sensation: the music that beat in time to her heart, the sway of Casimir’s weight against hers, the deep musky scent of his warm body. In the faster dances, she was content to let him guide her, as he had all evening, a responsibility he accepted with silent gravity. He was focused entirely on her, his face composed in an expression of solemn regard, his dark eyes rarely leaving her face.
The band fell silent. The dancers’ applause was swallowed in the huge empty room. Casimir took her hand and led her to the table.
“This next act is just for you,” he said.
A Terran woman stepped onto the stage in a rustling flounce of skirts, her face and hands powdered white except for round rouged spots high on each cheek. She carried herself like a warrior, her chin high, imperious pride glittering from her eyes.
A derivoo. Sula’s heart surged, and she pressed Casimir’s hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Julien raised an eyebrow. “I hope you realize what a sacrifice the rest of us are making,” he said.
The derivoo stood in a spotlight, one of the Cree played a single chord, and the derivoo began to sing. The single strong voice rang in the air, proclaiming a passionate love fated to become anguish, a lover once adoring now turned to stone. Each syllable raked Sula’s nerves; each word seared. The singer proclaimed the confrontation of one lone heart with the Void, pure in the knowledge that the victory of the Void was foreordained.
For the next half hour the lone brave voice faced every horror: sadness, isolation, death, lost love, violence, terror. There was no pity in the world of the derivoo, but neither was there surrender. The derivoo walked proudly into the realm of death, and died with scorn and defiance on her tongue.
The performance was brilliant. Sula stared in silent rapture throughout, except for the moments when she burned her hands with furious applause.
It was the most perfect thing she could imagine, to hear these songs just before making a desperate gamble with her own life. It was good to be reminded that her own existence was just a spark in the darkness, so brief that it scarcely mattered whether it ended now or later.
At the end of her performance, the derivoo held for a moment a pose of pure defiance, then turned and vanished into the darkness. Sula applauded and shouted, but the singer scorned the very idea of an encore.
Sula turned to Casimir. “That was wonderful,” she breathed.
“Yes, it was.” He took her hand. “I watched you the whole time. I’ve never seen an expression like that on your face.”
“Sing like that,” she said, “and you’ll see it again.” She turned to Julien and Veronika. “What did you think?” she asked.
Veronika’s eyes were wide. “I had noidea, ” she said. “I’ve never seen derivoo live before.”
Julien loosened his collar. “For me, it was a little intense,” he said, “but she’s a terrific performer, I’ll hand you that.”
The two couples parted. Casimir and Sula returned to the long car with the Torminel bodyguards and followed the vehicles of the extraction team out of the area. When they were alone in the apartment, which still smelled of the lavender bath oil, Sula put her arms around Casimir and gave him a long, grateful kiss.
“That was the most perfect evening I can imagine,” she said.
His body was warm against hers. “I wanted to give you one special night to remember,” he said, “before our time together ends.”
Her nerves gave a leap at his words. She looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
There seemed an extra measure of gravel in Casimir’s deep voice, as if there were an obstruction in his throat, but there was perfect logic in his words.
“Project Daliang will either succeed or not,” he said. “If it fails, we won’t have much to worry about, because it’s likely one or both of us will be dead. But if it succeeds, then you become Lady Sula again, and I stay who I am. Lady Sula lives in a whole different world from me.” He attempted a defiant grin. “But that’s all right. It’s as it should be. I have no right to complain, being what I am.”
Her mind whirled, but she managed to assemble a protest. “That doesn’t have to be true.”
Casimir laughed. “What are you going to do?” he said. “Introduce me to your Peer friends? And what will I be tothem ? An exotic pet.”
Sula took a step away from him. She felt her face harden into anger. “That is simply not true,” she said.
There was a touch of scorn in his voice. “Of course it is. I’m a cliqueman. The only way I can get into the High City is to fight my way in with an army.”
Angry words boiled up from her heart, but she caught them at the last minute.Don’t destroy this, she thought. She had smashed perfect evenings in the past, and she would smash this one if she wasn’t careful.
“I’m fighting my way in too,” she said.
“Yes. And I know how much it must have cost you to get where you are now.”
Her mind staggered under the certainty that Casimir somehow knew about Caro Sula. Howcould he? she thought wildly.
“What do you mean?” she said in a whisper.
“The night that Julien was arrested,” Casimir said. “That performance you put on in my office, showing up naked under your coat. I was completely boggled by what you did that night.” He reached out a cool hand and drew a long finger along her bare shoulder. “You haven’t acted like that since, but then you haven’t had to. You got what you wanted—me clear of Julien’s arrest, which you’d arranged so you could get old Sergius on your side in the war.”
Her nerves turned to ice. “Who else knows?” she said.
“I figured it out, but that’s because I was there to see that very impressive show you put on for my benefit. Julien will never guess, but I wouldn’t put it past Sergius to work it out eventually.”
Sula let out a long breath. Her head swam.
“Yes,” she said. “I manipulated you at first.” A nervous laugh rasped past her throat. “Why not? I didn’t know you.” She looked at him. “But I know you now. You’re not someone I can simply use any longer.”
His brows came together. “What accent is that?”
She could only stare. “What?”
“You’re speaking in a different accent now. Not Riverside, not High City.”
Sula cast her thoughts back and reformed the words in her mind. “Spannan,” she said. “The Fabs. Where I was b—I mean, where I grew up.”
“You were on Spannan long enough to pick up the voice, but you left and became Lady Sula, with the swank accent. And that’s what you’ll do again, once we win the war.” He turned away, his fingers pressed to his forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve upset you. I shouldn’t have brought this up tonight, not before we make our move on the High City. You need to be focused on that, not on anything I say.”
She watched him, despair rising like a flood to drown her heart. “Look,” she said, “I’m dreadful at being Lady Sula. I’m an absolutely awful Peer.” She followed him, touched his arm. “I’m much better at being Gredel. At being the White Ghost.”
Casimir looked at her hand on his arm. A bitter smile twisted his lips. “You may hate being Lady Sula, but that’s who you are. That’s who you’ll have to be, if we win. And I’ll still be Casimir Massoud, the cliqueman from Riverside. Where does that leave me, when all the Peers come back to run things?”
I amnotLady Sula! she thought desperately. But it wasn’t something she could say aloud, and even if she did, it wouldn’t make any difference.
Sula dropped her hand and straightened, as defiant in her despair as any derivoo.
“It leaves you Lord Sula,” she said, “if you want to be.”
His jaw dropped in astonishment and he turned to face her. “You can’t mean it.”
“Why not?” she said. “You couldn’t be any worse a Peer than I am.”
A trace of scorn crossed his face. “They’ll laugh,” he said. “I’ll be a freak—a cliqueman in a High City palace. Until someone finds out some of the things I’ve done, and then I’ll be tried and strangled.”
“Wrong.” Urgency sent the words spilling in a cascade from her lips. “You don’t remember that I’ve promised amnesties. Once you get your amnesty, you don’t have to go back to your old life. You’re an honored businessman,
