I heard a quick knock on the front door, and the guest walked in without waiting for permission to enter. “Hello, hon,” a delightfully throaty alto called. “It’s me.” A woman I had met only a couple of times before, at Ogawa’s bedside, walked in.

  She hesitated at the sight of me, as she always did, then strode over to Ogawa and gave her a smacking kiss on the mouth. “How are you feeling?” she asked, sitting down close beside Ogawa and picking up her free hand.

  That was my cue to leave. I rose to my feet. “I must go.”

  “No, you don’t,” Ogawa objected, but not too strenuously.

  “Aye, I do. I want to drop in on Aiden before I start my watch.”

  “Ah.” Ogawa smiled knowingly. “I see.”

  “I’m sure you do. So take care of yourself, Ogawa. We’re missing you on the roster.”

  A shadow flickered in her eyes before she smiled and thanked me. It made me pause and consider asking her if something were wrong. I let it go. If there were something wrong, and she wanted to talk about it, she would without my prying it out of her. I left.

  Aiden answered his door himself. I was sure that under normal circumstances he would just shout at whoever knocked, telling them to let themselves in, but right then he was personally answering the door out of principle. He surprised me by greeting me with a quick kiss.

  I pulled back and noticed a light in his eye and a feeling of excitement in his air. “You’re in a good mood.”

  He grinned widely. “Aye.”

  I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. “Any particular reason?”

  “I made forty-seven imperials.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “I earned forty-seven imperials.” He sprawled onto a settee, and I settled into the nearest chair.

  I assumed, from his expression of pride, that that was a goodly amount. “Doing what?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Telling stories.”

  “To who?”

  “People in the park. That pathetic little one by the bakery.”

  “You just started telling stories and people paid you?”

  “Well, I wanted to stretch my legs, so I got as far as the park. And,” he admitted reluctantly, “coming straight back was more than I wanted to think about. So I sat on one of the benches, and this pert little miss came up to me and asked what I’d done to myself. And after I told her, she demanded I tell her a story. So I did.”

  That alarmed me. “Not one of—”

  He laughed. “Not the kind of stories I tell you, love. I just took a princess and a wizard and some dragons and”—he made a spinning gesture with his finger—“mixed them together.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You made up a story right then and there?” I said. “I’m impressed.”

  “I’m sure I stole the plotline from somewhere. A story doesn’t have to be original as long as it’s delivered well.”

  “And yours was well-delivered?” I asked in amusement.

  This time his smile was smug. “If I do say so myself,” he answered. “She liked it, anyway.”

  “She gave you forty-seven imperials for it?” How old was this pert little miss, anyway?

  “Of course not. She stayed for another story though. And other children drifted over to listen, dragging their caretakers over, until everyone in the park was sitting or standing around me.” He wrapped a lock of my hair around his finger and gently pulled the lazy curl out. “It was so strange, Dunleavy. They had been jumping on each other like little maniacs before, trying to kill each other it seemed, but then they were sitting there so quietly, listening to me. It was almost eerie, the way they listened so closely. I didn’t know children could stay focused on one thing for so long.”

  I didn’t know anything about children, having spent very little time with them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they found Aiden’s storytelling entrancing. He really was good, throwing himself into the characters with enthusiasm, and convincing. A couple of times I’d forgotten where I was, listening to him. That was a pretty powerful effect to have on a Shield.

  “People noticed us from the street and came in to investigate, then stayed to listen. After a couple of hours most of the children had left, but their caretakers all left money by my feet. I tried to refuse it, but they looked at my crutch and said keeping the children quiet for so long was well worth the money. So all the children left, but the adults continued to come in from the street, and before anyone left they always gave me some money.” He grinned. “One fellow tried to sneak away without paying anything, and everyone else hissed at him until he tossed me a few coins. After a couple more hours I had a nice little pile of coins at my feet. I didn’t know how much I had, though, until I came home.”

  “I am really impressed,” I said again. “You have an astonishing range of talents.” And I couldn’t help but envy him a little. I had no such range. I couldn’t do anything but Shield. I couldn’t imagine what I would do for money if I were somehow severed from the Triple S and had to make my own way.

  “Just as well,” he said, the light in his eyes dimming a little. “Because I’m never going to dance again.”

  No, no guilt. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do, Dunleavy. I can feel it when I walk. There’s some new kind of movement in my knee, some strange kind of clicking and snapping. Like there are two pieces in there that no longer fit together the way they should. It doesn’t hurt, exactly, but it certainly slows me down.” He picked up my hand, kissed the back of it. “The healers are amazed I’ve come so far so quickly, but they still think I’ll never dance. They’ve always thought it. And I’ve always believed them.”

  I wondered if Karish would take another look at him. The first time he’d helped Aiden, he didn’t know all he could do. He’d thought all he could do was channel pain. Maybe if he tried, he could fix Aiden’s knee. I didn’t know if it would work at all, the damage being physical, and Karish would probably be very reluctant to work on a person who was alert enough to know what he was doing. I doubted Aiden would even allow it; he seemed to despise Karish without even knowing him. But I would ask Karish, just to see if it might be possible.

  Aiden was in such a high mood, it was hard to leave him. By the time I arrived at the Stall, I found Karish waiting for me alone. Which was unusual and a breach of procedure. Firth and Stone, the Pair with the watch before ours, should have waited with him until I arrived, even if I were late. Which I wasn’t, though it was a near thing.

  Karish was seated at the table, shuffling a deck of cards. He didn’t greet me when I walked in.

  “Good evening,” I said.

  He grunted in response.

  I looked him over. Shoulders slumped. Spine curved. Foot wrapped around the leg of his chair. His fingers lax, almost clumsy, as he shuffled the cards.

  “What’s happened?”

  He continued to shuffle. “The Duke of Westsea is dead,” he answered in a listless tone.

  It took me a moment to remember that the Duke of Westsea was his brother. “Oh.”

  “I found out this afternoon.”

  I remained standing. I hadn’t the vaguest idea what to do or say. Karish just sat there silently, no help at all. If he had been a friend I would have known what he wanted, but I didn’t have a clue. “Do you want me to leave?” I asked diffidently.

  “You can’t,” he said flatly.

  “I can go out and . . . stand just outside the door.” My, what a stupid suggestion.

  He thought so, too. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I stood there silently for another couple of moments. It was a horrible silence, so to break it I said, “How did he die?” Then I wished I could snatch back the words. Were you supposed to ask that sort of thing?

  Karish laughed harshly. “Too much bad company.”

  “What?”

  “A ridiculously polite way of saying he died of a sexual disease. Her Grace has a gift for evasive understatement.”

  Her Grace? Oh, yes, his mother.

  “Sit down, Lee,” he ordered, and I sat. “How old were you when you were sent to the academy?”

  He wanted the subject changed. I could understand that. “About four.”

  “How perceptive of your parents,” he commented. “I was eleven.”

  I stared at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Quite.”

  Eleven? I couldn’t believe it. True, Sources were usually discovered a little later than Shields, as how they spoke was a big clue and no one expected rational sentences from anyone under the age of six or seven, but to go unnoticed until the age of eleven was unheard of in recent times, and incredibly negligent on the part of his family. If he had lived at a more active site and went undiscovered a couple more years, his instincts to channel would have killed him.

  “My grandsire went insane in his middle years,” he told me, his tone mild. “Said the most nonsensical things. So when I came along and said things they couldn’t understand, they thought I was insane, too, or heading that way. They were horrified, of course. How embarrassing, to have one’s child afflicted with such a disability. Apparently, there were quite a few arguments about whose fault it was. Her Grace won, though, because the source of the problem was obviously my grandsire, His Grace’s father.”

  People argued over such things? What for?

  “They consoled themselves with the knowledge that at least I was only the second-born, not the first, but even as a spare I was useless. So they went to work on producing another. That didn’t work out. Apparently Her Grace did quicken a few times but never carried to term. His Grace was happy to cast that failure in her face.”

  What a lovely family. Glad I didn’t have to know them. I searched for a polite way to shut Karish up, for I knew he would regret telling me all of this sometime soon.

  “It was a servant who realized what I was.” Karish started dealing the cards, not in any pattern I recognized. “She was a bright woman. Brave, too, to mention me to the Graces, daring to insinuate she might know me better than they. They dismissed her, of course, and they shipped me off to the academy.” He picked out a card and flipped it over on the table. It was the fool. “I was excited about going somewhere, but I was frightened, too.”

  “You weren’t excited about being a Source?” I could understand feeling nervous about going to the academy, about leaving home, but being a Source was akin to being a hero. Surely it would seem a dream come true to a young boy, especially one who was unable to please his family.

  “I’d never heard of the Triple S. I didn’t know what it was.” He picked the card back up and added it to the others, shuffling them again.

  I kept my face blank as I tried to make sense of what he was saying. How could he have never heard of the Triple S? Everyone knew what it was. His friends would have told him, if no one else. And if not, surely his parents would have explained the whole thing to him before they sent him to the academy.

  “Did your family visit you, Lee, while you were in the academy?”

  “Of—” I swallowed the rest of that then said, “Yes.” I didn’t return the question. I knew the answer. And really, it wasn’t that unusual for families not to visit their academy-bound children. Some couldn’t afford the expense. Some simply didn’t care. It happened.

  He smiled. “Of course,” he said. He fanned the deck expertly, then flipped it closed and kept shuffling. “His Grace died without producing any more children, and her Grace had become too old to have them. So it all rested on the new duke, who dutifully became betrothed but whose fiancée wanted a huge wedding, which takes a great deal of time to plan, so they never actually married. For which I’m sure she is now screaming at herself, because without that legal tie, she has no right to the title. Which means,” and he pulled in a deep breath, the first crack in his composure, “it falls to me.”

  Hell. Aristocratic titles were, of course, passed around a family. Karish was the only sibling of the previous titleholder. The law said it could go to anyone in the family who’d been properly chosen and prepared, but custom, and the fact that it was unlikely a duke as young as Lord Westsea had been would have chosen an heir, said it would go to Karish. Shintaro Karish. Lord Shintaro Karish. The next Duke of Westsea.

  I bit my tongue to make sure I stayed quiet. What a mess. He’d have to go to Flown Raven. He didn’t have to live there, but if he had any sense of responsibility at all, and he did, he would spend most of his time in Flown Raven because it was, I believed, the principal seat of the estate. Flown Raven was completely cold. Not so much as a shiver for centuries. It had never been assigned a Pair, it didn’t need a Pair, so what was I supposed to do while he was off playing duke?

  All right, I was a selfish cow. I should have been thinking about Karish losing his brother. But all I could think about was that this ruined my life. My Source was going to a place where Pairs were useless, and he had something important he had to do there. I could go with him and be a parasite. Or I could go somewhere else and be a parasite. I couldn’t be a Shield for anyone else; I was bonded to Karish. I couldn’t do any other kind of work, not only because I had never been trained for anything else but because I belonged to the Triple S. The only thing I could be was Karish’s Shield, and he didn’t need me.

  Which left me precisely nowhere. Except in a panic. Which would accomplish nothing. I had to think.

  “Her Grace will write,” Karish continued. “She will demand my immediate attendance. She will give me the heir’s code so I can recite it to our solicitor, and he will then give me the title. I will be expected to forget all about this Source nonsense and assume my proper place as the head of the Karish family. Despite the fact that I know nothing about tenancies or bookkeeping or farming or politics or anything else connected to being a real lord.” He arched the deck of cards between his thumb and middle finger and fired all the cards off into the air. They descended on the floor in a fine mess.

  Karish steepled his hands and looked at me. It was a hard, angry look, and I wondered what I’d done to deserve that. Be present, I supposed. “What a piece of work am I, yes?” he said coolly. “Quite a monster you’ve gotten yourself bonded to. Here my brother dies, and all I can think about is how inconvenient it is. Though I’m sure you’re not surprised by my lack of family feeling. Selfish, self-absorbed Karish. But the fact that I’m not leaping for joy over the title, that must throw you a circle.”

  Actually, I was merely thinking how spooky it was that our thoughts seemed to be following a similar pattern. Never let it be said that Karish and I were similar in any way. As to what he felt about his family, none of my business.

  “Isn’t that right, Lee?” Karish prodded, and this time he was definitely testy. “Quite the selfish bastard, aren’t I? Not dissolving into tears at the death of my brother. Overemotional Source that I am, I should have been devastated to hear he had a cold.”

  Not if he hadn’t seen him since he was eleven.

  “Say something, damn it!” he snapped.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He snorted. “Surely you have more to say than that.”

  “No.” What did he expect? Did he really think I would lecture him on the proper way to mourn family? What did I know about it? No one of my family had ever died.

  No one I knew had ever had family who died, either. I had no experience in comforting people. It wasn’t part of my Shield training.

  The rest of our watch passed in silence.

  Chapter Twelve

  The following weeks were . . . unpleasant. Karish spent most of them in a vicious mood, swinging from simmering silence to snippy sarcasm. Completely gone was the slightly vacuous charmer, and I was beginning to wonder just what was his true nature.

  He was impossible to deal with. Nothing I said was appropriate. If I spoke about work, he sneered at me for playing the part of the duty-bound Shield, with no regard for natural feelings. If I asked him how he was feeling, I received more lectures about how shocked and appalled I was at his apparent lack of family feeling.

  I had to admit, though only to myself, that I was surprised that he didn’t even want to go to his brother’s funeral. At least, he didn’t ask to have us removed from the roster to enable him to go to Flown Raven. No matter what ill feeling there had been between the two of them, surely he would have wanted to participate in the funeral rites? The man had been his only sibling, after all.

  Not that I spoke a word about it. None of my business.

  Karish also refused to discuss his taking the title. Of this, I had less sympathy. I could understand that it was an unexpected shock to him, and apparently not one he was embracing with any enthusiasm. But this was my life, too. It uprooted every single plan I had. I had a right to know when he was planning to assume the title and move to Flown Raven.

  I didn’t dare bring it up, however. I could only wait. I discovered that sometimes I had less patience than I would like.

  And we had another Rush. No one died that time, but it hurt like hell and put everyone on the roster in a foul mood.

  For distraction I visited Ogawa. She was improving rapidly and was up and about and chatting amiably, trying to appear her normal self. She wasn’t quite managing the normal part, though. I noticed the tension about her eyes and mouth, and a slight rigidity in her movements that hadn’t been there before. I didn’t think the problem was physical, but I didn’t ask about it. If she wanted to talk about it, she would.

  Finally, during one visit, she decided she did. After complaining about convalescence in general and the fact that Tenneson hadn’t visited her often enough, then mining for details about Aiden, Ogawa poured us some tea and splashed some of it over the rim. As though that were some kind of signal, she sat abruptly and stared at me. “I’m scared,” she declared.

  “Of what?”

  She looked at me as though she thought that was a stupid question. “Shielding.”

  Sorry, I’m still a moron. “Why?”

  She paled as though my ignorance had somehow made her fear worse. “Didn’t you feel it when it happened? Didn’t it hurt?”