Trapped

12: DEMON, DEMON, LOVER

Tzekich pulled me across the parquet littered with glass. I tried not to tread in the blood of the dead… but Knife-Hand Liz walked straight through. When she reached a clean section of floor, she left sticky scarlet slipperprints.

Back at the windowsill, the Caryatid and Impervia climbed inside. Staying loyally with me, even though they could have run off into the night. My friends.

Meanwhile, the surviving bully-boys from the Ring un-holstered their pistols. Behind the enforcers, Xavier broke into a wolfish leer — he must have regarded us all as human punching bags, here to help him forget the humiliation of submitting to a Spark Lord. Lucky for us, Tzekich outranked the old bastard… and she was so irked by Xavier's stupid intransigence, she treated Impervia, the Caryatid, and me with utmost gentility. She obviously wanted to annoy her deputy as much as he'd annoyed her.

"Please sit," Tzekich said, gesturing toward a black leather couch. "Tell me everything you know."

We sat, we talked. The facts, but no interpretation. I didn't recount Chancellor Opal's encounter with the Lucifer, nor did I mention what Dreamsinger whispered to me before she left. I'd have to ponder her words some time soon, but not with Elizabeth Tzekich and two armed guards hovering over me. For now, I just stuck to the bioweapon version of the tale; suddenly changing my story might antagonize Knife-Hand Liz to the point of violence.

She was angry enough as it was — during my recitation, Xavier made a constant nuisance of himself with pointless intrusive questions, aggravating Tzekich to the verge of fury. I couldn't understand why she didn't toss him from the room… or borrow a gun from an enforcer and create a new opening in her organization. But she tolerated Xavier's petty interference with clenched teeth, only once giving him a lethal glare and saying, "I am trying to find out about my daughter."

Of course, Tzekich asked questions of her own — and from their tone, I realized she didn't want to believe her daughter was dead. If there were two copies of the girl, why couldn't the one still alive be the real Rosalind? Perhaps an enemy had created a sorcerous duplicate of her daughter as a way to infiltrate the Ring of Knives. But Rosalind had defeated the double by using the impersonator's own cottage cheese bacteria; then the girl had run off with "that Sebastian boy" to escape before more enemies arrived. Elopement was so utterly ridiculous at Rosalind's age, it must be a ruse to throw off pursuers.

That made sense, didn't it?

No one wanted to argue — not even spiteful Xavier. There are some things it's not safe to say when a mother is being willfully blind.

Tzekich rose from her chair and snapped her fingers toward her men. "We're leaving now. Let's go."

Xavier grunted. "Just like that, we're off?"

"To Niagara Falls. Get your fastest boat."

"Ach… it won't be as fast as that Spark Lord."

"No," Tzekich said, "but it might be fast enough to catch the Hoosegow."

Xavier shook his head. "They got a good wind, a long headstart, and the Falls are only ten, twelve hours away. Hoosegow will beat us."

"We'll still be close behind." Tzekich headed for the door. "I refuse to sit here while my daughter's in danger."

Xavier's expression was easy to read: The girl's not in danger; she's dead. But he simply pointed a thumb at Impervia, the Caryatid, and me. "What do we do with them?"

Tzekich stopped in the doorway. She turned back to consider us. Impervia and I tensed, ready to put up a fight… but the Caryatid simply toyed with the anchor device Dreamsinger had left in her keeping, idly tracing one finger along the inlaid gold horseshoes. Did Tzekich want to mess with a Spark Lord's "dear sister"?

A tense silence. Then Tzekich said, "Forget them." She glared in our direction. "Get the hell out."

We didn't need to be told twice. Before Tzekich vanished from the doorway, before Xavier could have us roughed up behind his boss's back, we three teachers were out the window and scurrying into the darkness.

The guard dogs raised a ruckus on our way off the property; but with the Caryatid waving flames in the dogs' faces and Impervia swinging a fallen tree branch as a club, the animals soon decided their duty lay in snarling from a distance rather than outright attack. They saw us to the gate, yapping all the while and continuing long after we were gone. Dogs on other estates took up the barking, making an awful racket… and I cringed at the noise until I realized it was harmless.

We'd survived.

After running afoul of a spike-armed enforcer, a Sorcery-Lord, and the Ring of Knives, my friends and I had survived. We were also cut loose from our burdens: the Sparks were on the case, and didn't need help from mere schoolteachers. We'd even told Knife-Hand Liz her daughter was dead… and once you've informed the authorities and the parents, what more must a teacher do?

Quest over. Home to bed.

But even as these thoughts passed through my head, Impervia asked, "So how do we get to Niagara Falls?"

I groaned.

Arguing with Impervia was futile. Besides, my heart wasn't in it — though part of me wanted to run back to Simka, another part oozed with guilt at abandoning Sebastian. If I could believe Dreamsinger, it seemed certain the boy was now in the clutches of a Lucifer. Furthermore, the Sorcery-Lord was in hot pursuit of the couple; even if she saved Sebastian from the shapeshifting alien, I doubted that she'd treat the boy kindly. A lunatic like her would probably consider Sebastian the Lucifer's partner-in-crime.

Boom.

Besides, if we went home now, we might never learn what was going on… and despite my past deficiencies in scientific curiosity, this time I wanted to know everything. Therefore, when Impervia began preaching about our divine calling to see this business through, I put up only a token protest: I just pointed out that Dreamsinger and the Ring might both slit our gizzards if we meddled, and that by the time we got to Niagara Falls, all the excitement would likely be over.

Impervia admitted the risk of gizzard-slitting but not that we might be too late to affect the final outcome. We'd been called; therefore we had a part to play. God and the Magdalene had summoned us, and if we stayed true we would end up where we were supposed to be. Holy foot-soldiers in a divine battle plan.

I had no answer to such rock-hard faith. My own sense of religion had never developed one way or the other: I was too embarrassed to say I believed in God, but not angry enough to say I didn't. Neither hot nor cold. I'd always longed to receive a clear vocation ("Philemon Dhubhai, this is your purpose!") but mistrusted anything so pat. When Impervia said we'd finally been called, all I could do was dither.

"Yes, but…"

"No, but…"

"I see that, but…"

"I know that, but…"

I was saved by the arrival of Myoko, Pelinor, and Annah.

They'd been down on the docks when they saw the milky tube descend from the sky. Hard to miss on a dark silent night. So they'd left their fruitless questions about Sebastian — in a port full of smugglers, no one would divulge anything — and they hurried up the cliff-road to the mansions of the rich. Dreamsinger's travel-tube had vanished by the time they arrived; instead, they followed the howling of dogs and found us at the epicenter.

Myoko shook her head ruefully as she approached. "What did you do this time, Impervia?"

Impervia only sniffed.

Tales were quickly told. Myoko said she envied us for finding so much excitement. The Caryatid suggested where she could put that excitement… and much crude-mouthed banter ensued.

Annah, of course, did not take part — not quiet, doe-eyed Annah. She merely listened with a polite smile, glancing my way from time to time. I couldn't tell if those glances meant she was glad I'd survived or if she was having second thoughts about me, my friends, and this whole crisis-prone outing. Before I could draw her aside and ask, Impervia's voice cut through the chatter.

"Enough! We have to find a boat for Niagara Falls. A fast boat. Did you see any possibilities in the harbor?"

"Not among the fishing boats," Pelinor answered. "For speed, you'd want the marina; the expensive pleasure yachts that rich people keep here over winter."

"I'll bet," Myoko said, "we could find a yacht that wasn't securely locked up…"

"Don't even think it," Impervia growled.

Myoko pretended to be surprised. "We can't commandeer a boat in the service of God?"

Impervia only glared.

"I know people in town," Pelinor said. "Horse breeders with money. They probably own boats."

"If we're thinking of people with money," said the Caryatid, "there's always Gretchen Kinnderboom…"

Everyone turned toward me — even Annah, who I'd hoped might not have heard any gossip about me and Gretchen.

I sighed. "Yes, Gretchen has a boat — and she claims it's the fastest in Dover. That's likely just idle boasting, the way she always…" I stopped myself. "Gretchen has a boat. It's supposedly fast. Come on." Silently, I led the way forward.

Kinnderboom Cottage was thirty times the size of any cottage on Earth; but Gretchen reveled in twee diminutives, like calling her thoroughbred stallion "Prancy Pony" and the three-century oak in her side yard "Iddle-Widdle Acorn." (Gretchen had a habit of lapsing into baby talk at the least provocation. She was that kind of woman… and beautiful enough that I often didn't care.)

Like all houses in this part of Dover, the Kinnderboom mansion squatted in the midst of a pointlessly large estate overlooking the lake. The building itself was an up-and-down thing, equipped with so many gables it seemed more like a depot where carpenters stored their inventory than someplace people actually lived. Wherever you looked, there was an architectural feature. Each window had a curlicued metal railing; each door had a portico, an arch, or an assemblage of Corinthian columns. And everything changed on a regular basis: an army of construction crews, landscapers, and interior decorators passed through each year, ripping out the old, slapping up the new. I don't think Gretchen really cared what any of the workers did — she just hired them so she could have more underlings to boss around.

The workers were always men.

The grounds of Kinnderboom Cottage were surrounded by a wall; but I had a key to the gate, plus a good deal of practice sneaking in under cover of darkness. I let my friends enter, locked the gate behind us, then motioned everyone to stand still. Ten seconds… twenty… thirty… whereupon an unearthly creature appeared from the shadows, his stomach pincers clicking as he walked.

"Ahh," he said. "Baron Dhubhai."

Myoko turned toward me and mouthed the word Baron? I shrugged. I had no title in my native Sheba — no one did, except a few old men, indulgently allowed to call themselves princes — but Gretchen knew how rich my family was, and she fervently believed such money would make me at least a baron in any "civilized" province. Therefore, her household slaves were obliged to address me in that fashion.

As for this particular slave, he was the size of a full-grown bull but built like a lobster. Eight legs. Fan tail. Chitinous carapace — colored cherry red, though it looked nearly black in the darkness. His body angled up centaur-style to the height of a human, so his head was a hand's breadth higher than mine. He always had a light smell of vinegar, faint here in the open air but still quite noticeable. His face: flat and wide with dangling whiskers and a spike-nosed snout. His arms: two spindly ones almost always folded across his chest and two nasty pincer claws at waist level, jutting forward at just the right height to disembowel an adult human. He was still clicking those claws idly as he looked us up and down.

From past visits, I knew this alien's name was Oberon. He served on guard duty every night; Oberon was one of Gretchen's most trusted "demons."

All of Gretchen's staff were extraterrestrials. In fact, the Kinnderboom fortune came from "demonmongery": breeding and selling alien slaves. Gretchen didn't dirty her hands in the family business — she didn't dirty her hands with any sort of work — but she kept more than a dozen ETs in her household "for the sake of appearances." Foremost among those ETs were Oberon and his family, who came from some species with human-level intelligence but an antlike predisposition to follow the commands of a queen. Even though Gretchen couldn't have resembled the queens of Oberon's race, she still filled that role in his eyes. After all, Oberon had never seen a queen… and he'd been raised from the egg by Gretchen herself, brought up to obey her every whim.

There in the yard, lobsterlike Oberon was obviously trying to decide how Gretchen's whims would run tonight. If I'd been alone, he would have let me proceed to the house immediately; Gretchen's standing orders were to let me pass, and she'd decide for herself whether to admit me to her glorious presence. But I'd come with five strangers in tow, and Oberon wasn't eager to let them close to his exalted mistress. He belonged to his species' warrior caste, and his first instinct was to keep his queen safe from outsiders.

He clicked his pincers softly. "We weren't expecting guests tonight, baron."

"I know. But we need to see Gretchen immediately."

"The question is, does she need to see you?"

"Excellent point, good fellow," said Pelinor. Our noble knight liked aliens almost as much as he liked horses; he'd been gazing in admiration at Oberon ever since the big ET had appeared from the darkness. And just as he had a feel for horse psychology, Pelinor could guess what was on Oberon's mind. "How about this," he told the demon. "You keep us here while, uhh, Baron Dhubhai goes for a private chat with Ms. Kinnderboom. No problem with that, is there?"

Oberon nodded immediately and waved me toward the house. I gave my friends one last glance (attempting a soulful meeting-of-the-eyes with Annah, then a warning glare at Impervia, who was gazing at Oberon with the thoughtful look of someone considering where to punch a lobster for maximum effect); then I hurried up the gravel drive.

The front of Kinnderboom Cottage was dark: no lights in any of the rooms, just a single oil lamp above the main entrance. Still, I was certain Gretchen would be awake; for the past five years, she'd slept days instead of nights. If anyone asked why, she'd say, "I'm a vampire now, darling, didn't you get my note?"… but in fact, she was just a woman on the high side of forty, trying to deny she might ever show her age. Daylight was too unforgiving, especially since the cottage had mirrors in every room. Gretchen preferred to see herself by candleshine, or when she was greatly daring, by the muted glow of sun through curtains. Her bedroom had curtains in three different colors — red, gold, and dusky brown — plus meters of thick white lace, so she could make love in the afternoon and tint the lighting to whatever shade made her feel sexy.

She never went outside. Ever. Sometimes after a night together, she would nudge me out of bed at dawn and get me to open the doors to the balcony outside her window. She would ask me to pull the thinnest lace curtains across the opening, like a sheer white veil; then she would make me get back into bed, and she would go alone to the doorway, standing naked in the sunrise, inhaling the morning and the breeze that fluttered the curtains around her.

But she never threw the curtains wide open. Never took that last step onto the balcony to feel the sun on her skin. She always stayed behind the thin lace barrier. Sometimes I wondered if this was all just a performance, so I could see her body backlit by dawn and imagine the breeze licking her nipples, the sheer curtains swishing against her stomach and thighs… but at other times, I was sure I could sense an ache inside her, a yearning to be truly outdoors instead of a single step shy. She would stand there for minutes, closing her eyes and taking deep silent breaths; then she would come back wordlessly to bed and either cling to me like a little girl or throw herself into ravenous love-making, driving, driving, driving until we were both obliterated.

Those moments were what made me keep coming back to Kinnderboom Cottage — not for the sex itself, but for the woman who used sex to run from herself. Lonely, silly, exploitive Gretchen. She made me feel needed… which is not the same as being loved or appreciated, but it can still be addictive if you don't ask yourself too many questions.

The door opened as I walked up the front steps. Oberon's mate Titania stood in the entrance, bowing low in greeting. Like her husband, she was built on lobstery lines, but smaller and colored a deep earthy brown. Instead of pincers, Titania had a second pair of arms: nimble and strong despite their thinness. She served as Gretchen's majordomo, keeping the other slaves organized. If Titania were human, she might easily have become total mistress of the estate, since Gretchen had neither the shrewdness nor the discipline to resist. Gretchen could have become a pampered prisoner with Titania controlling the staff and the purse-strings. But Titania was not human; she was an alien lobster whose instincts to follow a queen were just as strong as Oberon's. Though Titania ran the cottage far better than Gretchen ever could, Titania would never dream of usurping ultimate command.

"Good evening, baron," Titania said. "It's provident you came. Mistress Gretchen could use some company just now."

"I'm afraid that's not why I'm here. I need Gretchen's help."

Titania stared at me a moment, the tips of her whiskers lifting. I'd come to recognize that as her species' look of disapproval: Queen Gretchen was apparently in some black mood and Titania wanted me to make things brighter, not bring new problems of my own. On the other hand, it was not a courtier's place to shield her queen from making decisions; in Titania's mind I was behaving with commendable sense, approaching Queen Gretchen with a humble petition for aid. That's what loyal subjects did… and loyal retainers didn't stand in the way.

"All right," Titania said, making an effort to relax her whiskers, "I'll present you. But take off your boots — they're filthy."

We walked up to Gretchen's room in silence: Titania in front and me behind, because she was too big for us to walk side by side through corridors built to normal human scale. She held a kerosene lamp in one hand, but its shine was blocked by her body; climbing the stairs, I was almost completely in the dark.

Then again, I didn't need any light — I'd gone up and down this stairway so often in blackness, I knew exactly how many steps there were and which were likely to creak under my weight. Heaven knows why Gretchen and I were so furtive when there was nobody else in the house except slaves, and the slaves were aliens with precious little interest in human sexual affairs… but we always conducted our meetings like an adulterous couple sneaking around while their spouses slept nearby.

Stupid habit. But that's what Gretchen and I had: just an ongoing habit.

Titania tapped on the door of Gretchen's suite, then went inside without waiting. I followed into the so-called Sitting Room: a place seldom used but often redecorated, with its appearance changing from season to season (sometimes month to month, or week to week). At the moment, it was designed to fight the dourness of winter with warm/hot colors — wallpaper of ferocious carmine red accented with a black and gold border around the top. The furniture (couch, rocking chair, ottoman) matched the color scheme with appropriate upholstery or afghan throw-covers draped neatly over bare wood. The neatness of the afghans proved Gretchen truly was in a bad way. When she was feeling good, she sprawled wherever she wanted with no regard for how the afghans might slip; when she was in a mood, she needed everything just so, and could spend hours fussing to get proper tucks and folds.

Titania crossed the room as quickly as her eight legs would go — I think she deliberately avoided seeing how fastidiously everything was arranged — and she knocked at the door to the bedroom. "Mistress Gretchen," she murmured, "Baron Dhubhai has come to visit." Titania looked my direction as if daring me to say otherwise; then she turned back to the closed door and asked, "May I let him in?"

If any answer came, it was too quiet for me to hear. Nevertheless, Titania turned the knob and pushed the door open. "The mistress will see you now."

I nodded. Titania bowed once more, then silently brushed past me as she headed downstairs.

I'd never seen the bedroom so brilliantly lit: every flat surface held two or three shine-stones, beaming dollops of quartz I assumed had been enchanted by sorcerers working for Papa Kinnderboom in Feliss City. Usually Gretchen only kept one or two stones out in the open, and she often draped those with squares of thin cotton to mute the gleam; but tonight there were dozens all over the place, standing uncovered on the vanity, the dressers, the night stands, even scattered on the floor. My eyes ached from the brightness — I had to shield my gaze with my hand as I searched for Gretchen herself.

Despite the incessant remodeling in other parts of the house, Gretchen's bedroom hadn't changed in years — except for the darkening curtains, the place was always white, white, white, the walls, the bedding, the carpet. For variation, the furniture was painted in a range of bleached grays. There were also accents of color where Gretchen had thrown a sapphire blue dress over a chair, and left a crimson bra pooled on the floor; but the overall impression was still that eye-glaring white, illuminated now by several dozen shine-stones.

Quite bright enough to show that Gretchen was missing.

She'd recently been in the bed: the covers were thrown back and the sheets rumpled. The sight made me think of dead Rosalind, her covers wide open too. But Gretchen was not lying sprawled across the mattress… nor was she sitting at the vanity or lounging in the giant bathtub against the far wall. I peeked into the walk-in closet, but saw no sign of her. I didn't get down to look under the bed, but I glanced in that direction while staying on my feet, and decided it was unlikely Gretchen had managed to crawl out of sight. Since there was nowhere else she could hide (short of scrunching into a cedar chest or one of the trunks in the closet), I was on the verge of leaving; then a puff of breeze swirled the curtains in front of the balcony doors.

The doors were open. Despite the chill of the not-yet-spring night.

The hairs on the back of my neck bristled as I walked across the room. If she'd finally taken that last step into the open air… I kept picturing her throwing herself off the balcony in some fit of despondence. Or bid for attention. We were only one story up, so she'd almost certainly survive; but I didn't want to look over the railing and see Gretchen lying below. I had to force myself to push through the curtains, into the cold night breeze…

…where Gretchen stood quite alive, naked and hugging herself, rapidly puckering into one gigantic goose-pimple.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi yourself." Her teeth chattered. "Could you, uhh…" She lifted one arm to gesture back into the room, then quickly went back to hugging herself. It took me a moment to realize what she wanted.

"The lights?" I said.

"Please."

I hurried back into the bedroom and collected shine-stones, dropping them into the thick velvet sack where Gretchen usually kept them. As I worked, I couldn't help chuckling — imagining Gretchen as she heard the knock at her door. She must have realized she was surrounded by more light than a summer afternoon… so she scuttled to the balcony to keep me from seeing her in the unforgiving glare. All those times I'd tried to get her outdoors, I'd been using the wrong tactics.

I laughed again.

Soon I was carrying a bag full of shine: all the stones except one. I'd left that one on the night stand and covered it with a scarf of turquoise gossamer that had been balled up on the vanity. The resulting light tinted the room either sickly green or sea-mist blue, depending on your tolerance for turquoise… but it seemed to satisfy Gretchen, for she immediately came back inside, and closed the doors behind her. For a count of three she tried to bluff out the moment, letting her arms fall to her sides and striking a pose of regal nudity, pretending to be unfazed by cold. Then the shivers hit her and she stumbled forward, ripping a comforter off the bed and wrapping herself as her body shook.

I took her into my arms. She was a tall woman, almost exactly my height, long-legged and lean… but at that moment she seemed much smaller, shrinking into me as she opened the comforter and wrapped it around the two of us. Her bare body pressed against my clothes. Milky skin, green eyes, russet hair — all of which seemed entirely natural, but when a woman's daddy has sorcerers on his payroll, one can never tell how much cosmetic help she had in her formative years. Kaylan's Chameleon isn't the only beauty spell cast on developing girls — sorcerers have plenty of "tuck 'n' tweak" enchantments, making eye color more vivid, hair more lush, and adolescent body development more in keeping with local fashion. There was a reason my cousin Hafsah had such memorable loveliness: my grandma the governor paid for it. For the same reason, Gretchen's creamy complexion showed no hint of the usual freckles, moles, and other punctuations that flesh is normally heir to.

Yet sorcery has its limitations — it can correct imperfections, but it can't stop time. Removing a mole just means banishing pigments from a specific area of tissue; removing a wrinkle from a forty-ish woman's face means fighting the whole course of physical development, all the ongoing changes that lead to dry skin, slowing hormones and declining glands. Aging isn't one thing, it's everything… and neither science nor sorcery has identified all the body's clocks, let alone figured out how to turn them back in unison. There are too many proteins and enzymes and secretions that have to be balanced: if you stop the formation of crow's feet by changing the quantity of a particular body chemical, other body chemicals shift too. Lots of chemicals. Next thing you know, there might be a rash, or sores, or an epileptic fit.

Aging isn't an aberration that can be set back on track… it's the track itself.

I looked at the woman in my arms, and despite the dimness of the light, I could see everything she didn't admit was there: the wrinkles, the crinkles, the lines. A puffiness around the jaw; lapses in the sleekness of her neck. All very subtle, what most of us would consider insignificant — anyone standing back a few steps would see a woman at the peak of her beauty. But that wasn't enough for Gretchen. When she invited a man to her boudoir, she had no intention of keeping him at arm's length.

"I'm glad you're here," she whispered. Her breath caressed my neck; a moment later, her lips did too.

"Gretchen," I said, "I can't stay."

"Don't be a silly billy." She kissed my neck again. "You just got here."

"I have some friends outside. There's been trouble at the school, and we need to borrow your boat."

"What?" She blinked as if I'd just pinched her.

"One of our students has run off. People are after him — dangerous people. We need a fast boat so we can find him before they do."

"You're just here to take my boat?" Her voice had an edge of outrage.

"It's important, Gretchen. A girl is dead. Murdered. And other people are dead too, thanks to a Spark Lord who—"

"A Spark Lord? Which Spark Lord?"

"The female Sorcery-Lord. Called Dreamsinger. She showed up at a tavern and—"

"You met a Spark Lord? When?"

"Tonight," I said. "Just a while ago. Now she's gone to Niagara Falls, and we need your boat to—"

"So this Sorcery-Lord is in Niagara Falls?"

"That's where she said she was going."

"And you want my boat to go there too?"

"Yes."

She drew away from me — not abruptly, but in typical Gretchen fashion: a squeeze of mock affection, then an ooze of regretful detachment, and finally a playful flash of her naked body before she closed the comforter around herself. "All right," she said, "we'll head for Niagara Falls."

"We?"

"Yes: we." She threw off the comforter and began to get dressed.

She'd probably claim that she dressed in a hurry… and she did abbreviate her usual routine of trying on half her wardrobe before deciding what suited her mood. But Gretchen was not one of those heroines from fiction who can switch instantly from pampered beauty to rugged adventurer. If her bedroom caught fire, she wouldn't leave until she'd tried on half a dozen outfits to see which matched the flames. As for being seen in public without rouge, mascara, perfume, et cetera — silly billy, what are you thinking?

So I sat on the bed and waited as patiently as I could. Trying to rush Gretchen was worse than useless — if you annoyed her, she slowed down to punish you. The woman had a knack for petty vindictiveness: entirely unconscious too. She'd be genuinely shocked if you suggested she was deliberately taking longer than necessary to redden her lips, pluck her eyebrows, and choose which garters went with which stockings inside which boots to wear on a muddy night in late thaw; and then she'd slow down even more.

Gretchen could drive a man mad in so many ways.

"Now tell me," she called as she rummaged through boxes in her closet, "what did this Dreamsinger look like?"

"Don't know," I answered. "She was hidden in Kaylan's Chameleon."

Gretchen stuck her head out of the closet. "Now I really want to know what she looked like. Me perhaps?"

"If you were my ideal sexual object, do you think I'd admit it?"

She laughed and disappeared back into the closet — no doubt convinced I couldn't possibly desire any woman besides herself.

I said, "You realize this trip might get dangerous? We aren't the only ones going to Niagara. Have you heard of the Ring of Knives?"

"God, those people? I swear, that dreadful Warwick Xavier spies on me with a telescope."

"He's a smuggler; he watches the lake for customs agents."

"He watches my windows for a glimpse of my booboos."

"Do you ever give him one?"

Gretchen laughed. "Of course. Every girl needs someone to torture."

"In addition to herself."

Gretchen didn't dignify that with an answer. For a while, the only sound from the closet was the squeal of metal hangers scraping sharply along clothes-rods.

"So," I finally said, "why so many shine-stones tonight?"

"Nothing, darling, just a whim."

"What kind of whim?"

"An idle one."

Since she couldn't see me, I rolled my eyes. "You weren't, for example, afraid of the dark and wanted as much light as possible? Or feeling so depressed, you thought the light would cheer you up?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I feel fine."

"Really? Titania was worried about you."

"What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything. But she has a way of twitching her whiskers…"

"Titania should keep her whiskers to herself." Gretchen stuck her head out of the closet again. For some reason, she was wearing a green felt hat shaped like an iguana. The rest of her was still naked. "Really, darling, I'm fine. Honestly."

"Good."

"Good."

She vanished once more into the closet. I could hear boxes being shoved around… or possibly being kicked. Under all that racket, she murmured something so softly I couldn't make it out.

"Beg pardon?" I said.

Gretchen didn't answer right away. Then she spoke in a manner intended to sound airy and offhanded. "I suppose Titania thought I was upset because the Earl of Brant canceled his visit yesterday. But why should that bother me? He's a busy man; he said he had pressing affairs of state."

I winced. For centuries, the phrase "affairs of state" has meant hopping into bed with some trollop. The expression is so universally associated with sex that people in government avoid it when referring to legitimate activities — if you truly spend your time on official duties, you don't say you're dealing with affairs of state. That only makes folks snicker.

Besides, I knew the Earl of Brant: a rake in his mid-twenties, far too good-looking and rich. Brought up by a doting aunt whose only means of discipline was telling the boy how much better he was than anyone else. "So don't you think you should act better too?" I couldn't picture the earl spending a nanosecond on real administrative chores; if he'd wriggled out of a date with Gretchen, it was only because he'd found someone younger, prettier, and/or double-jointed.

Gretchen must have known that too: she was blind about many things, but astute in detecting the lies of unfaithful lovers — she had extensive knowledge of such lies, having used them all herself. No callow pup like the Earl of Brant could deceive Gretchen Kinnderboom, especially with such a transparent excuse. Affairs of state indeed! The earl was thumbing his nose at her, as if she wasn't worth inventing a better story.

I knew it. Gretchen knew it.

Gretchen must also have known I'd see through the earl's lie… yet she told me anyway. Almost as if she were confiding in me. As close as she could come to sharing her pain. My eyes stung with tears, and guilt. If Gretchen had ever reached out to me before this, rather than toying with me, dangling me on the hook, never admitting she might need me for anything more than scratching a sexual itch — if she'd ever acknowledged the slightest crack in her armor — perhaps I would have been thinking, I hope Gretchen doesn't get jealous over Annah. But I was thinking, I hope Annah doesn't get jealous over Gretchen.

That was the way things were. I cared what Annah thought, but all I had left for Gretchen was pity: that the earl's cruel brush-off had shaken her so badly she was finally seeking an emotional connection with me.

Just a few hours too late.

"So you must have been bored," I said, trying to keep my voice light, "sitting here without company. Why didn't you send me a note?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I wasn't bored." The rummaging in the closet had gone silent. "Besides, what would you think if I had invited you? The gentleman must petition the lady, never the other way around. Otherwise, it looks like she's groveling."

"No. It looks like she needs a friend."

"A friend?" She must have realized her voice had gone shrill, because she broke off and forced out a laugh. "If I need a friend, I'll buy a spaniel. What I can't buy is a man."

"True." Though she'd tried to buy men on many occasions. "So why are you interested in this Spark Lord?"

The rummaging sounds resumed, plus the clatter of hangers and the opening/closing of the drawers built into the closet. "I've never met a Spark," Gretchen said as she rifled through her wardrobe. "It's one of my lifelong dreams." She faked another laugh. "You know what a horrid social-climber I am."

"This Spark isn't social, she's a sociopath. The type who bursts people into bloody giblets just so she can make a dramatic exit."

"But she won't do that to me," Gretchen said. "It wouldn't make sense."

"I don't think Dreamsinger cares whether her actions make sense. She's a few candles short of a black mass, if you catch my meaning. Either that, or she just acts like a crazy woman to intimidate us lesser mortals. I'll admit that's a possibility. All Sparks act unbalanced: sometimes benevolent, sometimes homicidal. Ruling by both love and fear — Machiavelli would approve."

Gretchen stuck her head out of the closet again. Still naked from the neck down, she had on a black suede cowboy hat and long diamond earrings. "You talk as if you know all about the Sparks," she said.

"No one knows all about the Sparks; but my governor grandma studied them as best she could. Asking other governors for information… gathering reports on where particular Spark Lords had been seen… what they did… whom they associated with…"

"It's a wonder the Sparks didn't kill your grandmother for snooping."

I shrugged. "They expect such behavior from governors; they even approve. The more a governor learns about Spark Royal's capabilities, the less that governor is likely to cause trouble."

"Because the Sparks are unpredictable and have outrageously powerful technology?"

"Exactly."

Gretchen disappeared back into the closet. "Rumor has it they're backed by extraterrestrials."

"Yes," I agreed, "rumor has it."

"High-up races in the League of Peoples."

"Supposedly."

"You don't believe it?"

"The League claims to oppose the murder of sentient creatures. It's supposed to be their most fundamental law — not to take life deliberately or through willful negligence. So why would they support a bunch of killers like the Sparks?"

"Mmm." Something went ‹SNAP› in the closet: an elastic waistband, a garter belt, some kind of fastener. Gretchen said, "Maybe the League needs the Sparks for special services."

"What special services?"

"I don't know — necessary work that's beneath the League's dignity. Emptying chamberpots… slitting throats… going to bed with crazy Uncle Hans so he won't bother anyone else."

I laughed. "The League of Peoples has a crazy Uncle Hans?"

"Everyone has a crazy Uncle Hans." Her voice was muffled, presumably by a garment being pulled over her head. "Seriously, darling, everyone has a kleptomaniac aunt, or a cousin who plays with his peepee in front of guests. Perhaps Spark Royal looks after the League's embarrassments. In exchange, the Sparks get fancy weapons and armor and gadgets to keep those embarrassments under control."

"So Earth is a prison planet and the Sparks are the guards?"

"Not guards, darling. Baby-sitters."

Gretchen came out of the closet, a traveling case in one hand and her clothes swirling. The greatest swirl came from her dress: a warmth of forest green that stretched with eye-fetching cling from throat to waist, then flared out below to eddy around her ankles. For tramping outdoors, the hem was almost too low: one wouldn't want it dragging through the mud. But Gretchen had also donned knee-high buckskin boots with platform soles, not ridiculously high but enough to keep her gown clear of the muck. Another swirl above her waist came from a woolen shawl the color of burgundy, pinned at the neck with a silver ankh. She'd abandoned silly hats in favor of a thick green band that held her red hair back and wrapped warmly around her ears… all in all, a more practical outfit for traipsing through slush than I would have expected.

"Well?" Gretchen asked, flashing her dimples.

"Ravishing as always. I didn't know you had outfits for leaving the house."

"Silly billy. I have outfits for everything."

"But you don't go out, do you?" I tried to meet her eyes, but she pretended to be busy, picking nonexistent lint off her sleeve. "Why now, Gretchen? What do you want with Dreamsinger?"

"I told you, darling, I'm such a flighty social-climber—"

"Don't lie," I interrupted. "If you have some harebrained idea you can get something out of a Spark Lord — if you think you can charm or outwit her — you don't know who you're dealing with. Dreamsinger is nowhere near sane. If you make her angry, Gretchen, she'll kill you. Maybe the rest of us too."

"Darling," Gretchen said, "I don't make people angry. I don't make you angry, do I? I'm just curious to meet someone truly important."

She swirled from the room without letting me answer. Without even pausing to freshen her makeup one last time.

Uneasily, I followed her out.