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were as wary of her as she of them. Becca forced herself to take a breath—another, and another. She forced herself to recall the many kindnesses she had received from the Gossamers: They had bathed her, fed her, watched over her—even assisted her in the garden! While they were certainly Altimere's creatures, yet she had never felt that they wished her harm—and had often felt that they had cared for her beyond the scope of whatever orders they had received from their master.
    "Good day," she said, her voice not as strong as she would have liked. "I require a bath."
    Before her, the misshapen shadows roiled. A pair of Gossamers detached themselves from the confusion, and faded, leaving a pair yet to confront Becca and Sian, tentacles waving inquisitively.
    Her stomach roiled uneasily. Becca swallowed, and motioned unsteadily. "The Engenium is my guest. Pray—" Pray, what? she thought wildly. Treat her as you would myself?
    "Pray treat her with all respect due the cousin of the Queen."
    There was a small sound from behind her right shoulder, as if Sian had sneezed. Becca waited, but the Fey woman made no other sound.
    "Very well," Becca said. She moved forward one deliberate step, then another. The Gossamers drifted back from her approach, escorting them properly into the house. They passed through the tidy, cold kitchen, past the hall to the dining room, where a single place was set at the gleaming wooden table, to the entrance hall.
    There the Gossamers halted, transparent nightmares barely visible against the textured woods.
    Becca turned toward Sian, who had followed, silent.
    "Can you see the Gossamers?" she asked politely, and gained an ironic lift of a neat brow for her courtesy.
    "Surely. Can you not see them?"
    "I see them . . . somewhat changed from what they were," Becca answered, with emphasis.
    Both of Sian's brows rose. "Do you indeed? They seem precisely as they have always seemed to me."
    Good sun , Becca thought weakly. What other horrors had she been blind to in this house?
    "Would you care to wait in Altimere's library?" she asked Sian politely. "They will guide you."
    "In fact," Sian said, with a sudden broad smile. "I would very much like to see Altimere's library. Pray send for me when you have done with your toilette, and are ready to ride. There is no need to hurry on my account; I have nothing other to do than wait upon you."
    Becca glared, but Sian had already turned and was following the Gossamers across the foyer. With a sigh, and telling herself that the Fey woman would be perfectly safe, she turned and mounted the ramp.
     
    Her room was unchanged; the bed covered in yellow damask, turned down to reveal a dozen achingly white pillows and linens as fresh as the season's first snow. Sunlight parted the living vine curtains, and gleamed along the glazed green tiles at the top of the wall. Her combs and brushes were laid out on the vanity, and her reflection ghosted in the depths of the mirror as she passed by.
    She paused, staring, not at the ruined dress or her hair like a mare's nest, though certainly both were worth at least a stare. No, what caught her eye and held it was the blare and blossom of color swirling about her shape. This was nothing like the silvery nimbus that surrounded Diathen the Queen, or the wash of turquoise that played about Sian's slim form—no, this was color in every shade and hue, so that she seemed to be a woman afire.
    Involuntarily, Becca looked down at her hands, only to find them brown and cool, with a spiderweb of white scars across the fingertips of her right hand, where the duainfey had blistered her skin.
    She looked back at the woman burning in the glass, down-tilted brown eyes beneath winging brows, and a thin, unlined brown face. Frowning, she gazed directly into her own eyes, but could see nothing different in their regard. Was this yet duainfey's virtue at work? Clarity—perhaps clarity was not always to be desired, she thought painfully. Surely, it