'The question need not be asked. I don't like this situation.'
She picked up the lamp, opened the door, and went into the other chamber. Hari stood in the middle of the chamber, not looking at Sengel or Toughid, who stood ready to strike. The far door slid open and Chief Tuvi entered, marking Hari without looking him in the face. He got out of the way to allow Priya to enter bearing a tray with three cups and a ceramic pot. The slave's gaze flashed toward the cloaked man. She faltered for a breath, then with an effort continued to the table and set down the tray.
Mai settled on a pillow and placed the lit lamp on the table. 'Uncle Hari, if you'll sit, I'll serve you tea in the proper fashion. Anji?'
Anji handed the baby to Priya, then sat next to Mai, his sword still in his hand. The three soldiers kept their silent study. No one looked directly at Hari except Anji and Mai, and even she found it difficult to meet his gaze because such startling and uncomfortable memories churned into life when she did so, things she did not want to share with anyone: Uncle Girish's constant pinching and the way he had leered at her until Father Mei had beaten him so badly that he had finally left alone the children of the house; the vomit and diarrhea that had poured out of her in the first leg of her journey away from Kartu with the Qin, when she had thought she would die of sickness; the desert stars, so bold and bright they seemed close enough to touch, like hope; Anji's kisses; Miravia's whispered confidences and warm embrace; the dusty market lane in Astafero with its women working so very hard to make a new life for themselves out of the unexpected fortune tossed their way by the Qin outlanders; Tuvi's flush as Avisha rejected him; the tingling charge that had permeated the air during Atani's birth, blue threads like living silk clinging to her and then to the baby as if through touch they sought to communicate, or to infest his flesh-
'Mai.' Anji touched her arm, a jolt like fire.
Hari touched his fingers to his eyes. The light that had shone
from his hand had vanished. Looking like a perfectly normal person, he sank down cross-legged onto a pillow opposite Mai, the table a polished surface between them.
'Let me pour the tea,' she said, out of breath.
In Kartu Town you poured tea one way for visitors — their tea must be poured and served first, each cup separately according to importance — and another for family. She set out the cups and poured all first, then considered her dilemma. Anji was her husband, yet Hari was her uncle.
She picked up a cup with each hand and set them before the two men at the same time, then raised the third one for herself and spoke the conventional words: 'The gods give us tea for our health, we drink with their blessings.'
She sipped first, to show she trusted the brew. Anji watched her, then picked up his cup with his free hand and waited, pointedly, for Hari to pick up the cup that sat before him. Both men drank. Mai poured a second cup.
'Uncle Hari, please do not let me sit here wondering. How did you reach the Hundred? Why are you still here? And why have you come, as you say, to kill my husband, when truly you would be better off to stand beside us, not against us? Those who are kin should not battle each other. We should be allies.'
Hari kept his gaze fixed on his cup, but his words were directed at her. 'You are changed, Mai. Yet it seems you are very much the same. How can that be?'
'Perhaps you would like something to eat? Our cook makes very good sweet rice cakes. There are some left over from yesterday, are there not, Priya?'
'Yes, Mistress,' she said in a barely audible mumble. 'I'll go right away, Mistress.'
The door slid open and then closed.
'The baby has escaped,' said Hari. 'Not that I would have harmed an infant.'
'Plenty of babies died when Lord Radas's army invaded Olo'osson last year,' retorted Mai. 'Or were orphaned, which amounts to the same thing, for if they do not then die, they will likely be sold into slavery if there are no kinfolk to take them in, or if their kinfolk have not the means to support extra mouths. That is why we must stand with our kinfolk.'
The lamp's light glowed on the surface of the table. It was odd how the light was absorbed into the fabric of his cloak, whose
color Mai could not define. She thought there was something more there, threads that reminded her of the twisting blue filaments in the valley, but then she would blink and see nothing but a silken cloth saturated with the sinking dusky purple of twilight.
'I am not what you think I am, Mai.'
'Maybe not, but that does not make you any less my beloved Uncle Hari. For you can't deny you are him, can you?'
'I can't deny it. I am him, and I am not him. He is dead. What I am is a shell. A ghost. Perhaps I am a demon.' He raised his eyes to challenge Anji's stare.
Anji, who could look right at him and not flinch.
'Even ghosts and demons have kin,' said Mai briskly. 'Would you like more tea?'
When he did not reply, she poured again and signaled to Tuvi. 'More tea, Chief, if you will. Perhaps Sengel and Toughid can fetch it.'
The chief looked startled. He flashed a look at Anji, who considered the walk with an expression that meant thoughts were boiling in his head that he wanted to sort into tidy ranks. He signaled with a hand, and Tuvi gestured, and all three soldiers left the chamber. Mai felt their presence on the other side, but here in the antechamber, she and Anji and Hari now sat alone.
'Why do you take such a risk, Mai, when I have already confessed that I come here to kill the man who sits beside you?' asked Hari.
'You have already said the soldiers cannot kill you. So their presence does not advance our situation, nor does it protect us. I saw what happened when the ghost girl invaded my house. How did you come to the Hundred, Hari?'
His frown was like a scar. She was not sure he would speak. When he did, words poured from his lips in a rush. 'You watched me being marched away by the Qin as a slave. You. The entire Mei clan. Every person who lived in Kartu Town. Later, I was sold to be a mercenary. The Qin make soldiers of slaves. Or maybe that was the Mariha princes. I'm not quite sure who sold those of us who survived the desert crossing. My new master took a chancy hire out of greed, and we were marched north over frightful high mountains as escort to a trading caravan. I talked the master into it, if you must know, stupid as I was. The caravan master's tale of injustice caught my attention, or maybe it was only his beautiful daughter. But once we reached the Hundred, we were ambushed.
We fought a stupid battle, in the cursed blowing rain, I might add. The girl died defending herself with a paltry knife while I was busy slipping like a clumsy calf, and afterward I got a sword thrust up under the ribs. It's a tiresomely unheroic story.'
'Maybe you only think it must be, because you are angry at yourself for surviving when she died.'
'If you call this survival.'
'If it is not survival, then what is it, Uncle?'
His hand gripped the cup. 'They call it 'awakening.' The blow should have killed me, yet later I woke, weak but recovering. Wearing this cloak. Surrounded by creatures who laughed at my misery. Anyway, ghosts are like mist, aren't they?' He looked at Anji.
'Ghosts can't be touched,' agreed Anji. 'Nor can they drink tea. That I have ever seen.'
'So after all, it seems I'm not dead.' He gulped down the tea and set the cup down hard. 'Lord Radas is not even your worst enemy. The cloak of Night is far more dangerous to you. She seeks any who are gods-touched — that is, those who can see ghosts, who are veiled to the sight of Guardians — and she kills them. She and Lord Radas know you are one of them, Captain, because you foolishly revealed it to that pervert Bevard. You are dangerous to us, because we cannot control you. Therefore, you must be eliminated.'
Anji made no show of reacting; even Mai could not guess what was going on in his mind. In the harsh silence, she reached across the table and touched her uncle's hand, a fleeting brush. When no snap of power pricked her, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and held on.
'Uncle Hari, you don't have to go back to them. I know a place you can go, where they won't find you.'
'There is no place-'
'You have heard no voice but your own voice, and their voices, for so long you can't hear any other words. Stop listening to them! You weren't the one who scraped the dirt before Grandmother Mei and my father. You were
