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Start over.”
    “Sounds lonely.”
    “Or peaceful. I’m grateful to you for the role you played in helping me get past my grief.” And out of the bottle. “I’m just not sure this is a life I’m suited for long-term.”
    “I’d certainly miss you if you left, but you don’t owe me anything, and I can’t make you stay. Well, with Sicarius’s help I probably could.” Amaranthe smiled.
    He returned the gesture warily.
    “No, I’m joking.” She patted his arm. “Think on it for a while, please. You may feel that you don’t have much in common with the others, but don’t mistake not fitting in with not having a place. We care about you.”
    Books snorted. “You, I believe do. The others, less so.”
    “Maldynado would be bored if he didn’t have you to trade insults with.”
    “I see. And Sicarius?”
    “Ah, he believes you’re progressing with your training.”
    “And that’s equivalent to caring about me?” Books asked.
    “Most people he ignores. Or kills.”
    “True.”
    “Think about it,” she said. “No leaving while we have a mystery to solve though. I expect we’ll find some excitement tomorrow, one way or another.”
    Noting the gleam in her eyes, he said, “Why does that worry me and excite you?”
    “You’re saner than I am?”
    “That must be it.”

CHAPTER 4
     
    W ater pattered onto the mildew-slick walkway, and Amaranthe struggled to keep her map dry. The maze of pipes, tunnels, and holding tanks was tough enough to decipher without soggy stains. Occasionally a trolley or steam vehicle rumbled by on an overhead street, but for the most part only the sound of running water stole the silence.
    Akstyr and Basilard followed her while Sicarius scouted ahead. What he expected to find in the darkness without a lantern, she could not guess, but he seemed to prefer the shadows.
    “Huh,” she muttered, pausing to peer about. “This should be a four-way intersection, not a three-way one.” Unless they were lost. She frowned at the map and pictured the tunnels they had traversed. She had taken note of each turn they made, so she did not see how they could have gone astray.
    Amaranthe glanced over her shoulder. If they
were
lost, she did not want to admit it. She had a notion leaders were supposed to be unflappable and infallible, or, at the least, have good senses of direction.
    The two men behind her were not paying attention.
    “Truth, Basilard?” Akstyr asked. “You can’t tell me anything about how your people work the mental sciences?”
    Basilard shook his head.
    “But you’re not from the empire,” Akstyr said. “I thought all Kendorians knew something about
rakinyaw
.” Akstyr puffed his chest as he said the foreign term, no doubt proud he knew a Kendorian word.
    Basilard signed a response, hands and fingers moving in a series of curt gestures.
    “What?” Akstyr asked.
    “Basilard is Mangdorian, not Kendorian,” Amaranthe said. “And he doesn’t know that word you just used.”
    Basilard inclined his head her direction.
    “Huh?” Akstyr asked. “Oh. Well, whatever. Only the empire is so backward that it…”
    Amaranthe returned her attention to the map. Even if those two were talking about something else, they would eventually notice they were standing still. Unfortunately, the channel she wanted to take was the one not there. Only a flat brick wall waited in that direction. Maybe if they turned left, they could loop back around and—
    Basilard tugged at her shirt. Akstyr had a hand on the wall, his face toward the ceiling, and his eyes distant and thoughtful.
    “Find something, Akstyr?” she asked after a minute passed without him moving.
    He blinked, then pointed down the channel to the right. “No, wait.” He pointed left. “Er.” He shrugged and lifted his arms.
    “Something odd with the intersection?” Amaranthe asked. Maybe there was a reason they were lost.
    “I don’t know. It’s just…strange.”
    Sicarius appeared at Amaranthe’s