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find it when you need my aid, and I will come.” She turned and walked toward the darkness of the trees, the fog clearing like courtiers bowing out of the way for their ruler to pass. She halted and cocked her head so that one face looked back, shrewd eyes looking Cerridwen up and down. “Wake up, Sister. Wake up.”

    Cerridwen woke to darkness. There was a disconcerting moment in which she did not remember what had happened, and then the memory returned, horrible in its clarity.

    She had killed Bauchan. She had done the right thing. No one would convince her otherwise. But when they.d seized her…when they.d hit her, the last thing she.d heard was Cedric, shouting her name.

    Her hands were bound, but she tried to grope through the darkness, her breath coming faster and faster as she remembered the words that had drifted to her through her semiconscious fog. They had wanted to execute her, and Cedric; and the Humans had been concerned only with money.

    “Cedric!” The panic she felt overrode any thought to what dangers might befall her if they discovered her awake and alive. If they had killed him—

    “I am here.” The sentence was cool and perfunctory, no attempt to comfort or reassure her.

    But he did not sound damaged, and that outweighed any concern she might have had for his demeanor. “Where are we?”

    “We are in a prison.”

    Had she slept that long? “They.ve taken us off the ship, then?”

    “We are in a prison on the ship.” His words seemed to come from behind clenched teeth.

    Vaguely, she remembered him chasing after her, shouting for her to stop, but her head ached and she did not want to examine her actions, or his reactions to them, now. “Why would someone need a prison on their ship?”

    There was a rustling in the darkness, and the sound painted a picture in her mind of Cedric, wriggling against his bonds in an effort to free himself. “Perhaps in the event that someone loses all sense and reason and murders a fellow passenger?”

    Absorbing that anger, she said softly, “You could have stopped me.”

    A spot of red flared in the blackness. His antennae. The illumination gave her a clearer idea of where he was. Close to her, but not close enough to touch if she stretched out her bound hands. He sat upright, and the red glinted off the metallic surface of the wall behind him. In the glow, she could see the top of his head, but nothing else, none of his expression.

    It was probably best that way. “You could have stopped yourself! You must learn, Your Majesty, that only you are responsible for your actions. Your stupid, rash actions!”

    Though he meant to chastise her, she could not feel guilt over her actions. She ran the moment of Bauchan.s death through her mind once, twice, a third time. Her palms remembered the vibration of the blade in her hands as it sank into Bauchan.s body. The scent of his blood, dried onto her skin like war paint, tainted each breath. It had all been real, and it had all been her doing. But she could not lament it.

    “I take responsibility for what I did. Of course, I do. But you must have wanted him dead, as well. He knew the one thing that you did not want him to know. His death must be a great relief to you.”

    “A relief? To be imprisoned?” His voice rose in pitch, almost comical in his outrage.

    “A relief, because now we are safe when we arrive at Danae.s Court. Bauchan can tell no one what he heard!” They were not safe from execution for murdering Bauchan. How to avoid punishment for that still escaped her.

    Metal thudded dully. Cedric had kicked the floor in frustration. “There were other ways, ways that might not have gotten us killed!”

    “Bauchan could not have been bought.” As if struck by lightning, a realization came upon her. “No one can truly be bought. If they are willing to trade their loyalty for gold or power, someone will always have a better offer.”

    “So, all enemies must die, is that what you.re