A large cage stood at its heart, bars wrapped in white and purple blooms, and pinching into curled spires to soften what was plainly a prison. Runes were carved along its edges, and inside – far too small for a prison so large – was a black kitten.

'A mooncat.' Kiet had risen from a stone bench hidden amongst the trees. 'Don't let its current size deceive you.'

The mooncat watched Isla. There was a cleverness in those eyes. Something familiar about them. 'Current size?'

'They are able to grow upon will. The mooncats of old were said to even match the mountain-bears of Ijssford.' Kiet threw a piece of meat between the bars. The mooncat did not even deign him a sniff. Isla decided she liked the beast. 'And their strength is said to increase under moonlight.'

'I've never heard of such a creature.'

'You may have, under another name.' Kiet turned and took the books off her. 'Though there are not many of them left.'

'Still you captured this one.' Isla remembered, now. 'Few as they are. From the nameless woods off the Water Palace.'

'What's the alternative? Wait for my father to mount it in his bedchamber?'

'It's eluded the Maha Rama so far.'

'I caught it after a four-day hunt. You think highly of me if you believe I can do what my father cannot accomplish in half the time.'

That reminded her. 'How are you ... after the Water Palace?'

Kiet nursed his left arm lightly. 'Our therapeuts are finest amongst the continent. Pity. I would have liked at least a scar.'

I can give you mine. 'I forgot you were a pampered little maharaj.'

'I could have died.'

'Death's a kinder fate than an eternity caged and isolated.'

'Who are you to make that decision?' Kiet smiled. 'Have you faced death? Have you been caged?'

'You really need better company if you've brought me here to debate.'

'Much as I enjoy it, there is a matter more important to discuss.'

Isla's throat dried. She let the shrill call of birds and simian laughter answer on her behalf.

'Let's begin with who you are.'

'You know very well who I am.'

'There is no need for pretense with me. No one ventures here without invitation. The beasts make far too much noise for us to be heard, and the guards are a distance away, besides.'

'And if your mother strolls in and catches you with a servant?'

'My mother is having her portrait done. A family tradition. Our artist is most infuriating in his pedantry. A single portrait takes weeks; each sitting lasts hours. She will not be out for a while.'

'So your mother has a taste for fine art as well as rare specimen.'

'You will forgive my mother her eccentricity,' said Kiet firmly. He was more defensive of her than Isla liked. 'She collects odd beasts and rare flowers, the same way Rajini Dhvani collects rarities of a different sort.'

'How do you mean by that?' Isla asked carefully.

'Suffice to say you should stay clear of her, especially if you have theurgy of an uncommon kind.'

Dhvani's robbing people of their theurgy. Isla had suspected as much, and Kiet's evasive response confirmed it. The enoptograph isn't the only thing for which she's used a trapping rune.

The magic mirror flashed in Isla's mind; Rajini Dhvani's aquiline features inevitably along with it. There was no face nor voice so fitting for a witch who snatches away young girls.

'I've frightened you.' Kiet looked at her, amused. 'You need not fear her. I promise, she will not touch you.'

'It isn't that.' Isla was not worried about herself at all.

No one knew what her theurgy was. It was only aboard Tempestorm that she herself discovered it; and for all Phrae's shortcomings, Isla was sure she had not told anyone. Yet.

There was no possible way Rajini Dhvani could know – and seek after – her theurgy. 'The dhayang were speaking this morning of a missing girl. I think she may be the epprakin I saw just before I had my audience with Rajini Chei. She, too, had been summoned to see a rajini.' And she had never come out. Isla did not need three guesses to conclude which consort she had been seeing.

Kiet smiled sadly. 'There is naught we can do for her. We must choose our battles. In any case, she is surely gone by now.'

'The rajini's picking off girls as she pleases, and you're telling me no one does anything about it?'

'The Maha Rama is blinded when it comes to his rajinis. Love makes him much more accommodating of their whims.'

'Indeed, he loves them so much he needed to have three of them. Four, if you consider the Maha Rani.'

'Isla –'

'It's Lilja.' Isla snapped before remembering to whom she was speaking. She stared back at Kiet, a little horrified at her own gall. Behind him, the mooncat licked itself.

'Well. That brings us back to it, does it not?' Kiet put his books on top of the cage. 'Why do you use a stranger's name?'

'Don't forget,' she started, 'you lied as much as I did.'

'I did not lie. Kithrel is my birth name – Kiet is simply its diminutive. And I was the third mate aboard Tempestorm.'

'Withholding information is as equally damaging as telling falsehoods.'

'Am I to blame that you did not recognise me?' Kithrel laughed. 'The crew knew who I was. Why do you think I never joined nor dined with the guests? Had I wanted to draw attention upon myself, I would not have travelled as a ship officer. But yet again you manage to steer the conversation away.'

Isla turned from him. The birds distracted her a while, singing from a bridge that arched over them some paces away. No owls, only rice sparrows. But Huu was not her biggest present threat. Kiet was the one outlier for which they had not prepared. Against him, she stood no chance. But perhaps the mooncat ...

The creature watched as she approached, eyes awake though it remained curled in its corner. Isla played with the blossoms decorating its cage, studying the runes etched into the iron. If I could find a way to break it ... surely the creature has no love for the man who has imprisoned it?

'You've come all the way from Elingar.' Kiet was behind her. Isla made a great show of examining the white flower in her hand. 'It also happens to be the first time we're graced with dignitaries from the very same kingdom. I'm sure you're aware, having already wait upon them several times yourself.'

Fire might do the trick. If only Pep were here ...

'Did you know; they've put forward some very intriguing ideas for us to work with. But Father ... like most our people, he is not overly attracted to change, and some of the Eling proposals are outrageous to him.'

'What is your point?'

'I prefer the term revolutionary,' continued Kiet, 'but let him not hear anything involving the root word "revolution", unless you're ready for a hanging. I digress. My point is: how coincidental that a group of Eling envoys should arrive, around the same time an Eling impostor does, too.'

A hidden thorn snagged against her finger. Isla winced, forcing herself to meet Kiet's gaze. 'I am not Eling.'

'But from there you did come. I'm not so foolish as to think the Elings would send one spy to murder our entire royal bloodline. They would not be so foolish, rather.' He dropped lazily upon a nearby bench, shading himself from the rays drilling in. 'They would not risk such an outright declaration of war.'

'This talk tires me. I know nothing of diplomacy – Eling or Surikh – and I couldn't possibly tell you what their intentions are.'

'Their intentions do not interest me. It is yours. I want to believe you are not here to do my family ill. Otherwise ... well, I shall hate to make an enemy of such a remarkable young lady.'

She was never really sure when she was being threatened when it came to these royalborns. Isla sucked on her bleeding finger. 'The only people I intend to harm are those who intend to harm me.'

'Do you suspect someone is out to harm you?'

Tempting as it may be, Isla was not about to pour all her secrets to him. 'Other than the people who've put my name on the redlist?'

'Yes. Why is that?'

'How should I know?'

'You knew enough to procure false papers and escape Tempestorm before arriving.'

The damned prince is good. Isla reached into her pockets with one hand, finding the cold hilt of her knife, playing with its possibilities. This isn't something I can talk myself out of.

'Do not touch that!' Isla froze. Kiet had suddenly leapt upon her, snatching her hand away – the wrong hand. 'Another of my mother's more unusual acquisitions.'

Isla released a purple bulb she never realised she had been handling. Its petals were just beginning to unfold, discharging a light aroma that had her hungering for more.

'A deadly poisonous plant. Even a small dose can evoke a temporary death-like state, and I cannot promise a kiss from prince charming would wake you.'

It would be so easy. He was so close, she could almost taste his woody perfumes.

All she needed was to draw out her dagger and be done with it. She drew away from him instead.

Kiet sighed. 'It makes no matter. Whatever offence you've committed, with whatever groups you are affiliated, I can have it all pardoned.'

If only if it were so simple. Kiet did not know the half of it. It was not just the matter of her absconding. Someone was going through great pains to have her executed, and Isla had a feeling they were not going to stop just because the former crown prince was sweet on her.

'I can protect you.' Kiet promised. 'You've heard Chei's offer, now hear mine. I need not know your secrets. Isla, Lilja; I'll call you whatever you wish. Work for me, and I'll give you whatever you wish.'

Of all the things she expected he had summoned her for, this was the last. 'You would trust me in your service?'

'We all have secrets,' said Kiet. 'If I cannot trust you to keep mine out of loyalty, I can at least trust that you would not want me to reveal yours in turn.'

'Why shall I work for you, and not Rajini Chei?'

'You would put your future in her hands rather than mine?' There was incredulity in his voice. 'Do you even know anything about her?'

'As much as I know of you. More, even. I know she is a recluse. A baseborn, and unblooded. I know she saved your father's life, when they were younger. I know she cannot carry any more children. I know her only son died long ago –'

'Denounced his royal heritage,' Kiet interrupted. 'Not a well-known fact. He renounced his title yet was slain, regardless.'

'The same way Rajini Dhvani's son was slain?'

'Kiaan?' Kiet's face darkened. 'I hope not. His was especially cruel. He was a good man. Wedded a baseborn despite the ridicule. Chose love over power.'

Slain, regardless. They sunk into silence, Kiet retreating onto the bench and studying the grass-patched pavement. Isla approached him carefully. It was his half-brother they were talking about, she realised. Perhaps they had been close.

Something else occurred to her. 'Rajini Dhvani has other children, but Maharaj Kiaan was her only son. Doesn't it trouble you that both rajinis lost their only sons and heirs?'

Kiet, too, was an only son. 'You are new to this place, and the games its people play. It is not only sons and heirs who lose their lives. Even the Maha Rani has lost several of her great-grandchildren and their entire families.'

'And the Maha Rama allows this?'

'Who is he to blame? One wife, or the other? His son, or his brother? One wrong move, and he may as well raise his own banners for civil war.'

'So you allow an injustice for fear of turning your own enemies against you.'

'Do you not see?' Kiet took her hands, and she did not pull away this time. 'This is why I need you. We can help each other. I need someone with a mind to match their mouth. Someone with principles, who has seen enough of the world to know how much greater this realm can be. Someone ... revolutionary.'
         

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