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the voice became clearer and clearer. She never exactly went to sleep; this was more like a state of trance, though that was something she never achieved except when listening to the library. For a very, very long time she remained this way. Somehow her arm never became fatigued, nor her legs cramped from sitting in one position for so very long without moving.
    She literally could not tell how long it was that she sat there. The grotto was a timeless place, and there was no light leaking in from the outside.
    It was dark when she emerged from the sea cave, with everything the collective scholars of this Sea Kingdom knew about Nippon stowed away in her mind. Alas that it was not a great deal. She knew nothing, for example, of what the people wore, though she did know what they looked like. They were small, but not blond; though another aspect of the magic she got from the Sirens—the ability to look like anyone she cared to—would come into play here, she would not know how to dress. She would have to rely on The Tradition to help her. Tricky, that. It would do so only if the story needed her intervention, or if her story needed its intervention. Still. It had helped her before, and it would likely do so again, and it was always worth trying.
    Her eyes were drawn inexorably to her home. Now that it was night, the Palace glowed against the dark water like a giant lantern, all pale pink, and if possible, looking even more like a creation out of a dream. The lights from within glowed through the coral walls; except when the Palace settled down to sleep, no room was ever left unlit, so the effect was never spoiled by dark patches. Even then, there were always small lights left burning, so that there was always a faint glow to the place. Down in the gardens, the night fish had come out; luminescent, they sported patterns or lures of glowing green or pale blue along their flanks. Some of the little squid and octopods that lived in the garden also glowed. Some of the patterns moved, or flashed on and off. Some of the anemones glowed as well. The glowing Palace was surrounded by a garden full of tiny, moving lights. And on the surface above and just a little below it, the glow-drift gleamed, thin scarves of pale light that were really made up of millions and millions of tiny sea creatures almost too small to be seen. This served as stars for the Sea Kingdoms, though no one who had ever seen the actual stars ever found the glow-drift as satisfying.
    Armed with her information, and already wearing her fish-scale armor, Katya was ready to go.
    Now, it was a curious thing with her father; he hated goodbyes. He liked the illusion that if he turned a corner, he just might come across the person that he knew very well was somewhere far, far away. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that as a young child, most of the people he had actually said goodbye to had never returned. That had been a turbulent time, when war raged between this Kingdom and the Drylanders of the south, and she could hardly fault her father for having such a reaction.
    And although the rest of the family was well aware of how she served King and Kingdom, as were his advisers and other special agents, he had made it very clear that the family was not to know when and where she had gone when she took on a task for him. It could be dangerous for her, for even as cautious as they were, it was possible for something to fall in conversation where it could be overheard. As for the Court—well, since more than a few of those tasks she’d been set when she was younger had been about uncovering the true motives of one Court member or another…it was not wise to inform them, either.
    As a matter of principle, she allowed herself to trust no one in the Court. Not even when her father trusted them.
    So she never said goodbye to anyone. Ever. She just went.
    That was what she did now; she swam to the stables to find herself a ride.
    Stables was a misnomer, really. It was