Dust

like a bantam hen—direct and purposeful. 'We tried to

get rid of Dad,' she said. 'Do you need to know why?'

'Unless it's pertinent, I can probably extrapolate.' Rien got it out with enough deadpan elan that Caitlin glanced at her twice to confirm it was meant to be funny.

Then she grinned, folded her arms, and settled back against the wall. 'Thank God your mother didn't have the raising of you.'

'Or my father?'

'I didn't say that.' Caitlin shrugged. 'Your father and I have a lot of history between us.'

'And a lot of bad blood.'

'And some good blood.' She paused again, and this time Rien was smart enough to shut up and let her search out the words at her own place. 'A lot of family blood.' Her mouth did a complicated thing, and she said, 'He executed Cynric.'

'Benedick?'

'Beheaded her. On our father's orders.'

Rien looked at her fingers, blue around the nails. She looked at the way the light fell on Caitlin's hair and through her eyes, the shadows on her skin the same color. So Caitlin slept with her sister's killer. Who was also her brother.

For political expedience?

For love?

Rien tried to imagine why she would give herself to anyone who hurt Perceval, but she couldn't get past the image of Perceval in chains, the coils of blood groping across her back in denial. Rien swallowed, and realized she had been doing it so much her throat hurt. Thinking of Arianrhod, and contracts, she said, 'Did he do everything your father ordered?'

'No.' Caitlin came back and sat beside her again, shoulder to shoulder. 'I'm alive. And so, after a fashion, is Cynric.'

Rien considered that from several angles, before deciding that when you had no information, the only stupid question was the one you didn't ask. 'What do you mean?'

From the corner of her eye, Rien could see Caitlin's half-smile. 'My father ate Caithness,' she said. 'And would have eaten Cynric, too, but some of her was already gone when he got there. I don't know if he noticed.'

'Because Benedick rescued it?'

'Because Benedick looked the other way when we hid it in a common household appliance,' Caitlin said. 'But like a broken angel, you can't fit a whole human being in a machine that small.'

'But you can fit all of Hero Ng in a peach? That doesn't make sense.'

The Chief Engineer's smile, now that she turned it toward Rien, was sad. 'Do you think you have all of Hero Ng in there?'

Rien shook her head, a tiny vibration, and asked him. How would I know? he answered. As far as he was concerned, this was all of him there was.

'So feeding the fruit to the resurrectees?'

Caitlin spread her hands: not helplessness, resignation. 'At least they will be more useful zombies.' She cleared her throat. 'Maybe, who knows, maybe they'll grow to fill the space. You know, about Arianrhod—'

'Please don't make me defend why I distrust her,' Rien said, eyes trained on the floor until the pressure of Caitlin's gaze made her raise them. 'She may have named me for herself, but she also named me nothing.'

Caitlin reached out again, and still didn't quite manage to touch her. She coughed and said, 'Rien. Would you be my child?'

Somehow, Rien's hand had pressed to her throat, and she could feel her own heart beating against her fingertips. 'I don't understand.'

And Caitlin actually blanched, sharp white under her freckles, and then flushed pale blue. 'I mean I'd adopt you.'

'I would be honored,' Rien said, the words—again— flown before she thought them through. So after an awkward hesitation, she had to say, 'I'm Benedick's daughter. So is Perceval.'

'She's coming home.'

Caitlin's flat certainty stopped Rien cold. She twisted her fingers together and leaned her forearms on her thighs.

'1 hope so,' said Rien.

'Come on,' Caitlin said. 'We need to fetch the men, and find that layabout angel, and get moving. The world isn't saving itself, you know.'

Perceval had nothing to do except watch Ariane climb, so she watched, and wondered for how long she could remain resolute. Dust wore at her, his arguments and his veiled threats, the distasteful, trickling fire in her veins. He whispered in her ear, promises of fidelity and partnership that she believed, with all her heart.

She knew he made her believe them, but it wore at her nonetheless, as did the seductive whisper of the parasite wings.

'Be my disciple,' he said. 'And you may own me. Let me serve you, beloved, and I will give you everything. We are the world. We are the Jacob's Ladder. Between us, we can Heaven attain—'

She had no weapons. She had no allies. She touched her hip and found it naked of any defense. The bridge was draped in cobwebs until it seemed as if all the furniture had been sheeted for storage. She stood quite still and listened, and watched her enemy climb.

Ariane, assisted by her angel and her armor, picked nimbly across the webs and ladders of the world. On Dust's screens, Perceval could see a great deal—more than she ever had before. Not everything, though. Engine was closed to her, and so were many reaches of the world. Dust explained that these regions were dead, or under the domination of Asrafil or Samael or one of the lesser brothers—although there were few enough small angels and elementals left.

Perceval thought of Gavin, and held her peace. But she wondered who then the basilisk had belonged to—and who, by extension, Mallory.

Could Rien find an ally there?

Anything was possible. Pinion simpered in her ear, as it did now constantly, a low manipulative whisper. She would not hear its words. She would choose not to understand them.

'She's coming for me,' she said.

Dust stroked her shoulder, down to the stump of her wing, the place where Pinion bonded her flesh. She leaned into his touch like a cat, reflexively, then recalled herself and jerked away.

She could have watched the waystars for hours, so she did, without shifting the portion of her attention that followed Ariane. The suns' embrace had grown deadly, and with Dust's senses—her senses, now, through Pinion's intercession—she could see quite plainly how dire things went with the primary. It was on the thin edge of conflagration, and there was no way for Perceval to guess what might press it over the edge.

—You could save us— Pinion murmured, and she would have blocked the frequencies of its voice, if it would have allowed.

She warmed to it; its voice was a pleasure. No, she thought. She would not accept that thinking of Dust or Pinion made her feel a melting, protective softness. She stared at the waystars and forced herself to think of Rien.

Rien, whom she had decided to love, of her own free will. Rien, whom she loved for a thousand reasons, all of them good. Rien, whom she chose.

Rien, who must not be dead, or Dust would not be at such pains to pry her from Perceval's fingers.

But thinking of Rien brought problems. Because Perceval had the means to rescue her. Or at least the means to try.

All it would cost her—

—was her integrity. Her freedom.

Rien.

She wanted to trust Dust.

She did trust him. He was there, and she knew him as if she had known him for years. As if she had trusted