Chapter Thirty Eight: It's Easy to Fall


You knew what was going to happen, didn't you?
You knew I was slowly falling in love with you.

- Steve Appleby


Liara had not expected to dream of Mordred that night, and yet she had: for a moment, she hadn't quite recognised him, thinking that perhaps she was looking at some kind of twisted dream-form of Täj – but there was no mistaking the arrogance in the way that her oldest friend held himself, the cruel turn to his mouth, the sharpness in the way he looked at her. Each of his gazes was a promise; sometimes Liara felt like she was the only one who could discern exactly to what it swore. At first she wasn't sure if it was a dream or a memory, so finely sketched the details: they were in the music room at the palace, Mordred's head bent over the ivory-keyed piano which occupied the western wall, the window overlooking the rose-garden painted violet-and-scarlet by some faraway sunset more colour than heat.

The tune that her king was tapping out gently upon the keys had been the first thing to draw her into the dream; it felt like waking up to a soft-spoken lullaby. And yet it was shapeless; she could put no name on it, and she suspected that there was no name that could be put to it. Mordred always did this: she had lost track of the number of times that she had wandered into the music room in search of him, to complain about some event her mother had dragged her to or about Bryce's latest sin, and found him playing music without title or tune. He was no great composer; she had always told him that he should take it as a relief that he had a job guaranteed, given his manifest lack of talent in all areas other than royal governance. She didn't think he had ever taken her seriously – he usually just played louder.

He seemed inclined to do the same now, and she didn't stop him. Was this a memory? No, she thought – she was wearing the black garment that she had worn to Enhle's ball, her midriff bared by the two-piece structure of the piece, her hair worn loose around her shoulders as she rarely would at court. She didn't feel like the girl she had been; she felt like Liara-after-Selection, not Liara-before. And he… he looked exhausted. She wanted to reach for him, to touch him, to reassure herself, but some fear beyond name arrested her arm at her side, utterly unable to move. She was afraid, she thought, she was afraid to find that her hand passed through him, that he would be cold to the touch, that he would be anything other than the living, smiling, arrogant man that she had known and loved for all of the life that she could remember. She was afraid, and that was so unlike Liara that it nearly woke her, then and there.

But no – she stayed steeped in it, whatever this quasi-memory was, and just watched the way his long pale fingers moved across the keys, producing a slightly discordant melody. It jarred. Mordred said, without looking at her, "Pokusheniye." Assassination attempt. More Russian. Vardi Tayna had resorted to the tongue when frustrated or drunk, often whole sentences of it that had Raphael chiding her for rudeness. It sounded harsh when Vardi spoke it, like she had learned a half-formed variant of some Siberian dialect, but when Täj broke into the same language it always sounded so… melodious, softer than his voice in English, somehow sweeter. When Mordred spoke, however, he sounded precisely as he did in English - strikingly, achingly familiar. "Pokusheniye." Assassination attempt.

Liara's voice didn't quite sound like her own when she said, "attempt." She clung to that word; she had to. What other choice did she have? The thought of the alternative was overwhelming; someone could have told her that the world was ending, and she would have accepted it more gratefully as truth. Someone could have told her that she was dying, and she would have been happier. "Just an attempt."

"You loved him." He said it softly, and Liara thought, those are not his words. He was just repeating to her the phrases of another, like she needed to hear these sentences from him before she could hope to understand them. Him? Demetri? Without a doubt – childhood friends that they had been – and had come here hoping to love him again only to find shadows where she had expected light. He wasn't himself, she thought, and it went deeper than the obvious reality of life on the run, life among the rebels, life as the King of Dust. She remembered sitting with him in the cockpit on their way to the Federation and lying to him, through her teeth, about the boy that he had been – and he had agreed, blithely, smiling. He had forgotten. Had he ever known? Again, the alternative seemed unthinkable. In this dream, at least, Liara was reprieved from thinking it. She couldn't quite draw her thoughts together; the notes produced by each touch of Mordred's fingers to the keys seemed to shudder apart her thoughts, separating them at the seams. He was unapologetic about it, and playing louder now;

He said, "are you in love with him?", and when she looked at him, he was no longer Mordred, if he ever truly had been, and not, as she had half-expected, Demetri. It was Täj, and Liara woke with the image of his green eyes frozen in her mind, her heart cold in her chest.

There was movement in the hallway outside; she seemed to wake thus frequently. Would they ever have a quiet day in this Selection? She didn't think she would trust it if they did. After a moment, there was a knock on the door and she drew the sheets up to her collar before she bid them enter, and Liz edged around the door with a cup of coffee in her hand and a newspaper tucked under her arm. "Morning."

"Good morning." Liara relaxed minutely, recognising her fellow Selected rather than one of the Inner Circle. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, the black-and-grey sundress that she had worn to the Bridge of Sighs the previous day; it was most unlike her, but then, one could say that about the whole of the night that had preceded this morning: she had paced until dark, and then continued pacing until it was nearly light. She didn't think she could have done otherwise; she could not sit still, and she could not do anything to help. She was here, in the Federation, thousands of miles from home, and….

What had Täj said? It would have been so easy for her to just say no.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yes," Liara lied, and knew Liz could read the lie on her by the way that the redhead's mouth tightened at the edges as she eased herself into the armchair beside the bed. Where had all Liara's skill at subterfuge gone? When had the other Selected girls learned to read her like this? Behind Liz, Yue had edged into the room with a plate of breakfast balanced between her hands: fruit piled atop fruit, strange flat bread balanced on the side alongside a little ramekin of berry compote. She set this on the duvet beside Liara, and perched on the edge of the bed, drawing her legs up beneath her with a grace that reminded the girl from Angeles that she had, in some past life nearly forgotten, been an Olympic athlete. "How about you two?"

Yue shook her head. "Too many thoughts to sleep," she murmured.

"Could have been better," Liz admitted. She put the cup of coffee onto the bedside locker, and shook out the paper. "Like Yue said. My mind wouldn't let me rest."

"Has there been news?" Liara shook her head. "More news, I mean."

Liz was staring at the newspaper that suggested she wasn't quite reading the words, though she desperately wanted to. "They've broken into Angeles. We have, I mean."

"The Kingdom?" Liara still wasn't sure, sometimes, which was we and which was they. She thought, but they destroyed the Axiom; but we were betrayed at Layeni. Maybe it was the easiest to imagine it thus, like she was a adjunct piece which didn't quite fit, like she was conditional, in this as in all things. The Selection had been drafted along with the rest; she had to wonder how she had ever hoped to return home when this was all over.

Yue worried at her lip, and nodded. "The province," she added softly, seeing the look on Liara's face. "Not the capital."

"But it's only a matter of time..." Liz shook her head at something buried within the reporting. There was a dearth of English-language newspapers here in Masr; Liara had to wonder which side they tended to adopt, whose propaganda they would favour. Was Akiva or Enyakatho whispering to the journalists, providing the photographs, ordering redactions? She had no doubt those things were happening… but from which side, she wondered, and had no answer.

Liara did not ask if there was news about Mordred – not because she did not want to know, but because she could not bear the looks that the other girls would have given her, some strange blend of distrust and pity and anger. Yue would be more pity than anything else, she thought, and Liz would be more anger; she was a rebel from a rebel family, so that was to be expected. If he had died, Liara reassured herself, then it would have been – surely, it would have been – front-page news, but as Liz turned over the page, she saw that the front of the newspaper was adorned with an image of the Swendish prime minister, and some puerile scandal with which he had become embroiled. That was normal, she thought, staggeringly normal, shockingly normal – but then, maybe Liara was the only person to care. Maybe she was the only one who felt like the world was coming apart at the seams around her. Maybe she was the only one.

She thought of the word Demetri had breathed to her at Enhle's reception: odnolyub. She wanted to ask Täj what it meant, but remembered again how he had looked at her, on the bridge, like for a single moment he was utterly unfrozen, burnished silver rather than bled pale; she wanted to ask Demetri what it meant, but remembered again how he had brushed her off that night when she had attempted to do just that; she wanted to ask Vardi Tayna what it meant, but remembered again that she had betrayed them to Artur and that they, in turn, had left her behind in Layeni, dead or dying.

She wanted to ask Mordred, and to hear him say that he didn't know, and that he had never known, and didn't she remember him complaining because his mother had decided that he should learn Chinese rather than Russian because New Asia was a better ally to them? She wanted him to lean against her in that way he had, like when they crossed paths at a high society event, and to whisper something disparaging about her dress that had her scowling, even as it had her smiling at the notice he took of her, even as she was silently quite smug about the way the other girls at court burned jealous looks into her back at the way the prince stopped in his tracks to speak to her, even as she was shaking her head and telling him that he had no right to say such things when he was wearing that hideous tux...

One of the last time they had performed their little rituals – Bryce had shown up with a broken nose at a premiere for some opera, or maybe it had been a ballet, and Mordred had denied all knowledge. You think I did something? Anyone else would have sounded a little offended; he had sounded distinctly pleased with the thought.

Liara had sounded wryly droll, as she usually did when they had their little impromptu chats like this. Behind her, Ciel had shifted her weight impatiently, and thrown little jealous looks at Liara that she clearly believed her friend would not notice. I think you ordered something.

The way you're talking about it, he had said, you're rather making me think I should have.

He never had been able to lie to her, not believably. Bryce had shot her nervous little looks all night, and never spoken to her again; she had not found it in her heart to feel very sorry for him, not when she spent the better part of an hour covering the bruises he had left along her throat, along the side of her face. Mordred had never mentioned them, but she had known that he had seen. Maybe that was why she seemed to get along with Täj so well, Liara mused softly; there were parts of him – parts largely undiscovered, parts well-hidden, parts greyer than the rest – which reminded her, starkly and painfully, of the prince. The dying prince. The dead prince?

Yue had reached for her hand, and squeezed it gently. Liara supposed she must have looked quite distracted. "It'll be okay," the other girl said, very softly. "Everything is going to be okay."

She chuckled drily. "When did you become a liar, Yukimura?"

"Well," Yue said, "we've been surrounded by bad influences for a while now. Hadn't you noticed?"

Of course she had. There was, after all, very little that Liara Lee did not notice.


The world was blurring past them in a maelstrom of colour and the suggestion of shape. Here and there, as they whirled through like a typhoon, Liz thought that she could distinguish the silhouette of a little town, of a farming village, of some small settlement outside the enormous urban sprawl of the mega-cities which composed the Federation. This was more familiar to her; this was almost soothing. When they hit long stretches of land, she could see herds of single-humped dromedary camel and red-furred cattle with corkscrew horns grazing peacefully on the strange tough grass which grew in tight tufts across the plain. They were leaving Kemet behind them, she sensed, but from the looks on the faces of the Nyguzi family, they were not yet in Manden. Zirid, maybe, then – Uzohola had shown them a map earlier in the day, with the Federation painstakingly divvied up between the six mansadoms which made up the whole of the united kingdom. Liz still wasn't sure that she quite understood it all, but she also suspected that she was not alone in that fact, and that it had – and would – go unnoticed. The Saharans had expected ignorant white girls to arrive with Demetri's Selection and she, at least, could not help but live down to their expectations.

The train on which they were travelling was smooth and glossy, faster than any vehicle that Liz had experienced in Illéa. They didn't get much new technology out in the sticks, of course, but from the arch of Liara Lee's eyebrows, it rather struck Liz that this might be impressive even for Angeles. Uzohola had mentioned numbers to them, but it had rather flown over Liz's head at the times – they were travelling two thousand and eight hundred miles, the diplomat had told the Selected girls, and it would take about four hours in total, given the speed of the royal carriage. That hadn't made any sense to Liz in any world, but she had kept her mouth shut and wondered silently if there would be somewhere to throw up if she needed it. But no – the movement of the train was almost silky, so gentle each incline and turn. Liz wasn't sure she could even tell that she was moving if she closed her eyes, but neither could she bring herself to do so: she was too fascinated by the way that the world was disappearing past them, melting away into a mess of nothing and everything. It was almost soothing, hypnotically so, to try and discern landmarks and features from the chaos of all that passed: here, she thought, was a lake, and maybe in the distance those were mountains; they were blurring past long stretches of sand, and then grass, and then sand again; here was another lake, and she was glancing at the enormous clock which hung over the door adjoining the carriage of the Selected with the carriage in which Demetri was travelling to find that two hours had passed almost entirely beneath her notice. A thousand miles had vanished from beneath them. Liz could remember the sheer difficulty of hewing their path across the Wasteland, how long it had taken them to move from safehouse to safehouse, how treacherous and fraught with danger the short journey between bunker and Layeni. And here – huge swathes of the world was blurring past them, impossibly quickly.

They had been given their own carriage, the Selected girls; Liz understood it was the one usually granted to the harem, when they travelled to Manden with the mansa on official business. Demetri had been welcomed into the mansa's carriage, and his aunt – the only one of the wives to join them for their trip – had joined him to share canapés and wine and talk furtively, as seemed to be the only way Demetri knew how to talk these days. It seemed the lines of typical gender segregation had blurred, for Atiena was a bodyguard rather than a woman and Ulpia, as blood family, didn't count either.

Liz was glad that they had been left alone; the other girls looked so fraught that she thought a little bit of time to themselves to think and watch the scenery could hardly hurt. Yue was reading, curled up in her seat on the far side of the carriage with one hand gently stroking the page she had yet to turn, a tiny whisper of some pent-up energy that she had yet to expend; Liara was pacing the aisle of the carriage with a look of utter focus, if you could call this an aisle given the whole space contained only a handful of seats; Eden was sitting, perfectly still, in the seat opposite Liz, her head tilted to look out the window in precisely the same posture as Liz but with the faintest air that she was gazing at her own reflection rather than at the tableau through which the train was tearing at a break-neck clip.

They were a strange bunch, the girls who were left. Liz had thought it before, and she found herself thinking it again. She missed Opal, and Soledad, and Nina – the girls with whom she had spent so many long weeks in the bunker patrolled by Uzokuwa and his men. She was growing, slowly, to feel similarly about the Elite, such that they were; she was starting to feel protective, though she privately rather suspected that none of them needed her protection. If Liara was iron, then Eden was silk; if Eden was silk, then Yue was diamond. Liz found herself wondering so often who would win – whether Demetri would choose a soldier or a queen or a wife. If the rebels had broken into Angeles, there might not be much fighting left to do… or nothing but fighting for as far as any of them could imagine. Either or. Liz wasn't really in a place to try and predict.

She could predict this much: she would not be the winner. Liz, above all, was the pragmatic sort.

With a soft sigh, Yue set down her book and glanced over at Liz with a slight smile that suggested she had somehow managed to hear the redhead's thoughts without them ever being given voice. "Should we get ready?"

"Probably," Liz agreed softly.

Liara paused in her pacing. "Do we have anything to get ready in?"

That was an excellent point. They had been hustled onto the train in fairly simple garb – sundresses similar to those they had worn the day before. Liz wasn't exactly sure why she had expected different, better, more. They were on an official diplomatic trip to Manden, she thought, and that alone was some small indication for the newfound legitimacy of the Kingdom… and much needed, at that. After all, there were whispers that they had killed the king of Illéa. There were whispers that they were assassins all. There were whispers that the Federation was about to turn on them as they had turned on Mordred, and there were whispers that the Selection were all going to disappear between here and the ocean, vanished into the wilds of the Sahara like so much dust.

Liz knew this, only because it had been murmured to her in the limousine as the Selected girls were charioteered from chalet to station, all soto voce. Maseli Nyguzi was rapidly making himself useful like that; he had told her that the bastard prince had been poisoned the day before and then, today, he had told her that they were suspected of the crime. Liz hadn't bothered to think too intently about why he was bothering to do so; Liz wasn't sure she could ever start to imagine up his motivations. She was just mutely grateful for his commitment to granting her the information that everyone else in the Illéan contingent seemed to derive from the air itself. She hoped she had communicated her gratefulness to Maseli adequately, murmuring a low abaraka in gratitude and receiving a smile that indicated he understood. He had then retreated; though they were travelling to his home mansadom of Manden, Liz understood that the young ward of Mansa Kifu was to remain with Enhle and his harem in Masr. It was a tradition, Inyoni had explained with a slight smile. So long as Demetri was under Enhle's protection in the Federation, he was to be treated like a son – and it was always a tradition that the son of one mansa be kept hostage when borders were crossed, lest any misfortune befall the ward while abroad in the kingdom. It was another act that reminded Liz powerfully of how little trust the mansas seemed to show one another, despite ostensibly forming parts of a whole. It would have been almost impressive, if Liz didn't feel like she was rather caught in the middle of it all.

She was shaken from her thoughts by the soft whooshing open of the doors at the rear of the cabin, as the golden Ulpia stepped through, accompanied by the dark Tewedaji. After a full week in the Federation, Liz was still taken aback whenever she saw the former princess of Illéa – she was so strikingly like her younger brother, whose portrait had adorned the broad wall of her community hall in Midston for the majority of Liz's childhood, all gold and marble, like the memory of some ancient temple. She was wearing her hair in a neat crown, and a simple white shift dress that rather reminded Liz of the dresses that might have been worn in some far-gone age, like something that ought to have been sculpted rather than worn. She looked her age, and there was a beauty to that, like Liz could read her years in the simple lines and wear of the boqorad's skin. Hovering just behind her, the tall teenage scion of Manden was watching the Selected with a certain aloof expression in her dark brown eyes, managing to appear at once faraway and impatient. Daji was wearing a silken mulafa dress, with the folds of the fabric folded delicately around her long, thin limbs and again over her hair so that she had a certain air of refined austerity in the way she regarded the other girls; seemingly heedless to the rudeness of her companion, Ulpia gestured for their attendants to wheel a long rack of clothes into the carriage. They were being assisted by female workers, Liz saw; the gender segregation of the people in Masr remained strict.

"Demetri commissioned some clothing for you all." It always jarred Liz slightly to hear Ulpia speak; the Angeles accent was broad and somewhat nasal to Liz's ear, at least compared to the smooth vowels of Midston. Ulpia's voice was sweet and warm; when she smiled at them, Liz could finally see – as she never had before – the similarity between her and Demetri. "They are all of the Manden tradition. I hope you will find them to your liking."

As Liz stepped closer to the dress to which she had been assigned, she could see that the other side of the leather tag embossed LIZ had a name on the other side, clearly denoting the designer who had produced the piece: DIAKITE. Beside her, Yue's name had been printed in kanji: 月雪村. Beneath that, another unfamiliar name: DIALLO. She gently lifted Yue's dress from the rack, and found that there were two garments tied together, though she could not quite discern what the softer fabric made up.

Liara ran her hands gently along the sleeve of the garment to which her name-tag had been attached; she said, "Demetri had these commissioned in a week?"

It clearly did not miss Ulpia's ear or eye that the young woman from Angeles used the king's first name so casually. Liz rather thought they all would – wouldn't they? She couldn't remember the last time she had thought of Demetri as anything other than just that. They had earned that much by now, hadn't they? The Inner Circle had always done so, but the Inner Circle was gone now. Liz rather thought it would do the young man good to hear his name occasionally, rather than your majesty this and your highness that.

"The finest designers in the Federation were eager for the opportunity to produce garments for the King of Illéa." Ulpia smiled. "Women would die for these clothes, ladies."

Daji said, "or kill for them."

"I will leave you to dress – Daji, you'll assist them, won't you?"

"It would be my pleasure, boroqad."

Ulpia retreated graciously, clearly returning to her nephew's side. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Liz wondered if that meant Daji had also spent the past two-and-a-half hour journey with the King of Dust; a slight glance sidewards at her fellow Selected revealed that Yue was clearly thinking something similar. Liara, who seemed to have taken something of a dislike against the Manden heir upon first meeting, said, rather archly, "speaking from personal experience, Nyguzi?"

Daji arched an eyebrow.

"Killing for the clothes," Liara clarified.

"Oh – perhaps for some of them. You know what they say about style. You buy Diakite for the wife," Daji said, with a slight smile that struck Liz as not entirely friendly. "Diallo for the mistress."

Yue turned her name-tag over in her hand; Liz was relieved to find that the younger Selected looked irritated, rather than upset, by this pronouncement. She looked like she was about to say something when Eden interjected rather lazily: "seems a confusing system when you have a harem."

"Oh," Daji said with a shrug. She had a refined Albion accent, Liz thought; if she shut her eyes, she could have believed that this was the daughter of some London diplomat. "No matter how many wives one has, a husband will always find a way to cheat."

And for a split second – she wasn't quite sure why – Wyatt was beside Liz, tall and strong and broad, and leaning in to murmur against her hair, mostly just trying to hide his smile: I'll consider that permission, Eli?

Oh, yes, darling, if you can find anyone else to put up with you.

Quite right. One woman is probably enough to keep me busy.

She had found a term for that once, the belief that you could only ever have a single true love, only love one person, only have space in your heart for one – fully, totally, truly. Odnolyub, that word had been, and Liz had always wanted to ask one of the Inner Circle, for whom Russian seemed a second tongue, whether it was truly a concept as labelled – whether it was a word for something so specific, so primal. Maybe it just meant monogamy; maybe it just meant love; maybe it had been mutated in translation. She didn't like to think of that – she wanted to think it was specific. She wanted to think there was a word for what she and Wyatt had. She wanted to think that it could be labelled, categorised, diagnosed.

Otherwise, it just hurt too much. At least once you put a name to it, you could hope someone before you had felt like this; you could hope that there was – that there would be – a cure. That would make things better, wouldn't it?

"You," Eden said with a smile that mirrored Daji's one-for-one in terms of disingenuity, "are an enormously pessimistic woman, Ms Nyguzi."

"Or perhaps," Daji replied, "you are merely an… admirably optimistic bunch."

Liz caught Liara's eye, and had to look away quickly to keep from smiling at the inaccuracy of the Manden girl's statement. Yes, she thought ruefully, that was probably the problem. They were all simply too gosh-darn hopeful all the time. Optimism was a blight. If only the refugees from the Kingdom in Exile had thought to be a little more cynical.

To her enduring credit, it was little Yue who managed to keep the amusement out of her voice when she replied to Daji, sounding earnest. "Yes," she said, with a sweet smile and a nod that suggested she was agreeing earnestly with their new companion, though Liz could see the slight wryness in her eyes. "We sure are admirable, aren't we?"


The day was stifling hot. Angeles was known as warm, but it had nothing on Manden – on the dense way the air seemed to hang, just above your head, while the heat scorched every inch of air from your lungs so that you had to draw in your breath inch-by-inch to avoid gasping. She could do that much to avoid this particular humiliation, but that left the issue of the sweat, the amount that wasn't wicked away by the fabric in which she had been swathed. Eden found herself watching from the corner of her eyes for Enyakatho and his cameras as she gently dabbed at her forehead and wished – wished – for water.

She didn't let it stop her; she just gritted her teeth, and kept going. She was playing the game now, wasn't she? Eden was playing the game, and intended to win. She could see that Yue was wilting slightly, as they ascended the slight incline to where the attendants of the Manden royal family were waiting for them, reining camels and donkeys lashed to small carts resplendent in intricately woven cloth. Liara looked as unruffled as she ever did; she could have been taking a wander through an Angeles shopping mall, for all the effect the temperature and arid air was having. Beside her, Liz was gazing at the scenery around them with unabated and undisguised fascination, watching the herds of camel descend down the hill past them towards the train station, where they were herded onto trailers here and there for transport deeper within the region. They were not in the capital of Manden, nor in the largest city of the mansadom; that was rapidly becoming a trend, and Eden didn't have to wonder why – it was a clear reflection of their status. Refugee royals, a Selection on the run. Good enough for little tours here and there, but to be seen in the capital – unthought of.

Eden couldn't blame them, and she also couldn't complain: Geji was a pretty town, with low, squat houses that seemed to have been sculpted from the very sand itself, rising from the land as though hewn by some divine hand rather than by man. Low castle compounds, kasbahs, dotted the low mountains which corralled the settlement; when Eden looked over the attendants and their animals, she could see the tiny white figures of robed farmers moving back and forth across the hills, herding their flocks, tending to their crops, playing with their children. It reminded Eden of being back with Pa; it reminded Eden of the farm, of the broad scrub that had surrounded the farm; it reminded Eden of the Anchorites that you could occasionally spot in the depths of the Wastelands, though only when they wanted you to spot them. As she glanced back towards their companions, she caught Liz's eye, and had to smile slightly; the farming girl from Midston was unapologetically, unabashedly fascinated by it all, by everything they had so far glimpsed in the Saharan Federation. Maybe her enthusiasm, Eden thought, would pay off better than Liara's aloofness. She would have to wait and see; she would have to observe closely. But Eden Lahela was fine with that. She was still trying to find her feet, still trying to determine how best to play things, after her conversation with Demetri in the Garden of Hesperiides the day before.

Ahead of them, Demetri and Daji were walking closely together, shoulder-to-shoulder, speaking under their breath. Though Eden could discern the rhythm of their speech, she could not hear precisely what they were saying; it was just the suggestion of conversation, the silhouette of words. That shouldn't have bothered Eden, but it did. It weighed on her – it all did. Her mother, her father, the Axiom, Demetri and Pa…. it all weighed on her, heavily. Had she overplayed her hand with Demetri? Should she care, if she had? Her mother might still be alive – her father certainly was. She still had people to protect. She still had people to save. Had she made some terrible choice, laying out her cards as she had? Was Demetri some hostage of High Command, same as them, a puppet king intended to give meaning and legitimacy to a rebellion that had been roiling for longer than any of them had known? Or was he, now, glancing over his shoulder to look her in the eye, her mother's murderer, the maker of all her family's undoing? Maybe he had no say. Maybe they would receive a letter in the post tomorrow, written in Givre's hand, commanding that he choose one girl or another – and then that would be that, all the death and destruction and pain for nothing.

Maybe, Eden thought ruefully. Everything she said these days seemed to have a maybe appended to it. She didn't feel certain of anything anymore.

The attendants in Manden were dressed, not in the black suits of Kemet, but dark blue kaftans. Their heads were bare, and their hair shorn short, dark blue pigment smeared beneath their eyes to protect their vision from the intensity of the afternoon sun. Their skin was so dark as to appear almost blue, a beautiful deep inky-dark that reminded Eden of a painting by one of the old masters; it made their white smiles stand out even more sharply, apparently genuine. As they drew closer, Uzohola and Atiena – translator and bodyguard, moving in tandem – stepped forward to the men to speak to them politely and agree upon how the girls should be divided among the vehicles, what groups should be made up, whether their journey would be smooth and safe. Daji laughed at this, and set an arm on the young king's elbow; Eden could not help from fixing her gaze upon the sight, and was distantly aware that Liara Lee was watching her as closely as she was watching Demetri.

"Alright, girls." Atiena clapped her hands in front of them, seeming to startle Yue from her own thoughts. "Demetri has selected Liz to travel with him."

Liz glanced at the other girls, and smiled. "Probably the only one he could trust to stay on the camel without falling off, I guess."

Yue smiled; it seemed genuine enough. "Rather you than me in this heat, Lizzie."

"I'll ride that animal straight into the ocean, so help me god..."

Atiena was smiling ruefully. "I thought you guys were weird with sleep deprivation – heat stroke doesn't seem to suit you much better. Okay – I'm with Demetri as well." There was an unspoken of course that accompanied this pronouncement. "Eden, you're with Ulpia and Liara. Yue, with Daji."

Yue's smile was fading slightly at that prospect. Eden could relate to the expression on her face. Ulpia Dunin hadn't so much as acknowledged her existence for the past week; it made her feel like she was on utterly unstable ground. The queen of Kemet had always lavished Liara Lee with attention, the kind of smug do-you-remember-when attitude that characterised the most upper-crust of Angeles society, the kind that didn't bother with you unless you had six generations of a title and a castle nestled away somewhere in the midlands, unless you could relate to their anecdotes of late-night soirées at court and garden parties with Queen Jael or Ysabel. The Lahelas had always rotated on the very edge of this upper echelon, grazing it with their fingertips, never truly grasping it – and Vivian Lahela had always railed against it when doors were closed. Another hour of being stonewalled in favour of Demetri's childhood friend? Well, Eden would grit her teeth and bear it. Did she have another choice? She was still in this. This was the endgame. She could win.

She had to. She had her names, her list, and day-by-day new names became appended to it. Mother. Father. Fatimeh. Brooks. Maldonado. Pa, Yue, Liara, Liz, Soledad, Opal... How secure was their safety in whatever world followed?

"It's a short trip," Atiena said with a slight smile. "Probably not quite as smooth as the train, of course, but beggars can't be choosers..."


Yue had seen many oceans in her time. The water at home in Whites had been choppy and grey, a torrid churning and convulsing against the rocks that was known to produce motion sickness from even those people merely looking upon them; in Kyoto, during the Olympics, when she had ventured from her rented house in search of some fresh air, the water had been still and green and glossy, like an ocean masquerading as ice; any other time she had glimpsed the water, she had been on some bus or taxi, moving between rink and rink, competition and competition, photoshoot and photoshoot, and the oceans had blurred past her in some haze of not-quite-clear motion, too far away to form any concrete impression of them but for the fact that they were present and that they were blue.

Here, however – the water here was crystalline, a deeper blue than Yue had ever glimpsed before. It washed up on the sand gently, slowly encroaching upon the land before being pulled back in a rush towards the far-away horizon whose cornflower-blue was somehow much paler than the sapphire tone of the water. The shore curved in a sharp-tipped crescent moon, its edges drawing so near to one another that it corralled the water into a kind of contained bay. The soft white sands of the beach underfoot were almost too warm to bear, even through the soft fabric of the ballet flats she had been given as part of her Manden outfit; she wasn't sure how the other girls could bear to walk barefoot but that's what they were doing, tearing off their shoes and holding them in their hands as they wandered towards the edge of the surf. Liz seemed to be the only girl with which Nyguzi Tewedaji was able to speak without the conversation devolving into some kind of passive-aggressive back-and-forth of barely-veiled barely-there jabs at something or other; they were walking along the wall which divided this segment of beach from the other, to allow the royal women to bath without fear of intrusion from paparazzi or well-meaning passerbys. Liara was pacing again, as much as one could pace at the beach – walking down towards the surf and then retreating before the water could touch her feet, watching her own footprints rather than the gorgeous scenery which surrounded them.

At the centre of the beach, the red-clad attendants of the Manden royal family were laying out a banquet for the girls. Lunch on the beach would, Yue suspected, have seemed a rather petty fare in Illéa, but here in the Federation it was clear that this was the way they showed affection and welcome. She ordinarily found it overwhelming – food was hard for her at the best of time – but today she was grateful for it; she had barely been able to eat that morning, so concerned had she been about whether she would wake to find Täj gone and Liara distraught all over again. But no – the pale man had sloped into her room at about nine in the morning, thrown a book on her bed, and said, rather darkly, "he stole the cup of tea you made for me."

"Demetri?" She wasn't sure why she had felt the need to clarify – between her and Täj, there was only one he that mattered. "You should have drank it quicker, then."

He had grimaced, and said nothing, only left again the way he had came. If Yue hadn't been watching his reflection in the mirror on her vanity, she might never had realised that he had ever been there, or that he was gone again. He was the silent type, that boy… she still couldn't notice him. Not like Demetri – Demetri had a solid, real presence, no matter how silent his arrival or departure.

Like now, for example – she wasn't sure if he had been trying to surprise her, but she turned to find him walking towards her, looking thoughtful. When she caught his eye he smiled, almost reflexively. Could he not bear to be seen unsmiling even for a moment? Yue wasn't sure why that simple thought made her sad, but she didn't let it show as Demetri came up to her, shoulder-to-rib, and said, thoughtfully, "I think I owe you an apology." Before she could ask him why, he had continued, almost in a hurry, as though it had just occurred to her that she could surely produce a list of his sins and ask him to account for each. "I've been accused of grand larceny."

Yue laughed. "Is this about the tea?"

"What else?"

A kingdom. A throne. A name.

"There's been a lot of nice silverware going about," was what she said instead, and that had Demetri rolling his eyes and pressing his lips together to keep from smiling too broadly. His eyes kind of creased when he found something actually funny, as he did now; it was a restrainedly bright expression, like sunlight contained within a jar.

"They should chain the forks to the table," he agreed, "like pens at the post office..."

"I think Liz already has a bagful. We should be alright."

"Do you think they'd take us far?" He sounded almost wistful. Staring out at the ocean, with salt-stained air ruffling his hair and tearing at the grey-green shirt that Ulpia had chosen for him, Yue was struck, not for the first or last time, how tired he looked. To be expected. His brother was dying. His friends were missing. His army had broken through the front lines, and he was here, far away, in a foreign nation, an unwelcome guest.

"Albion, at least."

"I've never been."

"You're not missing much. It's very…. grey." Yue hesitated before she said even this much. She tried not to be negative, but it was true. She had attended Londinium for the World Championships some four years earlier; she didn't think she had glimpsed a single spot of colour in the fortnight that she had stayed, and skated, there.

Demetri looked thoughtful. She couldn't imagine him in a land without colour. He would start to look drained, as his brother did, as Täj always did. He needed vibrancy, light, life. "Not there, then."

"Russia?"

"Oh, no. Russians are absolutely unbearable people. Dramatic, you know, but without the decency of ever actually shouting at you. They're just constantly… faking their own deaths and committing identity theft. It's exhausting."

Yue laughed again. "I think you're generalising a bit, sir."

"Not a bit. The whole country is like that – all thirty million of them."

"It sounds entertaining," Yue said, softly, "at the very least."

"Entertaining," Demetri said, "exhausting. Of course, you'd have to get the job and provide for us."

"Oh?"

"I'm not trained for anything except king-ing. No one in their right mind would hire me..."

"Ice-skating isn't exactly a lucrative field for a fugitive, Demetri."

"There's those cafes," he said, "in Swendway, where the waiters are on rollerskates..."

She laughed. "Yes, that's exactly the same thing."

"Swendway, then?"

"Not sure our collection of spoons would stretch that far."

"Liz's collection of spoons."

"Planning more larceny, Demetri?"

He laughed, loudly; it seemed like the sound had been startled from him. Below them, the tiny silhouette that was Daji had turned to scan the horizon for the source of the sound.

"Yes," Demetri said, "nearly always."

There was an answer hanging between them, one neither of them would say, but which Yue could read in his eyes – at least, when she dared to flick her gaze up and catch his for the briefest second. She didn't dare breath the response, and she knew – knew without knowing – that he wouldn't either. Layeni, she thought. She could imagine him there; she could imagine him happy there, happy and old, tired no longer and smiling only when he wanted to. In her mind's eye, when she glimpsed it, he always had a wife at his side, but faceless, nameless. She didn't want to think about it. Thinking about it would run the simplicity of it all.

And what did it matter anyway, if he was happy?

He had changed the subject, quite abruptly. "Did you like your dress?"

She did, although Daji's barbed comment hung in her mind: for the mistress. It was not necessarily something she would have bought for herself, but she suspected that was true of most of the Saharan garments they had worn over the course of the last week: it was a pale pink, like the kimono that Raphael had made for her. The bodice and the skirt were connected with twisted pink fabric, so that the cropped top actually only bared a small amount of skin, while giving the false impression of being much more daring; a sheer overskirt which fell over the pink fabric similarly gave the impression that the dress was much shorter than it was, while actually protecting Yue's skin from the burning heat of the sun overhead. They were small details, but she was grateful for them: she was a creature from a cold climate. She had thought that Layeni was unseasonably warm, but Manden – Manden felt like the surface of the sun.

"I do."

"But?"

"You have better things to be doing, Demetri."

"I didn't actually design the dresses myself, Yukimura."

"You know what I mean."

He shook his head. The sun suited him, Yue thought, not for the first time. He looked golden; rivulets of sunlight seemed to stream across each individual strand of hair, pulling out little sparks of bronze and gold and copper. His eyes were a deeper green than she could ever remember them being before. "Rarely," he said. He was watching the attendants set up the banquet, and he was thinking; she wasn't sure he was thinking about anything good, but he was thinking.

"Are you okay?"

He seemed surprised by the question – it flickered across his face, there and gone again. He seemed touched to have been asked, though Yue couldn't quite believe that no one else had done so before her.

"Just..." He paused, and looked at her. "Someone's given me… a tough choice to make. And I'm not sure…"

Was he talking about the Selection? Yue didn't think so. Demetri wasn't cruel, not like this. He wouldn't say this to her if it was about her. At least…. she didn't think so. Below them, the ocean whispered onto the sand. Somewhere far away, across the wall, someone was laughing loudly. Overhead, unfamiliar birds called back and forth to one another across the dunes.

"I'm afraid I'm going to take the coward's way out," he said softly. "And people will get hurt. People always get hurt."

"Which choice would make you happy?" Yue hated how simplistic her words almost seemed, when she managed to say them out loud – but it was the only starting point that she could truly stand by. "What do you want?"

"Don't ask me that."

"Why not?"

"I'll disappoint myself," he said, "if not you."

"You couldn't," she said. "You won't."

He seemed unconvinced by this pronouncement. "Tayna would tell me to run."

Run? But where would he go? In the light of their earlier conversation, she wondered abruptly why this seemed like it wasn't such a fanciful idea anymore.

"Is that what you want to do?"

His lip curled, very slightly. Jesus Christ, Yue thought, he was only twenty-two years old. Only twenty-two. If he had stayed in Angeles, his biggest problems would have been who to bring to the gala and what to wear to dinner. And instead, he was here, and he was staring out at the ocean, and he was saying, "you terrify me, sometimes, Yue, did you know that?"

She blanched. "I do?"

"Very much so."

"Why?"

But he was shaking his head, and Yue was suspecting it was some thought of his that terrified him, rather than anything she had done. Maybe he was thinking about running. She would run, but she was a coward like that; she wouldn't be able to stand under the kind of weight that Demetri bore.

One could always compare oneself to Yue Yukimura, if one wanted to feel better about oneself. She was a pitiable sort.

"We should get going," Demetri said. "Lunch will be starting, and I daresay some of the girls will be suspecting us of conspiracy, chatting so long alone."

"Well," Yue said, "I had to get my time in somehow."

Demetri looked suitably chastised. "I did have a..." He thought better of it.

"You've been busy," she said, quickly, keen that he understand she was not criticising him for his remoteness of late. "I understand. I just wish I knew how to help."

"This helps."

"Okay," she said. "Good."

He looked down at the food being spread out among the blankets, the attendants swarming around the lunch like a well-organised army, the water moving gently up and across the face of the beach. "It shouldn't be this quiet," he said, "should it? After Layeni, with everything going on… it shouldn't be this quiet."

"Arashi no mae no shizukesa," Yue said, softly. "Before the storm – calm."

Demetri paused; his brow furrowed. "You really can be a bleak sort, Yukimura, did you know that?"