One voice in particular almost sang with happiness. "I can't believe I'm really going to have a baby at last."

"Yes, yes, my dear." The calm tones of a healer. "Just follow the diet I've given you and come back in a month to let me Read you again."

The two women were walking down the hall behind where Lenardo sat, the healer escorting her nonReader patient through the maze of hallways. "We've been trying so hard to have a child, and when my flux began yesterday-"

"Ah, but it stopped again," replied the healer. "That happens sometimes. Everything is perfectly normal, Celia. Stop worrying and tell your husband the happy news."

They parted, with Celia going on her way and the healer walking back along the hallway, still not noticing Lenardo. He felt a wistful envy of Celia's happiness. As nonReaders, she and her husband could love their child, raise it to adulthood. The chance that it would be a Reader and be taken from them was so small that it would probably never cross their minds to cloud their joy.

A little girl in a pink dress came into the courtyard from the other side and quickly spotted him. "Are you Lenardo?"

He jumped up. "Yes."

"Master Portia asks you to come to her study."

He Read them long before he got there: Portia behind her desk, a portrait of implacable anger; Julia standing by the door, chin jutted defiantly, arms folded across her chest, clutching something in one hand.

When he entered, Portia said, "I could not contact you."

"I stopped Reading so that I would not intrude on you."

"At least you have not forgotten courtesy yourself, even if you have failed to instill it in your daughter."

He turned to the child. "Julia, what have you done?"

"She insulted you, Father. She said you were corrupt, defiled-"

He knelt down. "Julia, you know I have broken with the Code-"

"Then the Code is wrong. It's wicked! And she is wicked. She wants me to break loyalty to my liege lord."

Lenardo fought to remain calm. "Master Portia, you must understand that Julia is trying to cope with a whole new set of values. What she has known all her life-"

"Lenardo," Portia interrupted. "I would know how the child came to consider your her liege lord."

He rose to face her. "I have told you. The title is the only one the savages recognize, given to me because of my Reading powers. I made the error of thinking we could trust some of the Lords Adept, those not intent on destroying us. I was wrong. Instead of killing us, they would use us, which is worse than death. That is why I have returned and taken Julia out of their power."

Portia studied him, and he could feel her attempt to Read how truthful he was. "We shall see. It will take longer than I thought to gather the Council of Masters. We have many obligations, Lenardo. I want to be certain that all the most powerful Readers are present to examine you. Meanwhile, I do not want this child contaminating the girls here. Take her with you. No more harm can be done than has been already. We will decide what to do with her after your fate has been decided."

Leaving Julia with Lenardo meant that he could always be found through the child. He noted the ploy sardonically. If he did want to escape, he had no place to go. And when the Council of Masters examined him under Oath of Truth, they would find that he was no danger to them.

Julia trudged beside Lenardo through the city streets, lost in her own thoughts. Finally she accused him. "You wanted to leave me in that place."

"Julia, I have told you ever since we met that I want you to be properly trained in an Academy. I had hoped it would be Portia's, but it appears she will send you elsewhere."

"Where will you be?"

"Wherever I am assigned. It is hard, Julia, I know, but it is necessary for Readers to be trained in Academies. All the girls you saw or Read today have had to leave their families."

"So they'll forget their loyalties," Julia said through angry tears. "They don't have to kill the parents the way Lords Adept do when they take a child as apprentice. Here the parents just walk away."

As your mother did, Lenardo remembered. Ignoring the crowds passing in the busy streets, he knelt and looked into the girl's eyes. "Julia, I do not want to walk away from you. I love you very much, and I should have told you more. If you can trust me until we get back to the inn, I will explain everything."

But the explanations rang hollow in Lenardo's own ears. "The Academy is the only place you can live safely, Julia. I want to keep you, but I cannot. In the savage lands, we are prey to the whims of the Adepts."

"Not if we learn Adept powers," she pointed out.

"That is not possible, Julia, and even if it were, what would it mean? More power struggles, more wars. Haven't you seen enough battles in your short life?"

"Power must be demonstrated," she replied. "You were a great lord, Father. You used your powers foj the good of your people. You made allies to protect them from powerful enemies. You took an apprentice so that someone trained in your ways would rule after you."

"Oh, Julia," he whispered, "can't you see how wrong I was to do all those things?"

"No, but I know why you think so. The Readers' Code is all about not using power. Don't Read to gain wealth. Don't Read to destroy your enemies. Never help yourself, only the government-but a Reader can't be in the government. Father, you say Adepts chain people's minds, but it's your mind that's chained-by the Readers' Code. They took you when you were a little boy and made you afraid to use your powers."

"Julia-"

"You want me to be afraid, too, but I won't be. You want to get rid of me-"

"No!"

"Because you're scared of my powers. Portia's scared of me and of you. You disobeyed her. She's going to kill you for that, Father."

"Julia, you don't understand. We are not savages here."

"Portia is. Only she's not honest like Aradia or Wulfston." Julia held out the object she had been clutching ever since they had left Portia's office. "She gave me this scroll. The Readers' Code. It's new, but it was on Portia's desk. She handled it. Do you want to know its story, Father?"

"No." But he was lying, and Julia knew it. "A senator came in a few days ago. He wanted to know about some merchant ships. He offered Portia money to Read another man for him. She wouldn't do it."

"You see," said Lenardo in relief. "She wouldn't be bribed."

"She didn't want money," Julia continued. "She wanted him to vote against building a new Academy for boys." "What?"

Julia concentrated, her voice and vocabulary taking on echoes of what she Read. "Portia is afraid of… Master Clement. An old man, respected, honest. She thinks him foolish… dangerous. And the boys he has trained. That's your Academy, isn't it, Father?" "Yes." He was too stunned to say more. "Portia wants the Senate to break up the Academy, retire Master Clement, and distribute the boys among other Academies. The teachers, too. One older boy she fears… Torio. She dares not try to win him over, and so she will make him fail his examinations. Father, what is the Sign of the Dark Moon?"

"The badge of failed Readers: a black circle on white." Julia frowned. "I don't understand. When Portia thinks of Torio, she thinks of that and of a saying, 'When the moon devours the sun, the earth will devour Tiberium.' " "I don't understand either, child. Perhaps she is becoming confused with age."

"Father, she already controls more than half the Council of Masters." The child's voice took on a weird echo of Portia's. "By influencing powerful nonReaders, these Masters control the Aventine Empire. It's always been-the Master Readers must control the Senate or the people will destroy them out of fear."

Julia dropped the scroll on the bedside chest, coming out of her semitrance. The adult pose and language disappeared, and she was a little girl again, helpless and frightened. "You want to give me to that woman. She'll kill me. She'll kill you, Father."