Chapter 12

Raleigh stepped out of Cassandra’s hut and looked around, but she didn’t see Angela anywhere. Where could a lady dressed like a princess really hide in a place like this?

Dax came out after her, and the two stood by the door looking all around them. “Well, we know what you are,” Raleigh remarked.

“I still don’t understand what these Auhlulhu are,” Dax replied. “Putting a name on it doesn’t help me control these powers.”

“Maybe we can get Cassandra to put you in touch with this Ybak friend of hers. Even if he’s not your father, maybe he can show you a few things, or at least help you understand what it’s all about.”

Dax shrugged. “It sounded like she never knows when or where he’ll turn up. I still don’t understand how she even communicated with him.”

Raleigh laid her hand on his shoulder. “One thing we do know. You’re not human. The rules related to humans don’t apply to you. You’ll just have to learn a new way of communicating with species that aren’t as advanced as you are.”

He scowled at no one in particular. “I don’t want to learn a new way. I was happy with myself the way I was.”

She took his hand. “I know. I loved you the way you were, too, but I’m sure I’ll still love you this way. I’m sure Cassandra loves Ybak. Now come on. We’ll find Petunia, and she can get us a place to sleep for the night.”

They strolled off into the lowering evening. Sure enough, they found Petunia in a little hut at the far end of the camp. She smiled at them. “You’re just in time. Sit down and have something to eat.”

Raleigh took her place by the fire. “Thank you, Petunia. I knew you would take care of us.”

Petunia laughed. “I just saw your fine lady friend heading out into the forest. I hope she comes back before dark.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Raleigh replied. “She’s a Guildsman of the Martial Arts. She can take care of herself.”

Petunia’s eyes widened. “Is she? Well, help yourself. I have to get home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Raleigh served the hot food simmering over the fire. She gave a portion to Dax and took one for herself. They ate in silence, and when the stars came out overhead, Dax stretched out on the mats inside and fell asleep.

Raleigh sat outside the door and gazed up at the stars while she waited for Angela to come back. Dax was right. Putting a name on the other half of his genetic heritage didn’t give any of them a clue to his real nature.

From Cassandra’s words, he could be capable of anything. Force of nature, she called it, and Raleigh could well believe her. The little she’d seen of Dax’s abilities gave her pause. What would he come up with next? What if he transported them to this city in the air—whatever that meant—and couldn’t transport them back again?

She looked over her shoulder at the sleeping form. He looked the same, yet different somehow. Every passing moment carried him away from her, from the boy she used to know. He changed into something mysterious and unknown, even to himself. He would vanish before her eyes if she let her guard down.

She couldn’t let that happen. She lost Bishop once already. She couldn’t lose Dax, too, not even to his real nature.

A light tread approached from the far end of the camp, and Angela appeared. She smiled and turned aside to the hut when she saw Raleigh sitting outside. She settled herself on the ground next to Raleigh. “Ah. It’s a lovely night.”

Raleigh gasped. “You shouldn’t get your suit dirty.”

Angela started. Then she laughed. “My dear! You don’t know me very well, do you?”

Raleigh sank in on herself. “No, I don’t. I don’t know anything about you.”

Angela brushed an invisible speck of dust from her knee. “If you knew anything about me, you would know sitting on the ground is the least I’m capable of. I wouldn’t be here now if I cared about getting my suit dirty.” She laughed again, and her laugh rang through the camp.

Raleigh stared at her. Then she turned away with a shake of her head.

“What’s the matter?” Angela asked. “Are you disappointed that I’m not keeping my suit clean?”

Raleigh shot her a glance, but when she saw Angela grinning, she wilted. “Of course not. I guess I’m just not sure how to get to know you. I’d like to, but somehow I don’t think I’m someone you would want to get close to. I’m nothing like you.”

“My dear Raleigh,” Angela sighed. “You’re very like me. You’re so much like me it scares me sometimes. I see myself in you, but in a much finer and more advanced form than I could ever hope to achieve. You might be surprised to find out I admire you very much.”

“You do?” Raleigh asked. “Why would you admire me? I’m nothing but a dirty old slayer.”

Angela cocked her head. “Dirty? You’re not dirty. You’re just different. We’re both slayers. We’re just different kinds of slayers. I suppose that’s what Bishop loves about you. He prefers your brand of slayer to mine.”

Raleigh didn’t reply for a moment. She listened to the night noises, and to what Angela wasn’t saying. “Is that why you don’t want to go to Solaris? You don’t want Bishop to see you helping me rescue him? I think I understand. It must be hard for you to be around him after the way your engagement broke up.”

Angela’s eyes glistened in the dark. “You don’t understand anything about it.”

“I don’t understand, and I don’t want to understand,” Raleigh replied. “I’m not jealous of the connection you had with Bishop. I hope you’re not jealous because he loves me now and it’s all over between you two.”

Angela sighed. “Dear, dear Raleigh. I can see you’ll go on misunderstanding if I don’t tell you the whole story.”

“What whole story could that be?” Raleigh asked. “You were engaged to be married, and you broke it off. You must have had a compelling reason to do that.”

Angela closed her eyes and leaned her head against the hut. “I think you better know something about me before you say anything more. My mother was an unwed laundry girl from Perdue. She got pregnant during a late-night rendezvous in the back alley behind her boarding house. That’s how she wound up with child.”

Raleigh closed her eyes, too. “I’m sorry.”

Angela laughed again. “Don’t be. When I was eleven years old, I bumped into a well-dressed gentleman in the street. For some reason I couldn’t understand, he took an interest in me. He spent more and more time with me. I was nothing but a filthy street urchin, but he gave me attention when no one else bothered to. He taught me to read, and eventually, he got me into the Guild of Martial Arts.”

Raleigh’s eyes popped open. “He what?”

Angela nodded. “His name was Anselm Bishop. He was Knox Bishop’s father. He owned a big trading house in Perdue, right around the corner from my mother’s rented room, so I saw him almost every day. After a few years of him coaching me, he paid my mother a fixed sum and took me to Pernrith. The rest is history.”

“Is that how you met Bishop—I mean, Knox?”

“I met him when we were children, and we were always close. We studied together in the Guild. We always loved each other, and Mr. Bishop seemed happy over our friendship. I was just as devastated as Bishop when his father died, but Bishop became obsessed with it. He became convinced his father was murdered when all signs pointed to it being an innocent accident.”

“Is that what drove you apart?” Raleigh asked.

Angela held up her hand. “Just let me finish the story. Then you’ll understand everything. I stood by Bishop for years. I even helped him to investigate his father’s death, but it was no use. He could never find any evidence of murder, so he had to give it up. After a while, he proposed marriage, and I accepted. We planned the whole ceremony. Everything went well until I visited my mother in her old home to deliver the wedding invitation.”

Raleigh’s eyes bugged out of her head. “What happened?”

“She sat down and read the invitation. Then she told me I couldn’t possibly marry Knox Bishop. She told me the man she got pregnant from was Anselm Bishop, Knox’s father. He never acknowledged paternity, but he took care of me in his own way. My mother gave me her own name to protect him from their dalliance.”

Raleigh could barely breathe. “Are you telling me you and Bishop are…”

Angela nodded. “We’re brother and sister. I never told Bishop the real reason I broke it off. He admired his father. I didn’t want to spoil that, and what difference did it make anyway? We couldn’t get married. I loved him just as much. I never stopped loving him, and I never stopped wanting to marry him, but I couldn’t. Now you understand.”

Raleigh couldn’t take her eyes off Angela’s profile. Brother and sister! All these years, Bishop pined for a woman he could never marry, and he never knew the real reason why.

Now Raleigh understood them both so much better, but sitting there in the dark, she realized the awful truth. She could never tell Bishop Angela’s secret. If Angela didn’t tell Bishop the reason she broke off their engagement, what right did Raleigh have to do it for her?

Angela let out another contented sigh. “I could see Bishop felt differently about you than he ever felt about me. I saw that the very first day you and Bishop came to visit me. Do you remember? You were so nervous. He fell into his old habit of trying to change my mind, but I already saw the change in him. He no longer wanted my brand of slayer, now that he knew you.”

Raleigh swallowed to make her throat work. “If that’s true, why don’t you want to go to Solaris? Why don’t you want to help us get Bishop out?”

Angela’s eyes shot to Raleigh’s face. “You can’t go to Solaris. Do you hear me? You can’t.”

“Why not?” Raleigh asked. “What’s so bad about it?”

“It’s too dangerous. If the Guild of Martial Arts has Bishop imprisoned there, they must have a reason for it.”

“I’m sure they have a reason for it,” Raleigh returned. “They’re trying to stop him getting hold of the twen. They probably want him to get it for them and hand it over to the cabal.”

“That makes no sense,” Angela countered. “If you’re right and the cabal did hire him, they would be letting him go. They would want him to get the twen for them and fulfill the contract. No, they have some other reason to keep him prisoner there—especially there.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they wanted Knox Bishop out of action, they would imprison him somewhere else—Kaldkirk or somewhere like that. They wouldn’t take him to Solaris.”

“What’s so important about Solaris? What does the Guild of Epistemology have that’s so much more dangerous than the Guild of Martial Arts or the Guild of Musicology or any other Guild?”

Angela shook her head and turned away. “You can’t imagine.”

“I can’t imagine if you don’t tell me. Whatever they have, I’m sure Dax can defeat them.”

“Don’t count on him. He has no control over his powers. He’s as likely to get killed as anything.”

Raleigh cringed. “I won’t argue with you there.”

“If you don’t believe a word I say about anything else,” Angela went on, “believe this. The Guild of Epistemology is deadly. They’re just as deadly as any other Guild, even if they do live in the air. They spend their lives in an airy world of pure thought and never set foot on solid ground, but they’re just as capable of killing you as anybody else—if not more so. If I went there, I would be dead within minutes. I can tell you that.”

“But why?” Raleigh asked. “What did you do to make enemies of them?”

Angela’s shoulders slumped. “I’m helping you. That’s why. Bishop is a prisoner of the Guild of Martial Arts, and I’m a member of that Guild. They would kill me if I tried to free him.”

“But you’re helping us now,” Raleigh pointed out. “They aren’t coming after you now.”

Angela shook her head again. “You can never be too sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Raleigh asked.

Angela wouldn’t say any more. She entered the hut, lay down on the floor across from Dax, and went to sleep.