Suddenly she pulled her hand from the Queen's and stood back, knowing the trap.

Knowing she was caught in it.

Sia was silent. The empty chatter was gone. They faced each other.

Then the Queen smiled. "You will not need to be warned, I'm sure, Claudia. John Arlex's daughter will be well trained, but I suppose it won't hurt to tell you that many of the mirrors are double sided and the listening devices all over the Palace are most efficient." She stepped closer. "You see, I have heard you were recently a little curious about dear lost

Giles."

Claudia kept her face perfectly composed, but her hands were icy. She glanced down.

"I've thought about him. If things had been different..."

"Yes. And we were all devastated by his death. But even if the Havaarna Dynasty is over, the Realm must be governed. And I have no doubt, Claudia, that you will do it very well."

"Me?"

"Of course." The Queen turned and sat elegantly on a gilt chair. "Surely you know Caspar is incapable even of ruling himself? Come and sit here, my sweet. Let me advise you."

Surprise was freezing her. She sat.

The Queen leaned forward, her red lips making a coy smile. "Now, your life here can be a very pleasant one. Caspar is a child—let him have his toys, horses, palaces, girls, and he will make no trouble. I have made quite sure he knows nothing about politics. He gets bored so easily! You and I can have such a pleasant time, Claudia. You have no idea how tiresome It gets with just these men."

Claudia stared at her hands. Was this real, any of it? How much of it was the game?

"I thought..."

"That I hated you?" The Queen's giggle was girlish. "I need you, Claudia! We can rule together, and you'll be so good at it! And your father will smile his grave smile. So." Her small hands tapped Claudia's. "No more sad thoughts about Giles. He's in a better place, my dear."

Slowly, she nodded and stood, and the Queen stood too, with a rustle of silk.

"There's just one thing."

One hand on the door, Sia turned. "Yes?"

"Jared Sapiens. My tutor. I ..."

"You won't need a tutor. I can teach you everything now."

"I want him to stay." She said it firmly.

The Queen stared straight back. "He's young for a Sapient. I don't know what your father was thinking of..."

"He will stay." She made sure it was a statement, not a question.

The Queen's red lips twitched. Her smile was pleasant. "Whatever you say, my sweet.

Whatever you want."

JARED PLACED the scanner on the door frame, opened the tiny casement, and sat on the bed. The room was sparse, as perhaps the Court thought a Sapient's cell should be, with wooden floorboards and dark paneling topped with trefoils and crude roses.

It smelled of rushes and damp, and seemed bare enough, but he had already removed two small listening devices and there might be others. Still, he had to take the chance.

He took out the Key and held it, activating the speechlink.

Nothing but darkness.

He touched it again, concerned: The darkness grew to a wide circle but remained dark.

Then, very faintly, he saw the edge of a crouching figure in it. "We can't talk," it whispered.

"Not now."

"Then listen." Jared kept his voice low. "This may help. A combination of two, four, three, one on the touch panel produces a dampening field. Any surveillance system will lose track of you, completely. You'll disappear from its scanners. Do you understand, that?"

"I'm not stupid." Keiro's scornful whisper barely came through.

"Have you found Finn?"

Nothing. They'd switched off.

Jared linked his fingers and swore softly in the Sapient tongue. Outside the window, the voices of people rose up, some fiddlers in the distant gardens scraping a jig.

There would be dancing tonight to welcome the bride of the Heir.

And yet if the old man Bartlett had been right, the real Heir was still alive, and Claudia was convinced it was this boy Finn. Jared shook his head, unfastening the collar of his coat with long fingers. She wanted it so much. His doubts would have to stay silent, because without this hope, she would have nothing. And after all, it was possible, just possible, that her instinct was right. "wearily, he leaned back against the stiff bolster, took the medication pouch from his pocket, and prepared the dose. It was three grains stronger now, and had been for the last week, but the pain that lived deep in his body seemed still to grow slowly, like a living thing; he sometimes thought that it devoured the drug, that he was feeding its appetite.

He applied the syringe, frowning. These were morbid and foolish ideas.

But when he lay back and slept, he dreamed for a moment that an eye, scarlet as galaxies, had opened in the wall and looked at him.

FINN WAS desperate; he held the ring high. "Take it and let us

The Eye zoomed in, examined it closely. "Do you believe this object is of some value? "

"It contains a life. Trapped inside."

"How apposite. As all your lives are trapped inside me."

He was shivering. Surely if Keiro was listening, he would act now. If he was here.

Gildas understood. He must have, because he snapped loudly, "Take it! let us go."

"As I took Tribute from Sapphique? As I took this?" In the clotted hide of the Beast a glimmer of light opened; they saw a tiny frail bone, embedded deep.

Gildas murmured a prayer of awe.

"How small it is!" The Beast considered it. "And yet how much pain it cost Let me see this trapped life."

It slid the tendril closer. Finn gripped the ring in his fist, his sweat making it slippery. Then he opened his hand.

At once, the Eye blinked. It widened, contracted, stared around. From the Beast's throat a whisper slid like oil, a puzzled, fascinated demand.

"How did you do that? Where are you?"

A hand clamped over Finn's mouth; as he convulsed around he saw Attia, one finger on her lips in warning. Behind her Keiro stood, the Key held tight in one hand, a flamethrower in the other.

"You are invisible!" The Beast sounded appalled. "This isn't possible!"

A mass of tentacles streamed out from it, groping formations of tiny spiders sticky with thread. Finn stumbled back.

Keiro shouldered the flamethrower. "If you want us," he said calmly, "here we are."

A burst of flame roared across Finn; the Beast howled with rage. In an instant the cavern was an explosion of panicking, screeching birds and bees and bats released from shape and order; they arced and flapped and spiraled high into the cavern roof, beating themselves senselessly against rock.

Keiro whooped with delight. He fired again, a burst of yellow flame, and the Beast was a clattering cascade of fragments, of scorched skin and tumbling rock, its red Eye nothing but a tiny explosion of gnats that split in frenzied fear.

The flames sizzled, hit walls, and rebounded in sudden heat. "Leave it!" Finn yelled. "Let's get out!"

But the roof and floor were tilting, the crack closing around them.

"I may not be able to see you, "the Prison remarked acidly through the uproar, "but you re in here, and I will hold you tight, my son."

Back to back it forced them together, spiraling in, the cave walls falling, slabs of the roof crashing down. Finn grabbed for Attia's hand in the chaos. "Stay together!"

"Finn." Gildas's voice was choked. "In the wall. Up there."