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come forward to see that individual.”
    â€œNot without a guard,” Zhiya said.
    Quinn shook his head. “No guards.”
    â€œIf they wish to kill us,” Anzi said, “they don’t need proximity.”
    â€œIf they were strong, they would have won the Long War,” Ci Dehai said.
    Anzi sighed. “They were afraid that the Entire would…roll up like a rug. They kept their war small. We should never forget their restraint.”
    Quinn declared, “I’ll meet any Beautiful Ones personally, without a guard.”
    He looked around at his emergency council. Protocols with the Jinda ceb were the least of their issues.
    There was Sydney, who wanted to preserve the Entire at any cost. Her goal would doubtless be to restart the engine at Ahnenhoon. To do so she needed either the Tarig or the Jinda ceb. He meant to banish the one and persuade the other. If either could be done.
    There was also Geng De’s claim to weave the future against him. Zhiya especially took this seriously. Because it was a navitar’s vision—her mother’s—she gave this idea more credence than he did. Despite Zhiya’s mother, despite the mutterings of Ghoris, Quinn doubted anyone could direct the future, or reach out to constrain a person’s will. Nevertheless, Zhiya had her operatives busy in Rim City, watching everything Sydney, Cixi, and Geng De did. So far, Sydney’s plans were impenetrable.
    â€œWe should arrest Geng De,” Zhiya said, matching his thoughts.
    â€œWe’re not strong enough even if they had given us provocation.”
    â€œYou have the brightships.”
    And he could fly them, too. That had been John Hastings’s first assignment, to figure out how to pilot them. Using the mSap, it had not taken long.
    Ci Dehai said, “We could bring the army from Ahnenhoon. My forces would overwhelm the Rim City compound.”
    Quinn wouldn’t hear of an attack on the crystal bridge. “We have no proof.”
    Ci Dehai countered, “No intelligence is ever perfect. With the stakes so high, strike first.”
    â€œNo,” Quinn said. He gazed at each one, locking his decision in.
    Ci Dehai muttered, “The army has nothing to do. An idle force goes soft.”
    â€œNot a reason for war.”
    Zhiya snorted. “We have every reason.”
    â€œWe’ll do nothing until the Jinda ceb arrive,” Quinn said. He looked at each of them. For the first time it occurred to him that any one of them might be influenced by Geng De. Geng De might want a precipitous action to incite the Entire against him or even to influence the Jinda ceb by showing him as aggressor.
    He shoved the thought away, not wanting to believe such things were possible.
    Nevertheless, the thought hovered.

CHAPTER THREE

    Adopt no customs of foreign climes, lest you become a stranger in your own sway.
    â€”from Admonitions for Travelers
    BELLS CLANGED AND THREE-STRINGED INSTRUMENTS WHINED as the tenth course of dinner came around. Unless it was the fifteenth course. Sen Ni hadn’t kept count, having been satiated hours ago.
    â€œI can’t eat another thing,” she whispered to Cixi as another platter made its way toward the head table.
    â€œHer favorite dish,” Cixi murmured to the servant. “A large helping.” And once more Sen Ni’s plate was full. “Give no insult, dear girl. You can purge later.”
    Cixi was in her element, officiating among clamoring servants, bestowing nods upon magistrates who’d come expressly to see her, and also to see the mistress, and of course to gape at Geng De, a personage of great curiosity, said to be Sen Ni’s religious tutor. Lover, even.
    The room stank of incense and sharp, spicy food. As it should: the mistress of the sway—the quite new sway, the sway that had never been a sway before—was embarking on a journey of great distance. Rumor had it that it would take three navitar