Sarantine Fire did bad things to men, even when they survived it.

The father had been killed. A cousin too, Crispin seemed to recall. Lecanus Daleinus had lived. After a fashion. Looking at the blind man before him, at the burned-away ruin of what had been his face, the charred, maimed hands, imagining the burned body beneath the nondescript brown tunic, Crispin wondered, truly, how this man was still alive, and why, what purpose, desire, need could possibly have kept him from ending his own life long ago. He didn't think it was piety. There was no least hint of the god here. Of any god at all.

Then he remembered what Alixana had said, and he thought he knew. Hatred could be a purpose, vengeance a need. A deity, almost.

He was working hard not to be physically ill. He closed his eyes.

And in that moment he heard Styliane Daleina, icy-cool, patrician, utterly unmoved by her brother's appearance, murmur from beside him, "You smell, brother. The room smells. I know they give you water and a basin. Show some respect for yourself and use it."

Crispin, his jaw dropping, opened his eyes and wheeled to look at her.

He saw the Empress of Sarantium, standing as straight as she could, to be nearer the height of the other woman. And he heard her speak again, the voice and tone and manner terrifyingly precise, unnervingly identical. "I have told you this before. You are a Daleinus. Even if no one sees or knows, you must know it or you shame our blood."

The hideous, appalling face on the couch moved. It was impossible to decipher what expression that melted ruin was attempting. The eyes were hollow, blackened, gone. The nose was a smear, and made that whistling sound when the man breathed. Crispin kept silent, swallowing hard.

"So… sorry… sister," the blind man said. The words were slow, badly garbled, but intelligible. "I disappoint… you dear… sister. I will weep."

"You can't weep. But you can have this place cleaned and aired and I expect you to do so." If Crispin had closed his eyes he'd have sworn to holy jad and all the Blessed Victims that Styliane was here, arrogant, contemptuous, fierce in her intelligence and pride. The actress she had named Alixana, among other things.

And now he knew why the Empress came here and why there was so much strain in her face.

There is someone I want to see before the army sails.

She was afraid of this man. Was coming only for Valerius, despite her fear, to see what he might be plotting here with the life they'd granted him. But this sightless, noseless figure was alone, isolated, not even his sister coming any more-only this flawless, chilling imitation of Styliane, seeking to draw a revelation from him. Was this a man to be feared in the present day, or just a guilt, a haunting in the soul from long ago?

There came a sound from the couch, from the almost unbearable figure. And a moment later Crispin realized he was hearing laughter. The sound made him think of something slithering over broken glass.

"Come. Sister," said Lecanus Daleinus, once heir to an extravagantly patrician lineage and an inconceivable fortune. "No… time! Undress! Let me… touch! Hurry!"

Crispin closed his eyes again.

'Good, good!" came a third voice, shockingly. In his head. 'She hates that. Doesn't know what to believe. There's someone here with her. Red hair. No idea who. You're making him feel ill. You are so hideous! The whore's looking at him now.

Crispin felt the world rock and sway like a ship hit hard by a wave. He pressed his hands hard against the wall behind him. Looked around wildly.

Saw the bird, almost immediately, on the window ledge.

I don't know why she's here today! How can I answer that? Keep calm. She may only be anxious. She may-

Alixana laughed aloud. Again the illusion was frightening. It was another woman's laughter, not her own. Crispin remembered Styliane in her own bedchamber, the low, sardonic sound of her amusement, identical to this. "You are disgusting, by choice," the Empress said. "A comic version of yourself, like some cheap pantomime figure. Have you nothing better to offer or ask than a grope in your darkness?"

"What else could I… possibly… offer you, dear sister? Wife of the Supreme Strategos. Did he please… you last night? In your dark? Did someone else? Oh, tell me! Tell!" The voice, through the whistling sound, was laboured, broken, as if the sounds were crawling up from some labyrinthine half-blocked tunnel leading down to things below the earth.

'Good!" Crispin heard again, in the silence of the half-world. "I think I'm right. She's just checking on you. The war coming. This is an accident. She's only worried. You'd be pleased-she looks wretched, used by slaves. Old!

Fighting nausea, Crispin stayed where he was, his breathing carefully shallow, though there was no actual secret to his presence now. His mind was in a desperate whirl. Out of the chaos, a question spun free and he reached for it: how did this man and his creature know, here, about the war?

There was something ugly at work here. This bird was like none he had yet known or heard. The inner voice wasn't that of Zoticus's creations. This bird soul spoke in a woman's voice, bitter and hard, from beyond Bassania: Ispahani or Ajbar or lands whose names he did not know. It was dark in hue, small as Linon, but not like Linon at all.

He remembered that the Daleinoi had made their fortune with a monopoly on the spice trade to the east. He looked at the man on the couch, burned so terribly, turned into this horror, and again the thought came to him: how is he alive?

And again the same answer came and he was afraid.

'I know," said the bird abruptly, replying to something. 'I know! I know! I know!" And what Crispin heard now in the low, harsh voice was exultation, fierce as a blaze.

"I take no delight," the Empress said, all ice and edge like Styliane, "in any of this, and see no reason to attend to your pleasures. I prefer my own, brother. I'm here to ask if there's anything you need… immediately." She left an emphasis on the last word. "You might recall, dear brother, that they leave us alone for only a little while."

"Of course I… recall. That is why you are cruel… to be dressed… still. Little sister, come closer… and tell me. Tell me… how did he… take you, last night?"

Stomach churning, Crispin saw the ruined man's hand, gnarled like a claw, reach under his own tunic to his groin. And he heard the inward laughter of the eastern bird.

Think of your father," said Alixana. "And of your ancestors. If this is all you are now, brother, I shall not return. Consider it, Lecanus. I warned you last time. I'm going to take a walk now and a meal in sunlight on the island. I will come back before I sail. When I do, if this is what you are, still, I will have no more time for this journey and will not return."

"Oh! Oh!" wheezed the man on the couch. "I am desolate! I have… shamed my dear sister. Our innocent… fair child."

Crispin saw Alixana bite her lip, staring at the figure before her as if her gaze could probe his depths. She couldn't know, Crispin thought. She couldn't know why her immaculate, brilliant deception was being so effortlessly defeated. But she sensed it was being foiled, somehow, that Lecanus was playing with her, and perhaps that was why she feared this room so much. And why she still came.

She said nothing more, walked from the room and the house, head high, shoulders straight, as before. An actress, an Empress, proud as some goddess of the ancient pantheon, betraying nothing, unless you looked very, very closely.

Crispin followed, the laughter of the bird drilling in his head. Just as he came into the sunshine, closing his eyes, temporarily blind, he heard, 'I want to be there! Lecanus, I want us to be there!