The reason for that, Ekaterin realized with a blurred blink, was that it was blood. Conscious melodrama on Miles's part, or unthinking routine? She had not the slightest doubt that he was perfectly capable of melodrama. In fact, she was beginning to suspect he reveled in it, when he got the chance. But the horrible conviction grew on her, staring at the smear and imagining him pricking his thumb and applying it, that for him it had been as natural and original as breathing. She bet he even owned one of those daggers with the seal concealed in the hilt for the purpose, which the high lords had used to wear. One could buy imitation reproductions of them in antique and souvenir shops, with soft and blunted metal blades because nobody ever actually nicked themselves anymore to testify in blood. Genuine seal daggers with provenance from the Time of Isolation, on the rare occasions when they appeared on the market, were bid up to tens and hundreds of thousands of marks.

Miles probably used his for a letter opener, or to clean under his fingernails.

And when and how had he ever hijacked a ship? She was unreasonably certain he hadn't plucked that comparison out of the air.

A helpless puff of a laugh escaped her lips. If she ever saw him again, she would say, People who've been in Covert Ops shouldn't write letters while high on fast-penta .

Though if he really was suffering a virulent outbreak of truthfulness, what about that part that started, I love you ? She turned the letter over, and read that bit again. Four times. The tense, square, distinctive letters seemed to waver before her eyes.

Something was missing, though, she realized as she read the letter through one more time. Confession was there in plenty, but nowhere was any plea for forgiveness, absolution, penance, or any begging to call or see her again. No entreaty that she respond in any way. It was very strange, that stopping-short. What did it mean? If this was some sort of odd ImpSec code, well, she didn't own the cipher.

Maybe he didn't ask for forgiveness because he didn't expect it was possible to receive it. That seemed a cold, dry place to be left standing. . . . Or was he just too bleakly arrogant to beg? Pride, or despair? Which? Though she supposed it could be both—On sale now , her mind supplied, this week only, two sins for the price of one! That . . . that sounded very Miles , somehow.

She thought back over her old, bitter domestic arguments with Tien. How she had hated that awful dance between break and rejoining, how many times she had short-circuited it. If you were going to forgive each other eventually, why not do it now and save days of stomach-churning tension? Straight from sin to forgiveness, without going through any of the middle steps of repentance and restitution. . . . Just go on, just do it. But they hadn't gone on, much. They'd always seemed to circle back to the start-point again. Maybe that was why the chaos had always seemed to replay in an endless loop. Maybe they hadn't learned enough, when they'd left out the hard middle parts.

When you'd made a real mistake, how did you continue? How to go on rightly from the bad place where you found yourself, on and not back again? Because there was never really any going back. Time erased the path behind your heels.

Anyway, she didn't want to go back. Didn't want to know less, didn't want to be smaller. She didn't wish these words unsaid—her hand clutched the letter spasmodically to her chest, then carefully flattened out the creases against the tabletop. She just wanted the pain to stop.

The next time she saw him, did she have to answer his disastrous question? Or at least, know what the answer was? Was there another way to say I forgive you short of Yes, forever , some third place to stand? She desperately wanted a third place to stand right now.

I can't answer this right away. I just can't.

Butter bugs. She could do butter bugs, anyway—

The sound of her aunt's voice, calling her name, shattered the spinning circle of Ekaterin's thoughts. Her uncle and aunt must be back from their dinner out. Hastily, she stuffed the letter back in its envelope and hid it again in her bolero, and scrubbed her hands over her eyes. She tried to fit an expression, any expression, onto her face. They all felt like masks.

"Coming, Aunt Vorthys," she called, and rose to collect her trowel, carry the weeds to the compost, and go into the house.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The door-chime to his apartment rang as Ivan was alternating between slurping his first cup of coffee of the morning and fastening his uniform shirtsleeves. Company, at this hour? His brows rose in puzzlement and some curiosity, and he trod to the entryway to answer its summons.

He was yawning behind his hand as the door slid back to reveal Byerly Vorrutyer, and so he was too slow to hit the Close pad again before By got his leg through. The safety sensor, alas, brought the door to a halt rather than crushing By's foot. Ivan was briefly sorry the door was edged with rounded rubber instead of, say, a honed razor-steel flange.

"Good morning, Ivan," drawled By through the shoe-wide gap.

"What the hell are you doing up so early?" Ivan asked suspiciously.

"So late," said By, with a small smile.

Well, that made a little more sense. Upon closer examination, By was looking a bit seedy, with a beard shadow and red-rimmed eyes. Ivan said firmly, "I don't want to hear any more about your cousin Dono. Go away."

"Actually, this is about your cousin Miles."

Ivan eyed his ceremonial dress sword, sitting nearby in an umbrella canister made from an old-fashioned artillery shell. He wondered if driving it down on By's shod foot hard enough to make him recoil would allow getting the door shut and locked again. But the canister was just out of reach from the doorway. "I don't want to hear anything about my cousin Miles, either."

"It's something I judge he needs to know."

"Fine. You go tell him, then."

"I . . . would really rather not, all things considered."

Ivan's finely tuned shit-detectors began to blink red, in some corner of his brain usually not active at this hour. "Oh? What things?"

"Oh, you know . . . delicacy . . . consideration . . . family feeling . . ."

Ivan made a rude noise through his lips.

" . . . the fact that he controls a valuable vote in the Council of Counts . . ." By went on serenely.

"It's my Uncle Aral's vote Dono is after," Ivan pointed out. "Technically. He arrived back in Vorbarr Sultana four nights ago. Go hustle him." If you dare.

By bared his teeth in a pained smile. "Yes, Dono told me all about the Viceroy's grand entrance, and the assorted grand exits. I don't know how you managed to escape the wreckage unscathed."

"Had Armsman Roic let me out the back door," said Ivan shortly.

"Ah, I see. Very prudent, no doubt. But in any case, Count Vorkosigan has made it quite well known that he leaves his proxy to his son's discretion in nine votes out of ten."

"That's his business. Not mine."

"Do you have any more of that coffee?" By eyed the cup in his hand longingly.

"No," Ivan lied.

"Then perhaps you would be so kind as to make me some more. Come, Ivan, I appeal to your common humanity. It's been a very long and tedious night."

"I'm sure you can find someplace open in Vorbarr Sultana to sell you coffee. On your way home." Maybe he wouldn't leave the sword in its scabbard . . .

By sighed, and leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms as if for a lengthy chat. His foot stayed planted. "Whathave you heard from your cousin the Lord Auditor in the last few days?"