"Oiling Goldie. For bug repellent, this stuff isn't too bad. You aren't going to make me change, are you?"

"No. I rather like rosemary and cedar with base notes of griffin." Irene rose and went to ready their horses while Andi checked their supplies.

To Irene's relief, Tulius was about other business, and they were able to make their rounds without disturbance. The lioness with the shallow wound was moving easily, and willingly accepted a treat of drugged meat. Andi's special patient, recipient of the "Varangian goo," was awake and alert, though she had yet to take solid food. Sedating her, they found her wound much better, the swelling and fever reduced. Encouraged by the success, they went to see the Black Beast.

The antechamber door was open, the key to the Black Beast's cell hanging from the inside handle of the door. Irene felt a twinge of anger, knowing this easy access was Tulius's taunt, daring her to defy Theodora.

The Black Beast lifted its head at their entrance, making a soft, curious honk. It rose to its feet and came to the bars, surveying them with large dark eyes. "It's much calmer today," Irene said.

"Tulius isn't here," Andi said. "It remembers us." She knelt by the bars, crooning. "Don't you remember me, Beastie?"

The Black Beast took a step backward, yanking back its head and squeezing its nostrils shut. Irene laughed. "It remembers you all right." Realization touched her, leaving grief where wonder should have been. "Andi, it's intelligent. On some level, it understands what's happening to it." She reached out, gently touching the bars of the cage. "Oh, Beastie, I'm sorry."

The Black Beast looked at Irene, then at Andi. Andi held her hands up, flat, to show that they were empty. The beast came closer, almost mincing, and flared its nostrils wide. It snuffled all around Andi through the bars, even extending a leathery grey tongue to taste her hands. It made a soft croaking noise and puffed, all its scales standing out from its body so that it looked like a quadruped pinecone. Irene, standing to one side, noticed something else. "Andi, you have an admirer."

Andi leaned over and peeked between the Black Beast's legs, then shook her head at the beast. "Trust me, boy, I'm not your type." She did take advantage of the beast's interest by giving him a drugged treat.

The beast gave her an accusing look just before his double eyelids slowly shuttered closed. "I'll change his bandages," Andi offered. Irene just nodded, deep in thought. There was something about the Black Beast, about the way it had responded to Andi, that was teasing at her mind, something terribly important, but the harder she tried to grasp it, the more elusive it became. Andi had to tap her on the shoulder to tell her it was time to leave.

Outside the torchlit gloom of the menagerie, a purple dusk was falling, nightjars stitching the sky with their cries. All the way home, Irene's thoughts went in circles like puppies chasing their tails.

They were on their way back to their quarters from the stable when the dovecote boy caught up to them, his face pale by the light of his lantern. "Mistress Irene. A pigeon came while you were gone. One of the big red ones."

"One of Kerides'," Irene said, hope in her voice. "Do you have the message capsule, Thomas?"

The boy looked down. "I'm sorry, Mistress." He reached out and pressed something into Irene's hand. "This is all there was."

The bit of black ribbon lay in Irene's palm like a snippet of night. "Windwing and Kerides are dead," Irene said, and turned her face to the darkness.

She clawed her way out of sleep, pushing and hitting at the hands that gripped her shoulders. The hands retreated and Irene sat up, aching and sick and dizzy, a flood of lantern light blinding her eyes. She threw her arm up to shield her face.

"Get that damned light off me," she snapped. The light withdrew. Irene squinted, saw the creased face of Anna, one of the gate guards, looking anxiously down at her.

"Mistress Irene, I'm sorry," the woman said. "Your quarters were empty, and the Master of the Menagerie has sent for you in all urgency." She frowned. "He said you would know why."

Irene staggered to her feet. She was in the antechamber of Goldie's aerie, one of Goldie's winter blankets and an empty wine jug tumbled at her feet. Memory came flooding back, and with it a heartache far worse than the ache in her head and body. Windwing and Kerides were dead. She looked over at the hulk of her griffin, was surprised to see her awake, the great eyes reflecting green in the faint rays of lantern light.

"You did well to find me at all, Anna," Irene told the guard, grateful she hadn't gotten drunk enough to try to sleep with Goldie.

Irene went to the water cistern and dunked her head. The cold water revived her. "I have a guess what Tulius wants," she said, mopping her face with the tail of her purple scarf. "Andi wasn't in our quarters?"

Anna, mute with shock, shook her head.

"I'll find Andi," Irene said. "You have horses readied, for yourself and a companion as well. I want an escort."

Irene ran into the courtyard. The night told its hour on her skin. In perhaps two hours the birds would begin their pre-dawn chorus. Except for the guards, the Imperial compound slept.

Irene had a good idea where to find her painfully modest apprentice.

A single lantern glowed in an interior room of the baths. Irene swept in like a thunder squall. "Andi! Out and dressed! Now!"

Andi had been soaking, half asleep in the warm water. The apprentice gasped, floundered wildly for a towel and missed.

"Come on, girl," Irene said sharply. "You haven't got anything I haven't seen in the mirror." She stepped forward, grabbing up the towel. Andi rose from the bath and faced her.

Irene stared. "I take that back."

"Here," she said. She snapped the towel at Andi's offending anatomy. Andi gasped and made a frantic grab and Irene tossed him the rest of the towel. "We'll discuss that later," she said. "Get dressed. We're needed at the menagerie."

Andi scrambled into his tunic-high-necked to cover the Adam's apple in his throat, extra padding to suggest small breasts where none existed. As Andi yanked the garment into place, Irene grasped him by the arm. "What did you do to the Black Beast?"

Andi met her eyes. "I poisoned him."

The Black Beast lay on his side, panting, tongue rolling swollen and grey from the gaping beak. The glossy scales were dulled, and rustled like a fall of dry leaves with the creature's labored breathing. His injured hind leg was swollen and hot, the bandage crusted yellow.

"What did you do to my Beast?" Tulius raged, following them into the cell. Irene spun on her heel. Her calloused palm struck out, with all her considerable strength behind it. Tulius staggered back, wheezing as he tried to pull air back into his diaphragm. "Shut up!" Irene shouted, stalking after him, stiffened fingers jabbing repeatedly at his chest. "The Empress said the Black Beast was yours-unless the circumstances changed. Well, for now, they have changed. The Black Beast is sick, and sick animals are mine." She snapped her head towards Anna and Catullus, waiting just outside the door. "Get a transport wagon. This animal is too ill to remain here. We're moving it to the Imperial Mews. And while you're at it," she added, indicating Tulius with a thrust of her chin, "get that… person… out of here so we can work."

Tulius, still wheezing, turned an even darker red, but was not prepared to argue with the two armed and determined palace guards. Catullus hustled Tulius away, and Anna pulled the cedar door closed, leaving Irene and Andi alone with the Beast.