany wanted me to give you this.” A flask of wine but no cup. “She said you’d understand. Do you understand?” Asked with a wry smile.

Ashe said, “I understand alright.” She looked out over the country, watching the bright white of the mountains turn to purple as the evening began in earnest, and the sun disappeared below the horizon. She reached inside her jacket and brought out the wooden cup. “A little more wine would be good.”

While the funeral preparations continued in Lascar, in Caer Arianrhod, despite the threat of war, there were celebrations going on. Admittedly, one of the chief celebrants had her arm in a sling and was drinking far too much, considering the anaesthetising effect the vile-tasting prescription she had been given to help her blood coagulate was meant to have. Ashe was doing better, having drunk far less, but she too reeling from the fight and a delayed reaction to the drug that Calliope had given her. Sam was having a great time, and it was only Calliope, whose gaze followed Ashe every time Betany came into view, who was less than happy.

The blend of guests at Betany’s party included water spirits (Calliope and Sam), shape-shifters, Arkana and twenty more air spirits, and more ordinary beings. And, of course, Ashe. Betany had been on her way to Ashe’s side when she had been stopped in her tracks by the sight of Gowdie covered in blood. Once Betany had been assured that no serious damage had been done to her sister, Ashe had wandered off, and so they did not meet for another hour. When Betany came face-to-face with Ashe, there seemed to fall a sudden silence the hall in which the two of them alone conferred.

Ashe, recognising Betany immediately, only said, “I dreamed you…” and looked puzzled. Betany nodded.

“The other woman was, I assume, Calypso.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ashe. “Once seen, never ever forgotten. And she’s as bloody-minded in dreams as she is in ordinary life.” Ashe’s spirits were particularly resilient at the time. Had she heard the name Calypso had chosen for her, she might not have taken the path of least resistance. She still had her sword…

“I thought as much. I’d never seen her before. She looked less… imposing than I had expected. You, on the other hand, are pleasantly impressive in the flesh.” Ashe blinked and took a half-step backwards. Seeing the movement, Betany accordingly slowed up her full-frontal attack. “Do you still have the wooden cup?” Ashe dug into the depths of her torn cloak and produced it, offering it back to Betany. Betany shook her head. “Keep it.”

“Really? You’re sure you don’t want it back?” It was beautifully carved: Ashe had had opportunity to see that much. A design of grapes and vine leaves.

“Keep it, please. Keep it and let it remind you of me.” Calliope had been passing them at the time and she saw Betany push back Ashe’s hand with the cup still in it. Betany’s fingertips touched Ashe’s hand and seemed to be in no hurry to relinquish the touch. Calliope saw something in Betany’s expression… something that made all thought of celebration fade away from her. She no longer wanted any involvement in the festivities. She slipped past Sam in the broad corridor, but Sam was having too much fun to notice her. Nor did Ashe see her go.

She said, “I must see Arkana, and thank her. She did a fine job of rescuing us.”

“Arkana’s out on the battlements,” said Betany. “I don’t think she’s very fond of being indoors. I know you will have a lot to talk about, but I hope you’ll come back and talk to me very soon.” She watched Ashe leave, noticing everything about her from the worn leather boots to the confident stride. Betany smiled. “Later on, we must find you some new clothes to replace those ones,” she called after Ashe.

Ashe stopped and looked down at the clothes that had – the Gods knew – seen better days. “Later on I’ll find you something warm and comfortable to wrap up in.” Ashe blinked. Betany was smiling warmly at her. Ashe raised an eyebrow and re-thought that one… No, it wasn’t a smile. Gods, Betany was flirting with her. It was so long since Ashe had been flirted with (sometime? never?) that she was at a loss for a response.

“Uh, I guess something new might be good,” she admitted. “But you’re right. I’ll go out and thank Arkana now.”

“Don’t be away too long. At the end of this corridor, turn right. There are eight steps leading up.” Ashe walked away, grinning. Don’t be away too long? Gods… Ashe shook her head and headed for the battlements. Once there she understood why Arkana had wanted to meet in the open air. On the battlements the air was cool but sweet and good. Somewhere a wood fire was burning, and it fragranced the time. Ashe walked toward Arkana.

*******

There were celebratory fireworks in Caer Arianrhod, but in Lascar the only sparks flying upward had their genesis in the two funeral pyres. Laure had dealt with the soliloquies in a manner that made Calypso proud. The gathered masses listened to Laure praise Leanna and Jura, and her recitation was good enough to make the two women rise again in the memory of those listening. Leanna was young again, a kind, honest ruler, and Jura was the newcomer who had made good. Listening to herself as though at one remove, Laure wondered who would speak the words over her pyre, and just when that day would be.

Calypso stood beside Laure throughout the ceremony. She had a respect for tradition that surprised Laure, but which Alexis would have recognised as typical and admirable Mercian behaviour. Laure did not cry. She seemed to be floating through the speeches and the gathering that followed on, in which everyone who wished to honour the dead could do so. As the crowds filed past the pyres, Laure reached for Calypso’s hand. But although Calypso made no move to reject the touch, her fingers felt to Laure both cold and reluctant, and Laure quickly let them go. She thought for a moment of how Ashe would have been, and could imagine her there, her eyes red from crying, and her speech awkward from grief, the words stumbling from her mouth. Ashe would not have been very dignified or very ept, but her hands would have been warm, and she would have welcomed Laure’s touch. The new queen averted her eyes from the spectacle, as if by doing so she could somehow negate the image of Ashe that came to mind and for which she had neither time nor space.

*******

At the time of their first meeting, Betany had seen how wide Ashe’s pupils were. Seeing the fierce expression with which the water spirit regarded Ashe it wasn’t too hard for Betany to imagine, at least in part, what had been going on at the inn before the fighting broke out. Betany was entirely sure that all that Calliope had done was out of concern and affection for Ashe. She wondered what the potion had contained.

Gowdie was enjoying herself immensely, as was Sam. They had both thrown themselves in to the festivities and both had far too much to eat and drink. Betany thought the friendship a good thing, and Gowdie’s attention being caught up with Sam, and the small crowd that had gathered about them to hear the full details of the earlier fight, she felt free to go her own way. She just missed Ashe, who had just set off down the corridors alone, in search of Calliope.

Ashe noticed – how could she not – the tapestries that hung on the walls the length of the corridor. But she was too tired to see exactly what stood as the central illustration. Besides, she was more concerned about Calliope than wall hangings.

Walking down a further three corridors she finally gave up, and returned to the battlements. There she found Calliope sitting on a low stair, just below the top edge of the battlements themselves. Calliope looked up into Ashe’s dark eyes and said, “Hallo, Ashe. Do you have some wine?”

“No. But I do have a cup.” She was still carrying the damn thing around with her. “Gods, but it’s cold out here. You must be freezing. Don’t you want to come inside?”

“No, I’m alright. I’ve been inside.” I’ll be dragged back in there again only when the world freezes over. “We don’t feel the cold very much. You have a cup? Good. I have a flask.”

“Oh.” Ashe was silent for a moment. “May I join you?”

Calliope stared up at her for a moment before saying, “You sound very formal, Ashe.” Ashe scowled.

“Do I?” She considered the statement. “I didn’t think I sounded any different to usual. Well, formal or not, may I join you?”

Calliope made a rather uncoordinated gesture that Ashe took to be affirmative, and she took up a seat beside the water spirit. Calliope seemed to be a little drunk – water spirits tend never to encounter alcohol – and in an odd mood. She was certainly rather quiet. Ashe said, “I’ve been talking to Arkana.”

Calliope said, “She’s nice.” The words came out awkwardly. “And I like the others with her. They seem very straightforward.” She looked at Ashe, wondering what emphasis she would have to place on her words to impart to them a second, differing text: Arkana’s straightforward and Betany is after you, Ashe. She’s after you like a arrow cutting through the air…

“Don’t worry,” said Calliope. “I’m sure that Betany will find you again, once she knows you’re missing.”

There was a soft blue mist crawling over the fields and the outer regions of the palace. The air was cooling rapidly, but it smelled of spring, of freshness and new growth, and Ashe drank it in until she was a little dizzy. She could see the Evening Star, and bowed to it just as she never failed to salute the moon. Calliope watched her. “I think you’re a romantic at heart, Ashe,” she said.

“Do you? I never thought about it. It’s just so good to look up and see them.”

“We river spirits see them too,” said Calliope. “But most of the time the surface of the water ripples and distorts the image. Nothing beneath the surface is ever fixed in place or form. It’s strange to see them all so clearly. I suppose it’s just another aspect of what’s different between our world and yours.”

“It’s hardly my world,” said Ashe. “I only have the slightest stake in it. That’s all. And when I go, somewhere there will be a little patch of earth that I’ll lie beneath, or maybe someone will be good enough to set me up on a funeral pyre, and send my spirit skywards.”

“I hope it’ll be a long time before you find out what death has in store for you.”

“For all of us,” said Ashe, missing the emphasis that Calliope placed on her words. She put up a unsteady hand to push her fringe out of her eyes.

Calliope noticed the trembling and said, “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you? And you’re not very good at it.”

“Entirely true. And it’s only taken a couple of cups of wine. I never do drink much. Truth is, I’ve never been very good at drinking, and I hate the sensation of being drunk. I want to remember where I was and what I did. I don’t like the sense of losing control.”

“I should have thought that losing control might be nicely liberating.” Calliope was avoiding Ashe’s gaze. “Wouldn’t it be a pleasant freedom for you? After all, you’ve spent so much of your life living inside other peoples’ rules.”

Ashe said, “Earlier today I lost control. I couldn’t hide how I felt and now I look back and I feel ashamed.” She was scowling again. “Now I know again what my responsibilities are: you and Sam. Today I risked letting you both down. And Gowdie, too, of course.”

Calliope thought: it’s gone. I’ve lost her. The chance I had with her is gone. She’s gone back to the world of being inside Ashe’s head, where the rules are different and the past is patched and ragged, and the future contains – no doubt – Betany. It’s too late now for the potion to work. She bent her head and blinked hard to conceal the tears she hadn’t known she could cry.

“Calliope, are you alright?” She knew how Ashe’s face would look as she asked the question. She nodded, furiously. She forced the tears away, tightening her hands into fists so that her nails pressed hard into the flesh of her palms. She had not known that pain could bring with it such clarity. “Calliope, what’s wrong?” Calliope took a breath so deep and painful that for a second she could not focus.

“I’m alright,” she lied. “I’m a bit tired, and besides, it was a very long day…” The longest day that Calliope had passed, to date.

“Come back inside with me.” Oh! if there was one thing in the world that she wanted to do it was to follow Ashe. She shook her head.

“Ashe, do you mind? I could use a little time alone. Sometimes the differences between our worlds are a bit too much to cope with. I’ll catch up with you.”

“Are you sure?” She could hear frown in Ashe’s voice. She would not look up at her. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you out here alone and in the cold.”

“I’m not alone, Ashe.” Oh, the lies were getting better and better. She was getting really good at them. “I have all the events of the last few days to keep me company.” Yes, and a fine job they do of lacerating me. She put every last ounce of concentration into her voice until she would have convinced even Betany, who was as good at picking up nuances as potential lovers. Calliope produced a smile for Ashe, an easy, light-hearted, uninterested smile. “Seriously. Go in and see how Gowdie and Sam are doing. I need some time to myself. Please.”

She thought: please, please just go. She pulled her knees toward her, rested her chin on them, shut her eyes tight.

She heard Ashe’s boots on the stone steps. She kept her eyes tightly shut. Perhaps if she stayed like that, long enough, she’d pass from this state of hurt into something she could more easily conceal. And at the same time, she hoped that Ashe would come back. But when she unfolded herself a little to see the figure leaning against the battlements, she knew that it would not be Ashe waiting for her there.

“No, not Ashe.” Arkana smiled at Calliope. She turned and went back to regarding the deepening blue mist that Ashe had been watching earlier in the evening. “I have a story for you.” Arkana was much taller than Ashe or Betany, tall and thin and pleasant to look at. Her skin was very tanned. She said, “I think it’s a story that you might enjoy. At least, I think it would take your mind off your present worries.”

Calliope shrugged her shoulders again. Her eyes were still stupidly blind. Arkana’s voice was kindly, gentle. “Tell me your story, then, if you like.”

“If I like. If I like. Yes, I like.” Arkana sat down beside Calliope. “I do like. Now: once upon a time there was no world here as we know it. There was no Lammor, or Caer Arianrhod, or even Leth Lir, my home. And although there were rivers and seas, they too were empty of life. There was just the sky and the earth and the water, and the red and orange fire that the volcanoes exhaled.”

Calliope said, “I think I know this story.”

“You think you do? I don’t think you do.” Arkana smiled at her. “There are many versions that address the creation of our land, but what I am about to tell you is the only true story. It is known by only a very few people. And they do not share the tale often or easily.” A pause. “I think it might help you to hear the story.”

Calliope felt helpless and confused. She felt transfixed by Arkana’s bright eyes, and the amusement that seemed to shine in them. She felt awkward and clumsy and uncertain. Had she but known it, she felt much as Ashe had done most of the time in the latter days of her life in Lammor. Arkana’s bright, hard stare eventually wore down Calliope’s resistance. “I’d like to hear the story,” she said.

“The four elements that made up the world decided that each would be represented in three forms, or ages. The three forms of maid, mother and crone.”

Calliope said, as if repeating a lesson from long ago. “The four elements. Three phases of each, making up the twelve guardians of the world.”

“Who divided up time, and made a year containing twelve months, one for each of them.”

Calliope scowled. She was at heart a rationalist. “Why not thirteen months? Surely there should be thirteen months because there are thirteen moons in a year. Why are there not thirteen guardians?”

Arkana smiled at her. “There are. No. There were. But you see, the thirteenth guardian is death. Because death is universal, and even the guardians themselves must die, each of the other twelve took into themselves an aspect of the thirteenth. This means that every guardian will live and die and be re-born.”

Calliope sighed. “I suppose that would do it,” she said.

“The twelve guardians divided up the year into three seasons.” Calliope just watched her. “The sowing tide, the reaping tide…”

“And the sleeping tide.” A happy hibernation: how nice it would have been to have shared the sleeping tide with Ashe. Somewhere quiet and unassuming: a comfortable room somewhere with a roof that could not be torn away, and a door that could be locked until Calliope herself opened it. Fat chance of that, now that Betany had fixed her eye so hungrily on Ashe and her own potion had run out of time. She said, “Ashe.” She looked at Arkana. She felt as if the woman had just read her mind. “This has something to do with Ashe, hasn’t it?”

Arkana smiled at her, and it seemed that Arkana saw right through her, too, for she then said, “You are in the process of falling in love with her.” A statement, not a question, and kindly put. Calliope wondered at the qualities of grief and of tears, and wished them both very far away.

“Yes. I think I must be. For all the good it’s going to do me.”

“Ashe likes you. I can see that.”

“But that’s not enough! That’s not love!” For the first time, Calliope understood why Ashe had been so dismayed at the wash of emotions that had knocked her to her knees. Who would ever choose to be at the beck and call of so many conflicting feelings?! More slowly, infinitely more quietly, she said, “I’m sorry. Please finish your story.”

Arkana said, “One day I will. Perhaps I will tell you the rest. But I see that this is not the time. I think that for the moment you should go back inside and see how your friends are doing.” And Arkana stood up and walked briskly along to the far point of the battlements. Calliope sat for another few minutes, wishing that she was back to being nothing more than a ripple on the surface of the river. Then she shook herself, and went back inside.

*******

The ministers of the Lascan court had paid their honest and devout respects to the dead and the living. The following day would mean the beginning of Laure’s life as queen of Lammor. For one last day, as the funeral pyres blazed, Laure was the princess still, with the freedom to mourn publicly. Tomorrow she would have to take up the reins of the court, and the grief that was still so acute it threatened to undo her, would have to be put aside. The city needed guidance, and the country needed reassurance. There would be lots to do.

Laure had listened to the myriad of accolades that were directed to the departed spirits of Leanna and Jura, for which she acted as a conduit, and then at last, the ceremony was done. Laure had stood like a statue, and the pyres had burned down before her eyes. Calypso waited beside her while the pyres had both burned down. She was anxious to see how Alexis was coping, but she was also afraid of Laure’s doing something unadvised: the gods knew, what would become of her life if Laure did decide to fling herself onto one of the pyres? And besides that, what if Ashe died, taking Alexis with her? What a strange new world that would be for her. How liberated did Laure feel, having the two most-established pillars of her life demolished? Good or bad? There must be some relief in freedom, even such grief-edged freedom as Laure was experiencing at that time.

Laure was so very tired that her speech was becoming disjointed, and her eyes were red and raw. Huge shadows marked the space beneath them. It was a relief to both Laure and Calypso when the Elders, their role once again that of court go-between, gently guided the new queen back toward the palace. Ruth, always loyal and virtually in hiding since Calypso’s arrival, came out of her seclusion and went forward to help the Elders. Laure looked at her and smiled, but Ruth understood that Laure had not even seen her.

Calypso started heading toward the hospital, but stopped at a halfway point between her two lovers and leaned against the city wall. It was while she stood there, exhausted and impotent, that one of her servants approached with the latest news of life beyond the city walls. The news was not a relief in any way: Calypso’s shoulders nearly buckled under the weight of the knowledge. Celebrations at Caer Arianrhod, huh? Well, how nice for them. Calypso wouldn’t have minded sending up a few fireworks herself, preferably one large rocket with the freak strapped on to it. She wondered if perhaps her plans weren’t going to work, after all. And then was furious with herself for such very negative thinking. The servant waited Calypso’s next order, watching the wealth of expressions crossing that face, and wondering if they would come out of the meeting alive.

Calypso had only come to reign when her aunt, the empress, became ill. What Calypso had told Laure had been entirely true: the former leader of the Mercians had been a complete tyrant, but a not ineffective leader: Mercia, like Lammor, was run on slave-labour for the main part. It was only the more responsible servants who were recruited from the main run of the population. It had been shortly after Calypso’s own mother had died and her aunt taken on the role of empress that Alexis and Calypso had met for the first time.

Alexis had been very different then. As confident as Calypso was arrogant, and with a habit of keeping her thoughts and opinions private, she had come to the attention of the Mercian court when she’d won the sword-fighting trophy. Mercia liked its sports and liked too to demonstrate the more attractive of its population. Alexis won on both counts. She was exactly the same height as Calypso, clever and serious. The friendship had begun in simple, easy stages, and Calypso could not remember when they had become lovers. She did remember the intensity of Alexis’s temper when it became clear to her that Calypso did not believe in, or practise, monogamy. If her partner was young enough, attractive enough, and willing, Calypso was happy. It didn’t take much to make Calypso unhappy. Alexis had come to learn, in slow and painful stages, that although Calypso might take as many lovers as she liked, Alexis might not. Had Ashe known it, she might have seen more than a single parallel between her life with Laure and Alexis’s time with Calypso. Alexis might have intued something of their similarities. Such similarities might even have been a reason for Alexis’s sparing Ashe’s life.

*******

Lying in the bed that was fast-becoming the whole (hugely despised) world for her, Alexis too reflected on the past. She though of Ashe, and despite the oddness of their connection, she could still not regret letting Ashe go. She had the strangest conviction that she and Ashe had had to separate if only to meet again somewhere down the line. Besides, there were other arguments for what she had done: if she finally tired of dying by inches and wanted an immediate exit, all she need do would be to tell Calypso the truth about Ashe’s escape. What if she forgot her own personal rule, and one day just said it out loud? Alexis was becoming very tired. At the rate that things were going, Alexis reckoned she might last one more week. She might get another slight reprieve if Ashe went into any more downward spirals.

Still, if and when she did die, there would be compensations enough. Alexis’s study of magic had been demanding and long-term, and it had brought her other types of knowledge: just as the botanist could not help but notice the colours of the butterflies alighting on the petals, so Alexis saw death as not an ending but a change. Ashe and Rhea held the same philosophy; Laure and Calypso did not. It would be preferable to have a change that excluded memories: Alexis did not want to take any memories with her into that new world. Memories would necessitate regret, and Alexis had done enough regretting in her compact life. She had become too involved with Calypso too quickly and too unreservedly. Had she been asked for any death-bed saying – if or when she was so asked – she intended to limit her response to a gentle, heartfelt warning: keep your heart to yourself, always. Never loan it out. Never ever give it away.

She closed her eyes and dreamed of Mercia, on a midsummer day, with the sun high and hot in the sky, and with the Mercian banners waving in the warm winds.

*******

Betany caught up with Gowdie and Sam, who were both of them genially drunk and happily uncaring. Gowdie’s arm – which had been so neatly bandaged up at the time the festivities began – was beginning to hurt her, and Betany ordered a second potion – this one to beat down the pain – and had the two of them gently escorted to Gowdie’s room, which had had a second bed put in it (a polite but possibly useless gesture) before walking back into the great hall and the potential of her own plans.

It was surprisingly easy for her to find Ashe: for one thing, no-one else in the room looked anything like her. No-one else looked remotely as if they’d been through a major war in the clothes they were still wearing. Betany had already begun making a mental selection of new clothes for Ashe. She took in the details of the once-smart and now almost ragged shirt. The jacket with pockets stretched beyond any hope of return was the same, and the knee-high boots that were scuffed and nearly shapeless. Tomorrow Betany would dress Ashe in new clothes. Tonight she was going to have to work on getting Ashe out of her old ones.

Betany wondered about Ashe’s relationship to the two water spirits. What was it that about Ashe that appealed to so many oddities? Water spirits, air spirits and even… Even her own sister. Betany gave herself a sharp mental slap and reminded herself that half her race would be described as oddities. And that was the half that didn’t include the kargs.

She looked over to where Calliope stood near to the object of her attention, watching Ashe. The little spirit wore on her face an expression of pain and determination. Betany wasn’t blind to the facts: the not-so-little water spirit was falling in love with Ashe. Betany could see it happening. But did Ashe know? Probably not… Only one way to find out. Betany checked her appearance in a mirror, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and crossed the room to where Ashe and Calliope stood.

*******

Laure lay in bed in the royal bedchamber while Calypso sat on the rug beside the hearthside, staring into the fire. A few yards and a several million light years measured out the distance between them.

*******

Several floors away, Alexis dreamed that she was lying dead at the bottom of a river, with the water spirits dissolving away her essence until nothing but her bones were left. Soon she would wake, sweating, trembling.

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