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scar, fixed on him. Her nightrobe hung from her emaciated frame as it might from a bundle of sticks.
      "I was looking for a servant," she said, her broken voice like grating stones.
      "They're not allowed in this part of the house," Rakon reminded her.
      She seemed to have little interest in his words, and looked past him to his sisters' door. "They're restful in sleep."
      "They're not asleep," he said, deflecting the point of her question. With the Thin Veil so near, Rusilla and Merelda should've been experiencing nightmares.
      Her rheumy eyes turned vacant, seeing not the present but something in her past.
      "The dreams started for me the month I first bled and continued through the first…" She visibly shuffled through her mind for the right euphemism. "… visitation."
      She continued to stare off into space, living through her history, the wrinkles on her face a map of past pain.
      "Mother," Rakon said. "Mother."
      She snapped back to the present, her eyes fixing on him. "Yes, well. As I was saying, things are what they are. Norristru men sacrifice their seed, the women their wombs." She looked past him to the door, as if speaking to Rusilla and Merelda. "The first time is always the worst."
      It comforted him to hear his mother echo his thinking, to hear her validate the history of their house. If she could accept the price of the Pact, why couldn't his sisters?
      "I birthed six children before you and your sisters, Rakon," she said. "Did you know that?"
      He hadn't known. The house bred secrets and facts unspoken. "Were they… stillborn?"
      She shook her head. "They were born alive, but fiendish in appearance. The Thyss claimed them for… such ends as the Lords of Hell intend."
      Over the years the Thyss had been claiming more and more of the offspring from the Pact. And yet House Thyss evidently had only one true son still living, and he was imprisoned on Ellerth. Perhaps their house was dying, too.
      His mother's voice drew his thoughts back to the hall.
      "The three children of human appearance that I bore are more than any women in this house has birthed in four generations. If your sisters are equally fertile, we'll soon be strong with heirs again."
      Words exited Rakon's mouth as if of their own accord, his mother a magnet for his worry. "A herald has not come."
      His mother's bloodshot eyes widened; her hand went to her chest. "What? A herald should have come to you days ago to prepare the way."
      "Do you think I don't know?" Rakon snapped.
      "What could be wrong? I don't understand, Rakon. Have you given offense to the Thyss somehow?"
      "No, of course not."
      "But the Thin Veil will occur later this month. If a herald hasn't come, then Vik-Thyss won't come–"
      "Vik-Thyss is dead."
      He might as well have slapped her. Her face paled. Her hand went to her mouth as the implications settled on her. She spoke in a small voice. "The Pact will fail, Rakon."
      "I know. I–"
      She lunged forward with surprising speed. Her bony hands closed on his robe and pulled him close. Her strength took him momentarily aback. Her breath, filtered through her rotting teeth, made him blanch.
      "Our lives depend upon the Pact, boy! We have made too many enemies over the centuries, enemies much more dangerous than the members of the Merchants' Council – inhuman enemies. Even the spirits we use to do our bidding do so only because of the Pact."
      "My binding spells also–"
      "Your binding spells work on sprites and sylphs and trivial creatures! But the powerful spirits, the demons, they answer you only because of the Pact. And they are vengeful, Rakon."
      "I know that, Mother!"
      "You know it, you say? Then you know they will come for you, for me! They await only an opportunity! You must do something!"
      "I'm going to," he said. "But right now I need to think. Go back to your quarters, Mother. Leave me be."
      But she didn't go. She