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through the long Manse corridors.
    ~
    Dawn was breaking by the time the guard locked the door from the outside. Mathias looked around at the room that was to be his prison. It was an ordinary guest-room, in the south wing of the Manse. He was still shaken by Lucilla's reaction, but he knew that all he could do was wait until events proved his innocence.
    At first he had been willing to accept that his arrest was inevitable, after the murder of the Prime. He had publicly assaulted March, only hours— minutes? —before his death. And Mathias was the person with most to gain from the situation: the inheritance of the Primacy of Newest Delhi, and with it the effective rule of almost half the population of Expatria. It was natural that suspicion should fall on his shoulders.
    But the mask cast everything in a different light. Someone was trying to set him up, presumably the same person who had killed the Prime. He remembered the disturbance in the streets that night: the guard had told him it was Black-Handers, out for whatever they could grab while the revellers were distracted by Dumandee. The militia had easily kept control. He thought again of the dark currents flowing through the city he had thought he understood, the cults, the clans, the disenchanted. What did they think they would gain by all this? And then he stopped himself. Speculation would do him no good. Where had his self-discipline gone?
    There was a knock at the door and he glanced up to see it open and someone step through.
    'Idi!' They rushed together and embraced. 'Idi, how did you get in? Tell me what's happening!'
    Idi's face looked serious and hollow, as if he had not slept that night. 'Your sentries don't like what they're doing here,' he said. 'There's a lot of people like that. Word gets around, you know? How much they tell you? Nothing? I figured. Listen, word is your pa was strangled with a power cable. Like a PA cable, they say. They say he left the party after an argument with you —yeah, I know you didn't to it, least I did when I just saw your face. After this bust-up he left, then Edward found him dead and you're chin-deep in shit creek. It stinks.' Idi smiled for the first time, but it was obviously an effort.
    'You say Edward found him?'
    'It's not what I say, it's what they say. It's what the militia and the guards say when they're letting off steam, it's what servants say who don't like the idea of being under Eddy.' He smiled again. 'It's the word, Matt, the word. They say he was broken up about it, say he was crying when he called the guards. They kept it quiet at first, until they figured they knew what had happened.
    'Word also says that Eddy's ma has crawled out of the woodwork, now she's heard what's happening. She's trying to put pressure on for Eddy to be adopted above you as the new Prime. She doesn't care what comes of this, just says it's another proof that you're not the right stuff like her Eddy is.' Idi sighed. 'What have they got on you that'll stick?'
    'Nothing solid,' said Mathias. 'Not that they've told me. Except for a mask somebody planted in my room; Anderson says I used it for cover. Someone put it there, Idi. Someone wants me out of the way.'
    'Good reasoning, Matt. Except it's not just you: they wanted the Prime out of the way, too.'
    Someone coughed outside the guest-room door and Idi stepped towards it. 'That's my signal. Time to go. Listen, Matt, try not to worry.' He shrugged. 'Yeah, I know. But you've got friends out here. We're not going to let you go down with this.'
    Idi opened the door and Mathias hurried over to stop him. 'Listen, Idi,' he said. 'Will you get word to Greta for me? She has to know what's happening. I have to see her!'
    'Hey, there's no have tos from where you're sitting, Matt. Yeah, OK. I'll try, I'll do something.' He gave a final grin. 'We'll get you out, Matt. They can't do this.'
    ~
    Mathias tried to occupy his mind as he sat imprisoned in the guest-room. He counted the animals that flew