After she had let Rhea go, the wise-woman’s new servant attendant upon her weakened state, Laure stood for a moment in the courtyard. For the first time in days and days she had some time to herself, and although there were plenty of things that she should be doing, it felt quite heady to simply stop, and forget everybody, and everything.
It was one of those spring mornings that suggest a winter not so very long ago. The sun was up and shining brightly, but the night’s chill still hung about the sheltered parts of the palace. Laure had a long cloak on over her usual clothes. She’d been up early, seeing off Calypso and the army. It had all felt quite surreal, and it was so noisy! Eventually the horses, the servants, the carts and carriers and foot-soldiers had cleared not only the city, but the city walls, and were soon out of sight. Laure thought about Calypso’s remarks, the previous day. By nightfall the army would be settled, tents up, fires burning. Laure had never seen a war, but she had picked up, in the days of preparation, a clear sense of the fighting world.
She saw the dust in the streets settle when all those feet had trodden past. The city made its usual sounds, but after the echo of all those marching feet, it seemed an oasis of quiet. Laure crossed the courtyard, stopping, as she always did, at the spot where Jura’s body had struck the unforgiving ground. More and more she wished Jura was still alive, and more and more she was relieved that Jura was dead and thus missing the preparations for war.
She missed her mother, too, but Leanna had not been a part of Laure’s life in those closing days. She had had a little time to adjust to the world without the old queen. Jura had hung around just long enough for Laure to get a proper look at the woman her mother had loved so much. Laure had never doubted the affection between them, but she had taken it for granted. She didn’t think she’d ever be launching herself into the cold morning air, just so that she could land on the dead ground beneath. And then she thought about Ashe.
With Calypso gone, her mother and Jura dead, Laure was properly alone for the first time. Rhea’s company didn’t count – they’d never been on anything other than coldly polite terms (that morning being the only short-lived exception to that rule) – and the emptiness allowed Laure to think of Ashe.
She recollected that Ashe had two favourite times of day: early morning, when the sun was just coming up, and early evening, when the air carried the taint of night’s cold. Ashe had been like that, Laure thought, someone living on the edges of the day, and of the world. She hadn’t fully belonged to Laure’s world, the world of the court, that of manners and tradition and order. It struck Laure for the first time that she had never asked Ashe about her life before her arrival in Lammor. So certain Laure had been of her own world that she’d never wondered how Ashe had felt. She’d never asked her if she was lonely, or if she felt isolated. Far too late to wonder now.
She walked up the long staircase and went up onto the narrow galleries that ran around the edge of the roof. Ashe had sat up there with Cairo, sometimes, talking about nothing much, or sitting in amicable silence. Laure had never wanted to join them, just as she’d never really acknowledged the strength of their friendship, or the fact that they made one another happy.
Laure wondered if she was ever going to be happy again. It didn’t seem entirely likely. She had never imagined for a second life not going the way she had planned. But what had she planned? She’d met Calypso and fallen so hard for her. What had been the attraction - the knowledge that Calypso desired her and made it clear? Only hours into their relationship Laure had seen that truth in the look on Calypso’s face. And it hadn’t taken long for the two of them to find sufficient privacy (albeit with only the shortest time attached) to prove that the attraction was joint, and passionate. After that… After that it had been only a matter of planning, and of time. And Ashe simply had not entered into the equation: Laure had said nothing about her to Calypso, and had Calypso not had her own spies, and already known the situation, Laure would simply have dismissed Ashe, pensioned her off. If life had followed on without the immediate and massive upheavals, everything could have ended up happily enough, with Ashe in a little tower of her own – like Rhea’s perhaps – where Laure could occasionally drop in.
Or not.
How many days and weeks and months had she spent with Ashe without ever coming to understand her? When had it ever occurred to her to want to understand Ashe? Ashe had been a reliable nothing, a picture hanging on the wall that she couldn’t describe at all, even if she’d walked past it every day of her life. Reliable became boring, was boring, became forgotten.
And Calypso wanted Laure to arrange the palace and the hospital ward so that care could be taken of the wounded. The thoughts dropped down inside her head like stones into water: there would be people wounded. People dead. Half an hour of wild sex in a palatial bedroom with the door bolted and then the world falls apart. Gods! Imagine the devastation if they’d had the whole night. There wouldn’t have been a country left standing.
Laure laughed without any humour at all.
*******
Teinne read the scroll a second and then a third time. She re-rolled Calypso’s message and then sat down on the lowest step of the vast sandstone steps. Brede walked over and sat down beside her. She stretched out her legs and leaned back on her elbows, enjoying the sensation of sunlight on her face. “It was only a matter of time,” she remarked.
“I’m surprised they had the gall to address us direct. I thought at the very least there’d be an intermediary. Possibly even a grovelling intermediary.”
“You know what Calypso’s like. She’s made the decision; now she wants an immediate response. She was like that when we were kids. She hasn’t changed: she’s just become more of what she was before.”
“I don’t want to help her. That’s my immediate response. I don’t want to see her again, let alone fight alongside her. She’s crazy.”
“She runs Mercia.”
“Any passing lunatic with a sharp enough sword and a death wish could run Mercia pretty successfully. We both know that.”
“Part of my role as court advisor means just that… You do pay me to debate, Teinne. If you want me to be simply honest, I will be. Just tell me, what do you want?”
“Your honest opinion, please.”
“Alright. Don’t even think about supporting the maniac. Stay right out of it. At the moment Cal runs the government of two separate countries. Imagine how impossible she’ll be if she gets to be more powerful than that.”
“The thought appals me.”
“To be honest, it appals me, too. But in terms of honour, I don’t believe that we have a choice.”
“Alright. Don’t remind me. I don’t want to be beholden to them, although of course, if we do side with them on this occasion we should be free of any other responsibility to them. Do me a favour and please write out my reply for me? I don’t know if a message crammed with spelling mistakes is going to impress her very much.”
“Dictate ahead.”
“Alright. Calypso, joint ruler of Lammor and ruler of Mercia, from Teinne, leader of the people of Rath Bel. In response to your request for support in the forthcoming war, I have discussed the matter with my ministers - ”
“Better not tell her how they really reacted. I mean, it would be fun if you could…”
“Good point. No: we certainly can’t do that. Where was I? Oh, I know, go from, ‘discussed the matter with my ministers, and we have concluded that while we have no wish to be involved in a war, after such a long period of peace, we admit that we have long-standing ties with Mercia, if not with Lammor. And so we will join with your forces and intend to meet with you at the earliest possible opportunity.’
“Then you can say something about the future.”
“True. Alright. Go again, ‘Let it be known that although we will honour our past promises to you, this support will be the last occasion on which we will endanger the people of our country.’ After that, just fill in the niceties as you see them.”
“That should do it. It shows that we’re interested and loyal and that we keep our promises. And it states clearly that this will be the last time.”
“I wonder, though… Cal was always ambitious. I doubt that she joined with Laure out of any real affection. Well, she might have done, I guess.”
“It does seem more likely that it was a purely political move.”
“That must be hard on Laure. Have you ever met her?”
“A few years ago. She’s very easy on the eye; can be charming, can be selfish. Might be greedy. Might be avaricious.”
“Gods! They’re made for one another.”
“That’s a thought that could keep me from sleeping nights. Thanks very much.”
*******
Arkana was sharpening her sword. Ashe had loaned Arkana her own carborundum stone, and the two of them sat on the castle steps, enjoying the sunshine and the sound of birds singing. Cairo came out into the light, blinking hard after walking through the shadows. “It’s almost proper spring again,” she said. “I feel as though I’ve missed a season, so many things have happened.”
Ashe said, “Does it feel a bit like convalescing after a fever? That was how I imagined it.” Cairo nodded, and sat down beside Ashe.
Arkana gave her a smile, but carried on work. Ashe too was checking over her weapons. Twice she pricked a fingertip on the point of an arrow, but at least she knew they were sharp enough. Word had reached them that morning that Calypso was on the move, and a whisper had also gone through the court to the effect that Calypso had appealed to the ruler of Rath Bel, Teinne, to join the combined Mercian/Lammoran forces. “Do you think she will?” was Ashe’s first question.
“They’ve known each other for years.” Arkana, as usual, was the best-informed.
Betany joined them at that moment, and said, “You’d think that that would make any sensible person go a million miles in the opposite direction.”
“Yes. But there are old ties, blood-ties, that can’t be easily forgotten. For example, I remember that Calypso’s aunt helped the people of Rath Bel, and that means that the appeal will probably be met.”
“That’s going to make things very difficult,” said Betany. “After all, they’re not so far away from us. I assume that Calypso will be expecting to meet the forces of Rath Bel outside the castle walls.”
Ashe stood up. “I’m ready,” she said. “As ready as I’m ever going to be. If something doesn’t happen soon, I think I’m going to start spinning round like Cairo.”
“This is the hard bit,” said Arkana, kindly. “Apart from the actual moment the fighting starts, of course.”
“I’m scared that I’ll run,” said Ashe. “Run the other way, I mean. I’ve never been in a battle.”
“Everyone’s scared,” said Betany.
“Nearly everyone,” said Arkana.
Calliope came out of the castle. In the distance Ashe could see Gowdie and Sam. “Betany? There’s a messenger here for you.” Betany went back inside. The others just waited. It wasn’t long before she rejoined them.
“The people of Rath Bel are on their way. They’ll make camp tonight on the slopes of the low hills. They’ll meet up with Calypso tomorrow at the latest.”
Ashe breathed in a lungful of mild, clean air. “Then it all begins tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
*******
The process of the transfusion was messy and painful. Calypso had drugged Alexis before each session. It was necessary: Alexis didn’t want the blood, and Calypso didn’t want her not to have it. In a few hours time Alexis would be awake again, and the most recent donor would be a little light-headed with the process and the cup of perle that one of the Elders gave them afterwards. The fact that the drink was illegally brewed, illegally supplied and drunk was of the least interest to anyone. Calypso looked down at Alexis’s face, and wondered if she really would bleed the whole world to save her. Was it passion or friendship? Perhaps it was simply that the idea of being overcome by someone else’s power – someone else’s magic, for pity’s sake – stuck in Calypso’s soul like an arrow tipped with poison. Had Alexis been hacked down in battle, that would have been… acceptable. This was not.
The donor slipped out of the tent and, promptly fainted. Calypso looked dispassionately down into the young, parchment-coloured face. She nodded to two of her soldiers to take the donor back inside. The Elder there said to Calypso, “This is happening more and more.”
“Why does it happen at all? Is it shock?”
The Elder shook her head. “It seems that A - that your captain takes more blood than we mean to give her.” Calypso grinned and then looked serious.
“Give her a little extra perle when she comes round.”
“The soldier, Calypso, or your captain?”
“Both of them. I don’t care. I leave it in your hands.” She was angry. This was not Calypso’s way of dealing with the world. She disliked mess: better to die fast than bleed to death over days and days. If only a stray arrow would pierce the tent roof and the captain’s heart. Then at least Calypso could get on with the business of war.
She and Alexis had fought side by side in a dozen battles, but they’d never withstood a war. This latest conflict could be limited, if the soldiers from Rath Bel were on time, and well-armed, and as determined as Calypso was. At least she knew now that Teinne would be with her. The end of the message with that trite little, ‘this is the last time’ had irritated Calypso beyond measure, but she accepted it. Teinne’s people weren’t just necessary: they were vital.
The only thing that Calypso couldn’t pin down was Ashe. After her wanderings, Ashe seemed to have disappeared. Calypso had heard about the attack made on an inn, but the news had come to her in bits and pieces, and there was nothing concrete about Ashe. But Ashe and her little friends were hardly the issue. She’d have to keep Ashe alive, if and when she next tracked her down. Alexis seemed to have no sense of a connection running between her and the little freak. The little freak… Calypso hated Ashe more with each passing day.
*******
“Sooner or later, Ashe, you’ll come face-to-face with Calypso.” Betany spoke lightly, but she was staring hard at Ashe. “I don’t want you trying to fight her.”
“Why not? I’m probably the one person she’d like most to kill. And I think I’m ready for her.”
“You’re not that sort of person, Ashe. Calypso hates you and she’ll want you dead. She’ll fight dirty and you’ll fight fair. It’s an unequal battle from the start. She’ll want you down and bloody, and you’ll try to limit the damage. She’ll do anything and you’ll be cautious. Most of all, she wants you dead, and you, Ashe…” Betany hesitated. “Sometimes I think you don’t want anyone hurt, let alone killed.”
They were sitting in Ashe’s room, at the table that stood by the window. No-one had had much appetite for supper.
They had a little while alone together. There had been no intention of excluding Calliope: she was expected any minute. With so many things happening and so little time left to plan, Betany was trying to cover all bases. She put out her hand and stroked Ashe’s cheek. “I don’t want you getting killed, Ashe. I want you out of this and back with us and safe. And I’ve asked the seers if they know what will be befall you and they don’t seem to know.” This last was not true: the seers knew exactly what would happen, and they had told Betany. Now it was simply necessary to get Ashe out of the fighting. But without chaining Ashe up, or drugging her, there didn’t seem to be a safe way out. What if Ashe was drugged and hidden: if Calypso and her forces won, they’d be through the castle in a matter hours. Then they’d find Ashe, and whatever happened to Ashe then, it would be thousand times worse than any field-death could be.
Betany thought of telling Calliope what she feared the most, but she found that she could not. She rehearsed the words in her mind but they faltered, over and over again. She had not the slightest idea of what was going on in Ashe’s heart.
Ashe nodded to Betany’s words and let them all flow over her head. There was no need to wonder if she was going to end up facing Calypso because Ashe had already decided exactly what she was going to do. She hadn’t told Calliope, who didn’t in the least imagine what was going on. The only person who had an idea of Ashe’s plans was Arkana, and she wouldn’t have shared the news with anyone.
Ashe had decided on a course of action, and nothing else existed in her head apart from her feelings for the others. It didn’t matter that Calypso was a raving maniac who would have probably had Ashe’s head put up on a spike outside her tent, if she’d been lucky enough to kill the little freak. It didn’t matter that Calypso was sleeping with Laure, and it didn’t matter that Ashe would probably get killed in the course of action she had in mind. Ashe held the thoughts of life and death more easily than she had before. Since the beginning of her new life, everything had felt both borrowed and transitory. Life was like the purple shirt she was so illogically fond of: something attractive but given as a gift, and not lasting. Without knowing it, Ashe had been doing little more than playing at life in Lammor. Nothing had touched her deeply or painfully. She had sometimes felt unhappy, she had often felt lost. But when Rhea had shown her what the immediate future held, Ashe had felt different. The episode with Calypso and Laure was, of course, embarrassing and rather humiliating, but it hadn’t touched the essential Ashe. The Ashe who envisaged a confrontation with Calypso and who did not flinch from the thought was not the same Ashe who had stumbled through life in the Lascan court. Maybe dying again wouldn’t be so bad.
Betany watched Ashe’s face, and wondered what thoughts were flying backwards and forwards inside her mind. When Calliope joined them, the three of them sat in pleasant quiet before Arkana arrived.
Ashe reached under her bed and produced a flask with a golden stopper. Arkana grinned broadly, and Betany stared. Only Calliope was unacquainted with the illegal brew. Betany said, “Ashe, where did you get perle from? I always knew you had the seeds of corruption inside you.” She missed the sudden fury on Calliope’s face, but Ashe saw it and put up her hands.
“It’s alright, Callie. It’s almost a joke, this stuff. It’s been illegal since time immemorial, but I’m afraid I first drank it as a kid in Lascar, and I’ve always had a taste for it. So, who else wants to be corrupted?”
Arkana grinned and pushed her cup toward Ashe. “Half-way,” she said. “Any more than that and tomorrow you’ll find me fighting for the wrong side – if I remember to get out of bed at all.”
Betany too pushed her cup across. “About the same,” she said. Ashe poured, and then looked at Calliope.
“What about you? I know you don’t drink much, but this stuff is quite an experience in itself.” At length, Calliope too pushed her cup toward Ashe. Last of all, Ashe poured herself a generous measure. She lifted her cup to her lips, but was interrupted by Arkana.
“Propose a toast,” she said.
There was nothing unusual about the request, but the tone of Arkana’s voice cut through the sense of holiday that had momentarily dazzled them all, and put the thought of impending war very far away. Ashe said, “I think you’d do a better job th-… ”
“Propose a toast, Ashe.” Arkana looked steadily at Ashe, and there passed between the two of them an almost-understood message. For a second Ashe was aware of a new connection between them.
She lifted her cup, touched against each of the other’s in turn and said, “To friendship and passion and a swift, successful end to the current strife.” She put down her cup and added, “And to you three, without whom I wouldn’t even want to be here.”
Calliope took a deep swallow of the perle, choked, gasped and then burst into tears. The stuff was known for its odd effects, after all. She stumbled to her feet, rushed at Ashe, kissed her on the cheek and ran from the room.
Betany too had taken a single swallow and as Arkana and Ashe sat, confused, she went off in search of Calliope. Arkana drained her cup and knocked it against the flask so that it echoed, hollowly. “Another, Ashe, if you’d be so good.” Ashe poured a second measure for them both. Arkana said, “I think that Calliope had a moment of complete insight there, Ashe. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I suspect that tomorrow you intend to track down Calypso, and offer to meet her alone, to fight and die if necessary.”
“What happens?” asked Ashe. “I mean, do my thoughts appear in runic symbols across my forehead? How do you know what I’m thinking of doing?”
“It’s what I’d do in your place. We’re not so unalike as you think. I think I’d stand a better chance than you, because I’ve fought more people, and lived. But it is what you intend, isn’t it? You want to put aside the whole war if you can.”
“That was the intention,” said Ashe. She stood up and began pacing. “Surely it makes the most sense: one on one rather than the ruin of so many lives? If I lose… Well, maybe I won’t lose.”
“Calypso hates you, you know. I mean, really hates you. Mind you, Alexis isn’t exactly your number one fan, either.”
“I can’t think why,” said Ashe.
“Well, I imagine you will find out,” said Arkana. “But for simplicity’s sake, I’ll tell you now. While you’ve been doing well, Alexis has been doing badly. You knit your two lives together, the gods alone know how. Did you once think that you and Alexis stood in parallel status to one another?!”
“I did for an instant,” said Ashe. “I thought that that was why she let me go. It was the only reason I could think of.”
“The water spirits, when they mended you, for want of a better term, Ashe, they… They arranged your recent memories so that they weren’t too accessible to you. They thought you’d had a rough enough time: why should you be reminded of the situation that had ousted you from your place in Lascar? The problem is, that now you need to get that knowledge back, or you won’t appreciate the whole picture. You want to face Calypso and you have no idea of how much she hates you. If you faced her and lived, you’d have to face Alexis. I’m sorry, Ashe. I’m going to bring back the rest of your memories. In fact, I’m going to take you one step further. Out of your mind and into someone else’s.”
Ashe felt her colour ebbing away. She said, “I really don’t care for that idea, Arkana. Memories, if I must, but I don’t want to visit anyone else’s mind. Why do I have to?”
“I know you don’t, and I don’t blame you. But it’s necessary, Ashe. Please trust me.”
Ashe thought: I don’t want it all back. Don’t make me think about the past. Then her love for Calliope and Betany, and her respect for Arkana, Sam and the karg pushed her reluctance aside. “Alright,” she said. “What do I have to do?”
“Sit opposite me.” Ashe did so. “Take my hands and close your eyes and let your mind drift. Whatever happens, I won’t let go of you.”
Ashe shivered, and reached for the flask. She poured them each one last drink. “Any more and I’ll be falling over. Or is that just wishful thinking?”
“I don’t think you’re as vulnerable to perle as all that, Ashe.” Both drank.
“You’re right. A mis-spent youth. Alright,” she said. Then she shook herself took Arkana’s hands in her own, and closed her eyes tight.
*******
She was back in the dungeon. Her hands, that she had thought were in Arkana’s own, were behind her, and bound. Her arms ached, her head hurt and she tasted blood in her mouth. Alexis stood before her, a quizzical look on her own face. She said, “Calypso likes people who don’t bow down before her – for whatever purpose – and I’m afraid that your little rebellion earlier today may have just made you a potential fuck in Calypso’s book. I don’t want life getting any more complicated.
“You’d be a distraction and potentially trouble. I am… I am just about prepared to know that Calypso will be bedding your glorious leader on a daily or nightly basis, because I know that it will end. It always does end. At the moment she’s a little infatuated with Laure, but it won’t last. Your being there today may already have put Laure into second position. And when it ends, as it must end, I get Calypso back.”
Ashe said, with the strange sense of internal echo, the same words that she had spoken before, back in the dungeon, back in the past. “You’re Calypso’s lover, aren’t you? And her captain.” As she spoke the words, she understood that her supposition was wholly accurate. She tugged at the ropes that tied her and found that they were as secure as chain, or stone.
Arkana pulled Ashe back into the present. Ashe felt for an instant a pain like the splitting of a rock inside her skull. There followed a moment of acute dizziness, and she had to put her hands flat down on the table to support her head. When she looked up, Arkana said, “Did that work? You look as though it worked. You look awful.”
“Thanks,” said Ashe, without irony. “Oh, it worked.” If worked was the appropriate term. “I went back to the past.” She looked at Arkana and there was mute appeal in her eyes. “I have to go back again, don’t I?”
“Back to that time and perhaps to others.” Arkana said, “Ashe, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do this if there was any other way.”
Ashe shook herself again, and thought for an instant of Cairo’s remark about the simplicity inherent in being a beast, not a woman. Cairo had a point… But this was not the time. Again she held on to Arkana and again she closed her eyes.
“Why did I let her go? I let Ashe go because she’s me. She stood in the same position to Laure that I do to you. And I know that to you and the princess, Ashe and I are both of us expendable. And the sad thing is that she and both knew that.” Ashe stood easily in the thought. Then she found herself in Rhea’s room in the tower, and saw… Alexis fly across the room, strike a wall and drop to the floor with a grunt of pain and surprise. Ashe looked at the beast and the beast seemed to sense her presence: it noted her and then it padded silently out of the door and down the steps. Alexis lay prone on the floor. Ashe saw that blood was already seeping from the body.
Ashe stood inside the royal bedchamber. Laure and Calypso stood inside, talking. Ashe was so close she could have touched them, but she kept her hands shoved into her pockets. She saw Calypso bend down, and begin to unlace her boots before coming to an abrupt halt. “I can’t even make my fingers work properly, Laure. Do you know why that is?” Laure shook her head.
“It’s because I held the wise woman while Alexis did her thing. I held her and Alexis talked. And took. Now that Rhea’s as good as dead, Alexis is quietly bleeding out the rest of her life and I… can’t… use my fingers properly.” She looked at her own hands with surprise and mute amusement. “I thought that magic was limited to being spoken. Now I see that there were swords in Rhea’s eyes. I imagine it’s only temporary – I hope it’s temporary – but it hurts.”
“Why did I let her go? I let Ashe go because she’s me.”
When she had struck the rocks at the edge of the river, at the bottom of the ravine, there was a bright instant of agony. Then there was nothing.
Ashe’s life-blood seeped across the ground until it reached the river. Once it had touched the water it was carried out into the current. The river tasted the blood and the spirits within it rushed forward to cradle the remains of one of their distant kin. Watery hands like ribbon-weed reached out for the body and by slow and patient stages pulled it first into the shallows, and then out into the fast-flowing heart of the river. Water lapped the place of death: soon the rocks were clean and white again.
“Why did I let her go? I let Ashe go because she’s me.”
Again Arkana drew Ashe back. This time when the contact between them broke, Ashe headed for the basin in the corner and dipped her face into the clean, cold water. Arkana thought how appropriate the movement was, had Ashe only known it. She said nothing. She waited as Ashe towelled her herself dry with clumsy movements. She watched as Ashe stood for an instant in the centre of the room and saw the images that Ashe herself had just seen, but this time the images were flying around Ashe, faster and faster, tugging at her clothes and her hair, pressing against her skin, spinning her round and round until she dropped, stone-like, to the ground. The sound of the past was the last thing to leave the room, and Ashe: “Why did I let her go? I let Ashe go because she’s me.”
Ashe hit the ground in a dead faint.
*******
Calliope was furious. Betany was equally angry but she was doing her best to hide the emotion: Arkana was on their side, after all, and must have meant her treatment of Ashe as a necessary thing, an important thing. Just keep the teeth together and the emotions well hidden. She’s a guest in your home. Her forces are essential to ours. Betany poured herself another drink. She assessed Calliope’s mood and decided that giving the water spirit more perle to drink would be tantamount to signing Arkana’s death sentence. She was having to hold Calliope back. When they had returned to the room they had been in time to see the spirit of the past drop Ashe onto the floor as if she’d been nothing more than a toy.
Calliope sat on the ground, Ashe’s head resting in her lap. She would not look at Arkana. She stroked the damp dark hair back from Ashe’s face and said nothing.
Betany said, at last, when the words had been checked and censored, “You… had to give Ashe back some of her memories… why?”
“So that she understands what she’s up against. So that she doesn’t go ahead with her initial plans.”
“And what were Ashe’s plans,… exactly?”
“To meet Calypso in single combat. And Alexis, too, if Alexis’s state improves.”
“It’ll have improved by now, won’t it?” Cairo stood in the doorway of Ashe’s room, and surveyed them all. “As Ashe goes up, so Alexis goes down. Do you understand that now?”