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time she realized that she didn’t want to hear the answer the question had already escaped her.
    “I set his house on fire. With him in it.” He didn’t look at her, but even in profile his lack of expression terrified her.
    “REESE!”
    Irine’s wail dragged her attention away, and she crawled to the Harat-Shar. The tigraine had Sascha’s head cradled in her arms and she was rocking, her ears flat and eyes wide. “Reese, what’s wrong with him? Why won’t he wake up?”
    “He’s not ready to wake,” said a steady voice behind Reese’s shoulder.
    Reese jumped. “Stop doing that!”
    “Doing what?” the Eldritch asked absently as he slid past her to Sascha’s other side, running a hand above the tigraine’s face.
    “Sneaking up on me,” Reese said. “At least have the grace to make a little more noise.”
    “Grace and noise aren’t usually associated with one another,” Hirianthial murmured.
    “What’s wrong with him?” Irine asked the Eldritch. Reese could hear none of her typical skepticism in her quivering voice and she wondered at this instant trust. Was he influencing her mind?
    “There’s nothing wrong with him,” Hirianthial said, his voice gentle. “He isn’t ready to wake, that’s all.”
    “But this burn—”
    “Just a palmer, alet . He took no greater harm from it. He’ll wake soon.”
    Only then did Irine look at Reese, still holding onto her brother’s body. “Captain?”
    “He’s a doctor,” Reese said. “He’d know better than me.”
    “What about Bryer?” Irine asked after a moment. “Is he okay?”
    “Everyone’s okay,” Reese said. “We’re just in a bit of a fix.”
    Irine’s gold eyes flicked to the walls of the cell. “Yeah, I see that.” She looked back at the Eldritch. “This is him, isn’t it? Our spy?”
    “At your service,” Hirianthial said.
    “I guess you already have been,” Irine said, stroking Sascha’s mane.
    Reese sighed and turned back to the bars. She prodded the back of her molars with her tongue, searching in vain for any minuscule deposit of chalk that might have stubbornly clung to her gums. Her stomach was going to kill her. “So how many people are guarding us?”
    “I’ve counted six,” Hirianthial said. “Two personal guards and four up the corridor.”
    “Six,” Reese repeated, musing.
    “There are five of us,” Irine said from behind them.
    Reese said, “They have palmers. And the keys.”
    Irine shrugged and didn’t reply.
    “The ship’s coming tomorrow to pick them up,” Hirianthial said after a moment. “Presumably we’ll be going with them.”
    “So we have...what, twenty-four hours to break out of here, overwhelm six people, get to the Earthrise and flee far enough to lose a slaver-ship?”
    “Twenty-two,” Hirianthial said. “Days here are shorter than Alliance mean.”
    “Wonderful,” Reese muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
    Hirianthial’s voice sounded quietly behind her. “You need only secure your escape from this cell, lady. You were captured and put here only to inconvenience me. If you disappear, they will not bother to track you. It’s me they want.”
    “I can’t leave you behind,” Reese said, irritated. “You’re the debt I have to pay. If you rot here, I’ll have to do something else and I bet it won’t be any easier.”
    “The Queen isn’t expecting you to save me if the odds are overwhelming,” Hirianthial said.
    “Well, six guards isn’t overwhelming,” Reese said, then stopped. “Did you say...the Queen?”
    His voice was quizzical. “Of course. I thought from our talk that you’d concluded she was your mysterious benefactor.”
    Reese turned, setting her back against the bars. The Eldritch’s face remained composed, but somehow she could still sense his confusion. A polite confusion. She couldn’t quite mesh this courteous facade with the darkness revealed by the memory of the slaver. “Are you trying to tell me that the Queen of the Eldritch