And God help him, Toby had immediately taken up with Barbc with his brother’s old near-fianceec if you asked Barb about their relationship. He’d been trying his best to shed Barb. Barb had immediately flung herself into one bad marriage, then gotten out of that and straightway moved in on theirmother, taken care of her in her last illnessc

And who had shown up regularly at that same bedside, if not the ever-dutiful if not the favorite son? Toby. Toby, who’d worked all his life for the kind of recognition their mother lavished on her absent son the paidhi-aijic and never, to his knowledge, got a shred of thanks.

Barb had lost no time. Moved right in on Toby while Toby was visiting their mother in the hospital. Mum had died, Jill had left Toby, and—oh, yes—there was Barb, as fast as decency possibly allowed, moving right onto Toby’s boatc just helping out.

Well, Toby could use a hand on the boat, that was sure. It was safer sailing, with two of them: hand Barb that.

So he could worry less about Toby, knowing he had somebody with him, in bad weather and the lonely stretches of water where he persisted in sailingc sometimes on covert business for the Mospheiran government.

Just so Barb stayed with him. That was all he asked. He forgave her everything, if she’d stay with Toby, so Toby had somebody.

The bus passed the village, took the curve, and his own land spread out across the windows, the sinking sun just touching the bay in the distance, spreading gold across the water. The red tile roofs and limestone walls of Najida estate showed from the height, a mazy collection of courtyards traditional in the west coast provinces; and at the bottom of its landscaped terraces, two yachts rode with sails furled, one at anchor—his own Jeishan— Northwind—that he hadn’t seen in more than three years, riding at anchor; and, tied up to the estate’s little wooden pier, Toby’s slightly larger Brighter Days, that he’d last seen when Toby had let his party off ashore on the mainland, well north of here.

It was a cheerful sight. Banichi and Jago had noted it, he was sure, and he suddenly realized he hadn’t said a word to them since they’d left the train.

“Toby’s boat,” he said.

“Yes,” Banichi said, the obvious, and Jago: “It shows no activity.”

Meaning Toby and Barb must surely be up at the house by now, which was where their bus and the trailing truck were going—directly so, now that they made the turn from the main road to the estate drive, a modest little track lined by old weathered evergreens, the sort of seaside scrub that, aged as it was, never grew much larger than he stood tall, all twisted shapes and dark spikes in the waning light.

Lamps glowed at the portico, a warm, welcoming light for them at the edge of twilight, showing the flagstone porch—his own porch, a place he’d rarely been, but been often enough to love in every detail.

The bus pulled to a stop. Banichi and Jago got up in the last moment of braking, got to the door as it opened, and were first on the ground. He followed, down the atevi-scale steps, and onto the stone drive, up the walk, as Ramaso and the staff poured off the bus behind him and other staff came out of the open doors to welcome him. The house staff bowed. He bowed, and when he lifted his head there was Toby in the open doorway, with Barb behind him.

“Toby,” he said, and was halfway embarrassed by old habit, the impulse to open his arms, as Toby did—and there was Toby oncoming, and nothing to do: Toby embraced him; he, with no choice, embraced Toby, a little distressed. Toby slapped him on the back, and, hell, he did the same with Toby, stood him back and had a look at him, grinning. “Missed you,” Toby said.

“ Missedme! Hell! Worriedabout you, damn it, when you dropped out of contact after you dropped us off.”

“ Youworried! Youwere the one getting shot at!”

“I was safe enough,” he said, with a nod over his shoulder toward Banichi and Jago. “ Theymake me keep my head down.” The reserve he cultivated was deserting him. Staff had seen it before. Hell, he said to himself, there was no teaching Toby differently. He had stood back enough to look at Toby. Toby’s face was getting sun-lines that showed plainly in the lamplight: his wasn’t. Toby lived in the sun and the weather. He rarely saw the out of doors and took care of his skin with lotions. Time passed. Things changed. They both grew older. Further apart. But now was now. “Missed you,” he said.

“Mutual,” Toby said. And despite everything, all the water under that bridge—it was probably still true.

He truly hoped that Barb wouldn’t move in for her turn, but she did: a public hug that had more warmth in it than the one he returned.

A woman, his brother’s lover, and in public: it was far more of a scandal to the staff than the human habit of embracing brothers, but there it was, and he treated it as natural, if only for the benefit of his watching staff and bodyguard. More to the point, he feltJago’s gaze on his back in that moment, and set Barb firmly back at arms’ length, seeing the faint traces of weather on her face as well. “You’re looking good,” he said. “The sea agrees with you.”

“You never change,” she said.

That meant several things, and he knew which. His perfunctory smile had an edge—just like the statement.

“Nice to know.” He let Barb go and said, to Ramaso, “Thank you, nadi, and thank the staff, for your welcome to my Mospheiran household, and to me.”

“Indeed, nandi.” The worthy gentleman bowed. “The kitchen has a supper ready, at the lord’s pleasure, rooms are ready, and water is hot.”

Supper, or rest, or a hot bath. Every possibility.

But cooks could hardly be disrespected. And the truck had pulled around to the garden gate, where Tano and Algini were busy supervising the offloading of baggage and belongings. “One will visit the room, wash, and enjoy a leisurely supper, nadi-ji,” he said quietly to Ramaso, and to Toby and Barb: “Wash up and dinner, forthwith. I’ll see you at table.”

“Right,” Toby said.

The south room, Ramaso had said, which was actually a small suite, but with only one bedroom. The staff had lodged his family before. And someone had found a way to ask, apparently, about bedrooms—that, or staff had been unable to dislodge Barb from Toby’s arm.

The brother of the paidhi-aiji and the paidhi-aiji’s former lover, together under the paidhi’s roof. Atevi did readily comprehend political realignments. And knew how to accept them without comment.

“Tano and Algini have gone the back way, nandi,” Banichi said as they reached the door of his room— hisroom, indisputably his, and when he opened the doorc

He knew that carpet. He knew that vase on the peculiarly carved table. That bed. That coverlet.

They were from his apartment in the Bujavid. He had known that staff had rescued significant items of his furnishings and gotten them out by train. And there they were, his bedroom, reconstituted just as it had been. He was quite amazed.

They didn’t enter alone. Domestic staff arrived to take his traveling coat, and to supervise the arrival of his personal luggage, followed by more staff, who set things in the hall of his two-room suite. Banichi and Jago directed matters while Bren changed his shirt and coat—or changed it with the help of two of the staff who deftly assisted him with the lace cuffs and the collar: staff he knew, staff who’d been his for years: Koharu and Supani, who’d grown at least half a hand while he’d been gone and, gangly young men that they both were, grinned like fools and kept bowing, delighted as they could be. He felt—

Comfortable, finally. Truly home, truly safe. Even his bodyguard let these people come and go in confidence, and let this staff arrange his wardrobe in the rooms allotted to them. Banichi and Jago, Tano and Algini officially shared quarters just down the hall—though Jago would likely not sleep there.