“I’m so tired, Hushidh, and there’s nothing I can do about any of this.”

  “Aunt Rasa thinks you can do something,” said Hushidh. “That’s why she sent me to wake you.”

  “Did she?”

  “Well, you know her. She sent me up twice to “see if poor Luet is still getting some of that rest she needs so much.’ The third time I finally caught on that she was waiting for you to wake up but didn’t have the heart to give instructions for me to do it.”

  “How thoughtful of you to read between the lines, my darling jewel of a big sister.”

  “You can nap again later, my sweet yagda-berry of a little sister.”

  It took only moments to wash and dress, for Luet was young enough that Aunt Rasa did not insist on her learning how to make hair and clothing graceful and dignified before appearing in public. As a child, she could be her scrawny, gawky self, which certainly took less effort. When Luet got downstairs, Aunt Rasa was in her salon with a man, a stranger, but Rasa introduced him at once.

  “This is Rashgallivak, dear Luet. He is perhaps the most loyal and trustworthy man alive, or so my beloved mate has always said.”

  “I have served the Wetchik estate all my life,” said Rashgallivak, “and will do so until I die. I may not be of the great houses, but I am still a true Palwashantu.”

  Aunt Rasa nodded. Luet wondered whether she was supposed to hear this man with belief or with irony; Rasa seemed to be trusting him, however, and so Luet gave her tentative trust as well.

  “I understand that it was you who brought warning,” said Rashgallivak.

  Luet looked at Aunt Rasa in surprise. “He’ll tell no one else,” said Aunt Rasa. “I have his oath. We don’t want to involve you in the politics of murder, my dear. But Rash had to know it, so that he didn’t think my Wetchik had lost his mind. Wetchik left him detailed instructions, you see, to do something quite mad.”

  “Close everything down,” said Rashgallivak. “Dismiss all but the fewest possible employees, sell off all the pack animals, and liquidate the stock. I’m to hold only the land, the buildings, and the liquid assets, in untouchable accounts. Very suspicious, if my master is innocent. Or so some would say. Do say.”

  “Wetchik’s absence wasn’t known for half an hour before Gaballufix was at Wetchik’s house, demanding as the head of the Palwashantu clan that all the property of the Wetchik family be turned over to him. He had the audacity to refer to my mate by his birth name, Volemak, as if he had forfeited his right to the family title.”

  “If my master has really left Basilica permanently,” said Rashgallivak, “then Gaballufix would be within his rights. The property can never be sold or given away from the Palwashantu.”

  “And I’m trying to persuade Rashgallivak that it was your warning of immediate danger that caused Wetchik to flee, not some plot to leave the city and take the family fortune with him.”

  Luet understood her duty now, in this conversation. “I did speak with Nafai,” Luet told Rashgallivak. “I warned him that Gaballufix meant to murder Wetchik and Roptat—or at least my dream certainly seemed to suggest that.”

  Rashgallivak nodded slowly. “This will not be enough to bring charges against Gaballufix, of course. In Basilica, even men are not tried for acts they plotted but never performed. But it’s enough to persuade me to resist Gaballufix’s efforts to obtain the property.”

  “I was mated with him once, you know,” said Rasa. “I know Gabya very well. I suggest you take extraordinary measures to protect the fortune—liquid assets particularly.”

  “No one will have them but the head of the house of Wetchik,” said Rashgallivak. “Madam, I thank you. And you, little wise one.”

  He said not another word, but left immediately. Not at all like the more stylish men—artists, scientists, men of government and finance—whom Luet had met in Aunt Rasa’s salon before. That sort of man always lingered, until Aunt Rasa had to force their departure by feigning weariness or pretending that she had pressing duties in the school—as if her teaching staff were not competent to handle things without her direct supervision. But then, Rashgallivak was of a social class that could not reasonably contemplate mating with one like Aunt Rasa, or any of her nieces.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get more sleep,” said Aunt Rasa, “but glad that you happened to wake up at such a fortunate time.”

  Luet nodded. “So much of last night I felt as if I were walking in my sleep, perhaps I only needed half as much this morning.”

  “I would send you back to bed at once,” said Aunt Rasa, “but I must ask you a question first.”

  “Unless it’s something we’ve studied recently in class, I won’t know the answer, my lady.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Don’t imagine that I actually understand anything about the Oversoul.”

  Luet knew at once that she had spoken too flippantly. Aunt Rasa’s eyebrows rose, and her nostrils flared—but she contained her anger, and spoke without sharpness. “Sometimes, my dear, you forget yourself. You pretend to take no special honor to yourself because the Oversoul has made a seer of you, and yet you speak to me with impertinence that no other woman in this city, young or old, would dare to use. Which should I believe, your modest words or your proud manner?”

  Luet bowed her head. “My words, Mistress. My manner is the natural rudeness of a child.”

  Laughing, Aunt Rasa answered, “Those words are the hardest to believe of all. I’ll spare you my questions after all. Go back to bed now—but this time in your own bed—no one will disturb you there, I promise.”

  Luet was at the door of the salon when it opened and a young woman burst in, forcing her back inside the room.

  “Mother, this is abominable!” cried the visitor.

  “Sevet, I’m so delighted to see you after all these months—and without a word of notice that you were coming, or even the courtesy of waiting until I invited you into my salon.”

  Sevet—Aunt Rasa’s oldest daughter. Luet had seen her only once before. As was the custom, Rasa did not teach her own daughters, but rather had given them to her dear friend Dhelembuvex to raise. This one, her oldest, was mated with a young scholar of some note—Vas?—but it hadn’t hampered her career as a singer with a growing reputation for having a way with pichalny songs, the low melancholy songs of death and loss that were an ancient tradition in Basilica. There was nothing of pichalny about her now, though—she was sharp and angry, and her mother no less so. Luet decided to leave the room at once, before she overheard another word.

  But Aunt Rasa wouldn’t allow it. “Stay, Luet. I think it will be educational for you to see how little this daughter of mine takes after either her mother or her Aunt Dhel.”

  Sevet glared sharply at Luet. “What’s this—are you taking charity cases now?”

  “Her mother was a holy woman, Sevya. I think you may even have heard the name of Luet.”

  Sevet blushed at once. “I beg your pardon,” she said.

  Luet had no idea how to answer, since of course Luet was a charity case and therefore mustn’t show that she had been offended by Sevet’s slur.

  Aunt Rasa saved her from having to think of a proper response. “I will consider that pardon has been begged and granted all around, and now we may begin our conversation with perhaps a more civil tone.”

  “Of course,” said Sevet. “You must realize that I came here straight from Father.”

  “From your rude and offensive manner, I assumed you had spent at least an hour with him.”

  “Raging, the poor man. And how could he do otherwise, with his own mate spreading terrible lies about him!”

  “Poor man indeed,” said Aunt Rasa. “I’m surprised that little waif of a mate of his would have the courage to speak out against him—or the wit to make up a lie, for that matter. What has she been saying?”

  “I meant you, of course, Mother, not his present mate, nobody thinks of her.”

  “But since I lapsed dear Gabya’s contract fifteen years ago, he can hardly regard me as having a duty to refrain from telling the truth about him.”

  “Mother, don’t be impossible.”

  “I’m never impossible. The most I ever allow myself is to be somewhat unlikely.”

  “You’re the mother of Father’s two daughters, both of us more than slightly famous—the most famous of your offspring, and all for honorable things, though of course little Koya’s career is only at its beginning, with not a myachik of her own yet—”

  “Spare me your rivalry with your sister, please.”

  “It’s only a rivalry from her point of view, Mother—I don’t even pay attention to the fact that her singing career seems a bit sluggish at the outset. It’s always harder for a lyric soprano to be noticed—there are so many of them, one can hardly tell them apart, unless one is the soprano’s own loving, loyal sister.”

  “Yes, I use you as an example of loyalty for all my girls.”

  For a moment Sevet’s face brightened; then she realized her mother was teasing her, and scowled. “You really arc too nasty with me.”

  “If your father sent you to get me to retract my remarks about this morning’s events, you can tell him that I know what he was planning from an undoubtable source, and if he doesn’t stop telling people that Wetchik was plotting murder, I’ll bring my evidence before the council and have him banned.”

  “I can’t—I can’t tell Father that!” said Sevet.

  “Then don’t,” said Aunt Rasa. “Let him find out when I do it.”

  “Ban him? Ban Father?”

  “If you had studied more history—though come to think of it, I doubt that Dhelya taught you all that much anyway—you’d know that the more powerful and famous a man is, the more likely he is to be banned from Basilica. It’s been done before, and it will be done again. After all, it’s Gabya, not Wetchik or Roptat, whose soldiers roam the streets, pretending to protect us from thugs that Gabya probably hired in the first place. People will be glad to see him go—and that means they’ll find it useful to believe every bit of evidence I bring.”

  Sevet’s face grew grave. “Father may be a bit prone to rage and a little sneaky in business, Mother, but he’s no murderer.”

  “Of course he’s not a murderer. Wetchik left Basilica and Gabya would never dare to kill Roptat without Wetchik there to blame it on. Though I think that if Gabya had known at the time that Wetchik had fled, he would certainly have killed Roptat the moment he showed up and then used Wetchik’s hasty departure as proof that my dear mate was the murderer.”

  “You make Father sound like a monster. Why did you take him as a mate, then?”

  “Because I wanted to have a daughter with an extraordinary singing voice and no moral judgment whatsoever. It worked so well that I renewed with him for a second year and had another. And then I was done.”

  Sevet laughed. “You’re such a silly thing, Mother. I do have moral judgment, you know. And every other kind. It was Vasya I married, not some second-rate actor.”

  “Stop sniping at your sister’s choice of mate,” said Aunt Rasa. “Kokor’s Obring is a dear, even if he has no talent whatsoever and not the breath of a chance that Koya will actually bear him a child, let alone renew him.”

  “A dear,” said Sevet. “I’ll have to remember what that word really means, now that you’ve told me.”

  Sevet got up to leave. Luet opened the door for her. But Aunt Rasa stopped her daughter before she left.

  “Sevya, dear,” she said. The time may come when you have to choose between your father and me.”

  “The two of you have made me do that at least once a month since I was very small. I’ve managed to sidestep you both so far, and I intend to continue.”

  Rasa clapped her hands together—loudly, a sharp report like one stone striking another. “Listen to me, child. I know the dance that you’ve done, and I’ve both admired you for the way you did it and pitied you for the fact that it was necessary. What I’m saying to you is that soon—very soon—it may no longer be possible to do that dance. So it’s time for you to look at both your parents and decide which one deserves your loyalty. I do not say love, because I know you love us both. I say loyalty.”

  “You shouldn’t speak to me this way, Mother,” said Sevet. “I’m not your student. And even if you succeeded in banning Father, that still wouldn’t mean I’d have to choose between you.”

  “What if your father sent soldiers to silence me? Or tolchocks—which is more likely. What if it was a knife he paid for that slit your mother’s throat?”

  Sevet regarded her mother in silence. “Then I’d have a pichalny song to sing indeed, wouldn’t I?”

  “I believe that your father is the enemy of the Oversoul, and the enemy of Basilica as well. Think about this seriously, my sad-voiced Sevet, think deep and long, because when the day of choosing comes there’ll be no time to think.”

  “I have always honored you, Mother, for the fact that you never tried to turn me against my father, despite all the vile things he said about you. I’m sorry you have changed.” With great dignity, Sevet swept herself from the room. Luet, still a bit stunned by the brutal nature of the conversation under the veneer of elegant speech, was slow to follow her out the door.

  “Luet,” whispered Aunt Rasa.

  Luet turned to face the great woman, and trembled inside to see the tears on her cheeks.

  “Luet, you must tell me. What is the Oversoul doing to us? What does the Oversoul plan?”

  “I don’t know,” said Luet. “I wish I did.”

  “If you did, would you tell me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Even if the Oversoul told you not to?”

  Luet hadn’t thought of such a possibility.

  Aunt Rasa took her hesitation for an answer. “So,” she said. “I wouldn’t have expected otherwise—the Oversoul does not choose weak servants, or disloyal ones. But tell me this, if you can: Is it possible, is it possible, that there was no plot to kill Wetchik at all? That the Oversoul merely sent that warning to get him to leave Basilica? You must realize—I was thinking that—Lutya, what if the only thing the Oversoul was doing was getting rid of Issib and Nafai? It makes sense, doesn’t it—they were interfering with the Oversoul, keeping her so busy that she couldn’t speak to anyone but them. Might she not have sent your vision to make sure they left the city, because they were threatening to her?”

  Luet’s first impulse was to shout her denial, to rebuke her for daring to speak so sacrilegiously of the Oversoul—as if it would act for its own private benefit.

  But then, on sober reflection, she remembered with what wonderment Hushidh had told her of her realization that Issib and Nafai might well be the reason for the Oversoul’s silence. And if the Oversoul thought that her ability to guide and protect her daughters was being hampered by these two boys, couldn’t she act to remove them?

  “No,” said Luet. “I don’t think so.’

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m never sure, except of the vision itself,” said Luet. “But I’ve never known the Oversoul to deceive me. All my visions have been true.”

  “But this one would still be a true instrument of the Oversoul’s will.”

  “No,” said Luet again. “No, it couldn’t be. Because Nafai and Issib had already stopped. Nafai even went and prayed—”

  “So I heard, but then, so did Mebbekew, Wetchik’s son by that miserable little whoreling Kilvishevex—”

  “And the Oversoul spoke to Nafai and woke him up, and brought him outside to meet me in the traveler’s room. If the Oversoul wanted Nafai to be still, she would have told him, and he would have obeyed. No, Aunt Rasa, I’m sure the message was real.”

  Aunt Rasa nodded. “I know. I knew it was. It would just be . . .”

  “Simpler.”

  “Yes.” She smiled ruefully. “Simpler if Gaballufix were as innocent as he pretends. But not true to character. You know why I lapsed him?”

  “No,” said Luet. Nor did she want to know—by long custom a woman never told her reasons for lapsing a man, and it was a hideous breach of etiquette to ask or even speculate on the subject.

  “I shouldn’t tell, but I will—because you’re one who must know the truth in order to understand all things.”

  I’m also a child, thought Luet. You’d never tell any of your other thirteen-year-olds about such things. You’d never even tell your daughter. But I, I am a seer, and so everything is opened up before me and I am forbidden to remain innocent of anything except joy.

  “I lapsed him because I learned that he . . .”

  Luet braced herself for some sordid revelation, but it did not come.

  “No, child, no. Just because the Oversoul speaks to you doesn’t mean that I should burden you with my secrets. Go, sleep. Forget my questions, if you can. I know my Wetchik. And I know Gaballufix, too. Both of them, down to the deepest shadow of their souls. It was for my daughters’ sake that I wished to find some impossible thing, like Gabya’s innocence.” She chuckled. “I’m like a child, forever wishing for impossible things. Like your vision in the woods, before I drew you up to the portico. You saw all my most brilliant nieces, like a roll call of judgment.”

  Brilliant? Shedemei and Hushidh, yes, but Dol and Eiadh, those women of paint and tinsel?

  “I was so happy to know that the Oversoul knew them, and linked them with me and you in the vision she sent. But where were my daughters, Lutya? I wish that you had seen my Sevya and my Koya. I do wish that—is that silly of me?”

  Yes. “No.”

  “You should practice lying more,” said Aunt Rasa, “so you’d be better at it. Go to bed, my sweet seer.”

  Luet obeyed, but slept little.

  In the days that followed, the turmoil in the city increased, to the point where it was almost impossible for classes to continue in Aunt Rasa’s house. It wasn’t just the constant worry, either. It was the disappearance of so many faces, especially from the younger classes. Only a few children were withdrawn because their parents disapproved of Rasa’s political stance. Children were being taken out of every teaching household, great or common, and restored to their families; many families had even closed up their houses and gone on unnamed holidays to unknown places, presumably waiting for whatever terrible day was coming to be over.