The world is no longer the world. It is a bin of jumbled variables she must sort through quickly if she is to make it to her goal. She did not ask for this. This was—
Why are you bringing him south? Nathaniel asks.
For the ink of course, she says. And to her unending sorrow this is not untrue.
You should have destroyed him by now. You’re far too sentimental.
“I’ll make ink soon enough. Why are you so eager? He’s your nephew. Was your nephew, once. I thought you might—”
Nathaniel snaps violently, Focus on what you’re good at! Please!
“And what’s that?”
Capturing his fluids! You might have moved on to blood by now and been done with this—but no … I wonder why. Why delay? Why bother giving him those books?
Sena ignores the horrible attack. “I see he means nothing to you.”
Don’t affix your weaknesses to me, Nathaniel thinks. Caliph Howl is hardly my nephew. He should mean nothing to you. He’s just another thing that you and I will pass on our way across the stars. Don’t forget that!
The words drive a powerful pain into her core because Nathaniel is right. Before the end, she will drain Caliph’s Hjolk-trull blood into the ink. That trace of immortality, passed down from the Gringlings to the Hjolk-trull make him intrinsic to her designs.
If her body was different, if it hadn’t been changed—but Sena no longer bleeds.
Caliph has been wrapped up in the myth of his conference, so certain of what is really important. Her destruction of the zeppelins has roused him. She has his full attention now.
The conference baited him out of Isca, it gave her time to inspect the Chamber. But now the ugly moment of the switch has come.
Caliph will do what she knows he will do. His sense of justice will carry him. After all, he is good man. But in order to capitalize on that goodness, she has had to do the unthinkable. She is the Omnispecer. This moment’s arrival was foreseen.
What amplifies her exquisite anguish is that only now does Caliph see her clearly, as she really is.
Sena drags the holojoules toward the Pplarian ship with the only kind of wound she lacks the choice to bear. It feels like her soul is bleeding. There will be no thank-you for destroying Stonehold’s enemies. Already, Caliph’s thoughts are turning on her. She is not surprised, but she is surprised by how it feels to be an outsider, an enemy, the one who caused him pain. She is shocked at how it feels to be mistrusted rather than adored. And yet it is familiar. She has been down this road before.
He will chase her now, to the ends of the world—not because he loves her but for the answer he is seeking. That is both the cruelty and the essential purpose of the thing. She wants to cry but sticks it in her throat. She will not weep in front of Nathaniel. Eventually, she knows, Caliph will have his answer. He will know that her hands were tied.
You look pleased, Nathaniel muses. It is a caustic joke. She cannot imagine her false smile is so convincing. Even if you do need the holojoules, I think you must be reveling in your power. Destroying entire governments, out of sheer egoistic joy?
Rectitudinous joy, Sena corrects him.
Oh? You tire of the politics of men? Poetic. Nathaniel’s tone darkens into his version of a sneer. But I don’t believe you. Why are you coiling their energy? What are you spooling them up—?
You don’t want me to go to Soth? Sena feigns shock. It is a small punch, a jab.
His coldness slides across her chest, her waist, the back of her neck. Sena keeps moving. She steps out of the sky, onto the Pplarian vessel.
Please, Nathaniel mocks. You don’t need a thousand bodies’ worth of blood to go to Soth. You have your colligation …
“Then maybe you’re right.” The holojoules of mass murder have been cached. She has wound them tightly and will hold them just a little while longer. “Maybe I enjoyed it. Maybe it was just for fun. Besides, my colligation is for other things.”
Yes. I wonder what those things might be …
Within the ship, Sena sees a shape moving; a Pplarian is coming out to greet her.
So many secrets, Nathaniel says. At least you’re giving him plenty to read. As I knew you would …
You want him to know about me, don’t you? You want him to understand what a monster I am? I think he already knows. But what’s monstrous about saving my child?
Sena swallows hard because he is so close to the truth. He is on the cusp of understanding everything she is hiding from him. So incredibly close, in fact, that she is terrified to speak.
Caliph Howl is worth killing, Nathaniel says.
“Yes,” she whispers. “But before he gives us everything, I think he deserves to know why.”
Have it your way. The shade manifests its version of a horselaugh. But if he’s going to understand anything you give him, won’t you have to undo what they did to him?
Won’t you have to burn the puslet out?
Sena carefully maintains her emotionless look. “Yes, I will. I’m going to do it with tinctures. The puslet’s sensitive cells won’t survive a single dose.”
He has suggested the very thing she planned.
Interesting. Obviously you want to play spirit guide. Steal some private time? Don’t for an instant think I’m letting you inside his head alone.
* * *
THE Odalisque plunged out of the sky.
It had followed the battle in Sandren carefully. When the witches had taken the High King underground, Sigmund had suggested where the maintenance tunnels might lead. The ship had motored out, away from the flawless’ leaping forms, beyond the edge of the cliff. There, Sigmund had scanned feverishly and when the witches had emerged with Caliph in tow, he had shouted—somewhat drunkenly—and pointed at the tiny platform bolted to the mountain wall.
He had shouted again, in dismay, when the unthinkable had happened and Caliph and the witches had plummeted. They fell like stones wrapped in fabric, clothing flapping madly behind them.
The Odalisque gave chase, descending as fast as it could, not in a vain effort to save them, but in an effort to determine the High King’s fate.
* * *
CALIPH could vaguely recall killing monsters with his sword. Or crayon.
Whatever.
Baufent had hooked him up to a bag of fluid and said something crazy. Then she turned to Sena, who had just walked into the room. While Baufent asked Sena for her professional opinion, Caliph noticed that his mistress had dyed her hair pale pink and put it into ponytail bunches off the back of her head. Her lips shimmered with pastel blue cosmetics and her nurse uniform was black, complete with unlikely gartered stockings. Caliph’s feelings over this did not correspond with the emotions he felt subconsciously floating just out of reach.
Why didn’t they correspond?