He rubbed my arm, a light and soothing touch. I was tired, and the returning flood of warmth was pleasant, so I didn’t snap at him. Because I was tired and it had nothing to do with what I was supposed to be doing, my mind wandered as it had an evil tendency to do, and the realization came to me that Karish had dropped the flirtatious manner—with me, at least—ages ago, yet he still had a tendency to touch me when I stood too close, or when he wanted my attention. As he did with everyone. That had been my second realization. He seemed to touch all people a lot, and not even Lord Shintaro Karish could want to sleep with everyone.

  Besides, it felt good.

  “I have to finish these,” I repeated firmly, only to have my stomach growl. Loudly.

  Karish didn’t laugh, but I could feel he was amused. “Dinner’s ready,” he said. “Eat and sleep. I’ll help you with the letters after.”

  “You will not,” I said with asperity. “It’s my duty.”

  “I know how to write,” he answered sharply.

  “What has that to do with anything?” His response was to rise to his feet and pull me to mine by the shoulders. “Karish!”

  “I’m aware you’ll be breaking some rule of yours by eating with me,” he said coolly. “But for the horseshoe nail, and all, eh?”

  Ben was too busy packing up the belongings of the slain Pairs to see to Karish and me right then. Karish and I were doing for ourselves, which meant little in the way of cooking. We ate a quick meal of bread, fruit, cheese, and cold meat. I didn’t think I could manage more, anyway.

  Inevitably, upon eating I became exhausted, my eyes and head filling with sand. I was suddenly so tired I could easily be persuaded to just put my head down on the table and go to sleep.

  Karish narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you all right?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Well, you look awful. Go to bed.”

  I sighed. I really didn’t think I could face those letters and do them justice. And if there were another disaster I would be useless and kill us both. So yes, it was time to get some sleep.

  “I will clean,” said Karish, taking my plate before I could pick it up.

  “You’re being too nice, and I don’t like it,” I said bluntly.

  “That’s not the reason I’m doing it,” he said, deadpan. “Though it is an added benefit.”

  I couldn’t hold back my smile. The sentiment was one I’d had so often it was almost frightening to hear it coming from Karish. But it didn’t show either of us in a mature light, that we did things simply to annoy the other partner. That was something I would have to think about. Later.

  I didn’t sleep as deeply as my exhaustion had led me to expect. I ended up tossing quite a bit, my head filled with strange dreams. Karish played a role, which was annoying but understandable. The strange thing was that Stevan Creol made an appearance, too, and I hadn’t even thought of him since I was Chosen. When I woke, any coherence or plot the dreams might have had crumbled away. I hated it when that happened. It made me feel like I’d left something unfinished.

  I got out of bed, changed my clothes, and left the room, making some effort to be quiet. It was morning, but early. No reason to wake Karish.

  Who was at the table I’d been occupying the night before, writing letters. My mouth tightened, but I decided not to say anything. It was my duty, not his, but if he was so damned determined to write letters, there was no reason not to let him. Maybe it was part of his way of dealing with what had happened. If so, it would be petty of me to snipe at him for it, though I really didn’t like him interfering with my work. “Have you been up long?” I asked him, and my voice was calm.

  He looked up from his letter, rubbing the back of his neck. “A couple of hours.”

  Did the man never sleep? “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Tea would be good,” he said. “Then you can look these over.”

  “You said you could write.” And this was apparently an issue with him. “I believe you.” I went to the kitchen.

  I found the water kettle. I had so far learned to boil water and to brew tea and coffee. I could make toast, too. I was very proud of myself.

  “No,” said Karish, from the doorway. What was the point of me offering to fetch him a drink if he was going to get up anyway? “I looked at your letters, to see what you were doing. You’re really good at it.”

  “It’s my job,” I said, trying not to sound irritated.

  He laughed softly. “Just because someone has a job to do, it doesn’t mean they do it well.”

  No, but the way he complimented me on what I could do, it was like he didn’t expect me to be able to do it as well as I could. It was as though he expected me to be incompetent. So I pumped water into the kettle and put it on the stove and said nothing.

  I reviewed the letters. The phrasing was a little disjointed, but he gave the awful news gently, with no hint that it was only duty that had killed these people and so nothing to fret over, and not a trace of aristocratic hauteur. He didn’t use his title in his signature, but the families probably knew exactly who Source Shintaro Karish was and would find some small—minuscule—comfort in knowing he had taken the trouble to write. “They’re good,” I told him.

  “Are you sure?”

  I had the feeling he was interested less in being stroked and more in making sure the families would receive appropriate letters, and that impressed me. “Aye, they’re well done.”

  He nodded. “That’s all of them, then.”

  That was one unpleasant job finished. I was happy enough not to have to write any more of those letters. “Thank you.” He shouldn’t have done it, but I was grateful for his contribution. This one time.

  Karish made breakfast. For himself, for when I didn’t sleep well I usually lost my appetite. Besides, the very idea of eating hot rice, especially in the morning, made me nauseous.

  All the chores were done. There were no more reports or letters to write. I had nothing to do, and I wasn’t the right kind of tired for sleeping. I went to one of the sofas in the living room and hugged an extra cushion as I stared up at the ceiling.

  Karish brought his food to the living room. More sociable and more polite, I supposed, but I’d have rather he stayed in the kitchen or the dining room. My mind felt numb, and I really wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

  “Sure you don’t want any?” he asked, holding up a spoonful of rice.

  My stomach twisted a little. “Rice is a dessert,” I announced. “It is not a breakfast dish.”

  “Peasant.”

  Freak. I waved a hand at the ceiling. “We’ve got cracks.”

  “Hm?”

  I pointed, and he looked up. “Maybe I can plaster it.”

  I looked at him. “I am not buying that one, Karish,” I declared. “No way can Lord Shintaro Karish do handy work.”

  He had been sipping at his tea. He set the mug on the table beside him with a sharp smack of pottery hitting wood. “My name,” he said, with sudden irritation, “is Taro. Why the hell is that so hard for you to say?”

  My eyebrows rose before I could prevent it. “And why does that bother you so much?” I asked him. “Shields call people by their family names. It’s what we do.”

  “You call Aiden by his first name,” he reminded me irritably.

  That was not an appropriate comparison. “He’s not Triple S.”

  “How is that relevant?”

  It just was. I’d been addressed by my family name from my first day at the academy. I called all my friends, lovers, and professors by their family names, with few exceptions. Regulars, however, followed different codes of behavior that we were encouraged to adopt when we interacted with them, so I was more likely to address a regular by his or her personal name when their manners demanded it. But everyone within the Triple S expected a Shield to use family names. “It’s tradition.”

  “It’s rude.”

  “No one else thinks so. You’re the first Source I’ve ever met who’s had a problem with it.”

  He stirred the rice with his spoon. “People address servants by their family names,” he said in a tight voice.

  I cocked a brow at him. “Surely you’re not accusing me of treating you like a servant?” Because that was ridiculous.

  He ignored that. “No one likes servants, you know,” he said. “Those who can afford them consider them a necessary evil. Because they feel it’s almost impossible to get good help, and when you offer these people a good position the ungrateful little wretches only take off on a whim. So you can’t afford to feel anything for them, not respect and certainly not anything like affection, because they come and go so quickly.”

  My family had servants, and they addressed them all by their family names. That was tradition. “As far as I know,” I said carefully, as I didn’t really know where he was going with this, “the servants prefer being addressed by their family names. It maintains a distance they’re comfortable with.”

  “Aye, distance,” he said. “And Zaire knows, Shields must maintain their distance. Always hide behind the family name. Always walk a couple of steps behind. Never talk any more than you absolutely have to.”

  Here we were. Back to the fact that I didn’t worship Karish. Though I was aware that he no longer wanted me to lust after him, if that was what he’d ever wanted, I did understand that I didn’t treat him as he would like, and as he thought he deserved to be treated. “What did you expect from your Shield before we were bonded, Kar—Shintaro?”

  He made a derisive sound. “I knew exactly what to expect,” he said bitterly. “Pairs would come to the academy, to tell us what real life was like.”

  I nodded. We’d had the same at the Shield academy.

  “The Shields always had this blank expression on their faces, and used these flat tones when they spoke. At first, I thought it was because they didn’t feel anything, but later I realized it was merely that they didn’t want to express what they were thinking, and that was worse. Sometimes a Source would say or do something the Shield didn’t approve of, and I could tell the Shield thought the Source was an idiot. One Shield thought no one was looking at him, and he rolled his eyes, something you do, too. But whenever the Source looked at him, there was that blank face and that flat tone again, and the Source probably had no idea what his Shield really thought of him.”

  “Of course he did,” I objected, but without undue force, as Karish clearly thought he had a genuine grievance. “Not even a Shield can control all of her expressions and all of her feelings all the time.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Karish agreed sourly. “You certainly made no secret of what you thought about me.”

  I let that go, because he was right, and I was ashamed of it. I’d thought Karish nothing more than dandelion fluff, and even if it were true, I shouldn’t have let him see it.

  “The Sources always spoke first, but they never had much to say that wasn’t directly related to channeling. After they made their little speech they stood back while the Shields told us all about the various sites, and what kind of record-keeping needed to be done, and how to deal with other Pairs. Not that we had to worry about that much.” His eyes glittered. “Because, of course, our Shields would deal with that. And we would have to requisition our own supplies and arrange for our accommodations, and sometimes merchants and landlords weren’t all that happy to deal with us because we didn’t have to pay them, but we weren’t to worry about it, because our Shields would deal with that. And sometimes we expressed ourselves in a manner that confused and even offended regulars, but we didn’t need to worry about it. Our Shields would handle any problem we caused.”

  It was true we were supposed to smooth any ruffled feathers, but the Sources weren’t really supposed to be aware that that was what we were doing. Or so I’d always been taught.

  “We were expected to guard our Shields if there was music playing, at parties and festivals and such, but we were assured we probably wouldn’t be stuck with that duty very often. Our Shields would do their best to get their friends or lovers to take over that responsibility.” He picked up the spoon and tapped it against his lips.

  “All any of that means is that your time is considered too valuable to waste on such trivial chores. How can you possibly complain about that?”

  He looked disgusted. “We’re not too valuable. We’re too incompetent. To ask for directions or write a letter. Run along and play, Karish, I have work to do.”

  “I have never said that.”

  “You don’t have to. Your whole attitude reeks of it.”

  All right. This was getting us nowhere. He was just venting. There was nothing I could say in response, nothing that would appease him. So I supposed I would just let him rant on and hope he calmed down sometime soon.

  His eyes narrowed. Not at me. He wasn’t focused on me anymore. I felt the internal shifts within him, and I knew it was happening again. I barely had time to raise my Shields before it hit.

  The pain was different this time. It didn’t penetrate the back of my eye and expand. It splashed against my face, against my arms, chest, back, and arms. All over. It sank through my skin like hot acid and seeped into my blood, yellow poison running through my veins and pumping through my heart.

  It was water, rushing, driving, crushing. I pushed at it with my hands, and it gushed through my fingers, eating at my flesh. I collected my thoughts and threw them at the water, leaning against it, pressing against it, holding it in place.

  I had no idea how I did that. I had no time to wonder about it.

  I could feel the forces slashing at Karish’s mind. They weren’t supposed to do that. His heart was beating too fast. I couldn’t slow it down enough.

  The yellow poison gurgled up into my throat, scalding me. I couldn’t breathe.

  It wanted to crush Karish. I could feel it. It wanted to wrap around him, swirling poison, to strip his skin and burn his blood and melt his bones with its corrosive touch. I held the water back from him, though the effort made my mind scream.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I couldn’t hold it. The water kept shifting, rolling toward Karish. I reached out with my bleeding mind and pushed it back.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  But I could feel, and this was ticking me off. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were just novices, and we weren’t supposed to have to deal with this sort of thing yet. Ever.

  There was anger radiating from elsewhere, too. From Karish, I could feel it. And from somewhere else not immediately obvious, and I was in no condition to think it through. I gathered up the anger and threw it against the water.

  I wasn’t supposed to be able to do that.

  The water moved back. I shoved at it again, and it gave again.

  I felt surprise. It was not my own. It wasn’t Karish’s. But I dragged it in with the anger and threw that against the water, too.

  Perhaps I was simply going mad.

  The water sank away. Disappeared. I collapsed. It was over.

  I could feel the floor against my cheek. It was hard and too hot. My head rang with such sharp agony it brought tears to my eyes. Retching was a serious risk. Breathe lightly.

  I felt like my skull was going to splinter into a million pieces.

  I heard a groan. “I feel terrible.” Karish’s voice was gone again. And he’d had such a lovely tenor. “What did you do?”

  What did I do? I hadn’t done anything. Except my job. Someone else was responsible for that nightmare of an experience. But answering was completely beyond my abilities right then. Instead I willed the room to stop spinning. The room was being stubborn.

  “Lee?”

  Shut up, Karish. I mean, I’m not dead. If I were, you would be, too. So leave me alone.

  “Lee!”

  Weak but insistent. Bastard. “Here,” I croaked, and that was all he was getting out of me.

  He didn’t say anything after that. I supposed he’d just wanted to make sure my brains were still functioning. It wasn’t enough that I was alive. I had to be in my right mind, too. And who said aristocrats weren’t demanding?

  If there was another disturbance, we were dead. I could not Shield again, not soon. Maybe not ever. I wasn’t sure I could keep my brains together through another such episode. I still wasn’t sure all my brains had survived the last one.

  In time I could move, though my body wasn’t thrilled about it. I moved from the floor to the sofa I had fallen off of, which was all the progress I was going to demand from myself right then. Karish was much more ambitious, moving from the floor by the table to the sofa. He sat beside me and without the slightest hesitation or diffidence wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, and I bonelessly complied. Pain eased, muscles loosened, and the beating of his heart helped to drive disturbing images from my mind. For the moment not giving a damn about how it looked or whether it was a bad idea, I curled around him and flattened my palm against his chest so I could feel the blood pulsing through him.

  I fell asleep with Karish’s arms wrapped tight around me and his face buried in my hair. It was the deepest sleep I’d ever had. Later I learned Karish had slept, too, just as dreamlessly. The residents of High Scape never knew how precarious their position was during those hours. Ignorance is bliss.

  Chapter Nine

  One week later, and we had a nearly full roster once more. Four Pairs had been pulled in from other sites and off the circuit, a temporary measure until the Triple S could make more permanent arrangements. Another Pair was on the way.

  If Ogawa and Tenneson didn’t wake soon, a final Pair would be summoned to replace them. I visited them in the hospital every day and felt guilty for having come through the Rushes unharmed.

  In the week since the second Rush, High Scape had been calm, and our minds and throats had been given time to heal. But the memories weren’t fading at all. I was even suffering nightmares. I never had nightmares.