Текст книги "The Assassin's Curse"

Автор книги: Cassandra Clarke

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CHAPTER TEN

Leila didn't do much to sway me over to trusting her those next few days, mostly cause she toyed with Naji, not giving him a straight answer one way or another with regards to the curse.

  "He needs to rest," she told me that first afternoon. "Before I can examine him to see if I can help." She had come out to the river to gather up a jar of silt and a few handfuls of river nettle. I spent as little time inside the house as I could, and it surprised me that she said anything to me. I hadn't asked after him, although I'd been wondering.

  "He's a lot more injured than he lets on," she added, scooping the silt up with her hand. It streamed through her fingers and glittered in the sunlight. "I'm surprised he made it as far as he did."

  "I took care of him," I snapped, even though I was trying to hold my tongue.

  She looked up from the half-filled jar. "Of course you tried, sweetling," she said. "But you aren't used to that sort of magic." One of her vicious half-smiles. "Or any kind of magic at all."

  The water glided around my ankles, and I thought about that night the river spoke to me in her babbling soft language, that night she guided me into action.

  "By the way," Leila said. "I have some old clothes that might work for you. Men's clothes, of course. You're not going to fit into anything of mine, I'm afraid."

  I knew I really wasn't going to hold my tongue against that, so I slipped off the edge of the steps and into the river, the cold shocking the anger right out of me. I kept my eyes open, the way I always do underwater, so I could see the sunlight streaming down from the surface, lighting up the murkiness.

  Naji'd told me Leila was some kind of river witch, but the river didn't seem to play favorites, didn't seem to care about the differences between me and her. It wasn't like Naji. And so I stayed under long as I could, cause it was safe down there, everything blurred, the coldness turning me numb.

  Naji did seem to get better. I guess I'll give Leila that. He got the color back in his cheeks, and he didn't shake when he shuffled around the house. The wound was slow to heal, though, despite the river nettle Leila pressed against it every evening. Sometimes I watched them, studying the way her long delicate fingers lingered on his chest. When she sang, her voice twinkled like starlight, clear and bright and perfect. That was when I figured out that she and Naji had been lovers before he got the scar. Cause she touched him like she knew how, and he stared at her like all he thought about was her touch.

  It left me dizzy and kind of sick to my stomach. At least she never did say nothing about his face again. Not in front of me, anyway.

  We'd been there close to a week when Leila announced over dinner that she was ready to talk to Naji about the curse.

  "Finally," I said.

  Naji kicked me under the table.

  "You need to be there too," Leila said.

  "Be where?"

  "The garden, I imagine," Naji said. He poked at the fish on his plate. All we ate was fish and river reeds, steamed in the hearth in the main room.

  "There's a garden?"

  "Yes, out back," Leila said.

  That didn't make no sense. The house was built into the wall of the canyon, and even if she had stairs leading up to the surface, the surface wasn't nothing but desert.

  "Magic," Leila said, and tapped her chest. I scowled. She smiled at me like I'd said something stupid that she found amusing.

  I slumped down in my chair and pushed the fish around on my plate, my appetite gone. And I kept doing that till Naji and Leila decided they were finished up, at which point both of 'em filed out of the kitchen, toward the back of the house. I took my time, dawdling till Naji strode back into the main room. I was sure he was going to command me to follow, but instead he looked at me real close and said, "Please, Ananna."

  I shot him a mean look, and he watched me for a few minutes like he was trying to think of something to say. I can wait out a silence just fine, so I crossed my arms over my chest and stared right back.

  He said, "I went into Kajjil last night and spoke with the Order."

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "The Hariri clan hasn't hired another Jadorr'a. If you're worried that curing me will leave you vulnerable – if this is some pirate's scheme for protection–"

  "I told you," I snapped, "I can take care of myself."

  "Of course. I just thought that might be a reason for your reticence."

  "Well, that don't surprise me none. That you'd think that." I gave him my best glare. I didn't want to think about the Hariri clan. I didn't want to think about Tarrin. "I just don't understand what Leila needs me for."

  "She says that she needs your help."

  "What?"

  "You're part of the curse."

  "Yeah, an impossible one. I don't see how I'm gonna make much of a difference–"

  The expression on Naji's face stopped me dead. I'd never seen a man look so desperate. It made me aware of my own desperation, that ache that had settled in the bottom of my stomach after the battle in the desert.

  "I just don't see what good it can do," I muttered.

  "The least you can do is give me five minutes," Naji said.

  That was enough for me. I followed Naji to the back of the house, through the dark, dripping stone hallway, past rooms glowing with something too steady for candlelight. And then the hallway opened up, the way corridors do in caves, and there was the garden.

  So it was underground. There wasn't no sunlight in the room, though the ceiling had that same weird glow to it as the rooms in the house. And the plants weren't like any plants I'd ever seen: All of 'em were real pale, so pale you could almost see straight through 'em. They wriggled around whenever we walked past, as though they were turning to look at us.

  Leila sat in the center of the garden, on a stone bench in the middle of a circle carved into the wet rock of the cave. She had on this floaty white dress that made her look like one of the flowers, and when we walked up she patted the bench beside herself. I let Naji take it. She obviously meant for him to sit there anyway.

  "Everyone's gathered, I see." Like we were some big crowd, not three people who'd been living in the same house for a week. "Naji, I'll need you to look at me." That damn smile again. "I know it's hard for you–"

  I took a step toward her, my hands balled up tight into fists, and so help me, her voice kind of wavered, and for a minute she actually shut up. Then she cleared her throat and said, "Look at me, and don't move. It's important you don't move."

  Then she glanced over at me and said, "I need you over here too. Come along, yes, put your hand on Naji's hand there. No, palm down. Good."

  She pulled out a blue silk scarf and tied Naji's and my hand together.

  "Now," she said, looking up at me. "You need to stand there and not move your hand from his–"

  "I'm tied to him," I said.

  "And don't interrupt."

  Naji didn't look at either of us while she spoke. He just kept his head down, his hair pulled over his scar.

  "Don't give me a reason to interrupt," I said. "And I won't."

  That got a glare from her and nothing else. She turned her attention to Naji. Put her hands on his shoulders. Closed her eyes. Hummed. The flowers trembled and shook and danced. Naji kept his face blank, and I wondered what was going through his head. I wondered if he bought it.

  Cause I'd seen a lot of magic those last few weeks, and Leila's humming and swaying didn't fool me one bit. There was magic down here, for sure – have to be, with those creepy flowers – and Leila certainly could work a charm when she needed. But she didn't need to do anything right now. She was faking.

  She carried on like that just long enough to be annoying. I shifted my weight around and tapped my foot and looked at Naji's scar. My hand was starting to sweat from being tied up with his.

  And then she stopped. The cave seemed to let out a sigh.

  Naji stared at her, and his eyes were so hopeful it almost broke my heart.

  "Sorry dearest," she said. "There's nothing I can do."

  "What!" Naji jumped to his feet, his whole body springing tight like a coil. The scarf fluttered to the ground.

  I felt like the earth had been pulled out from under me. Nothing she could do. I realized then that I'd been thinking she could help too. I hadn't even recognized the hope for what it was until it got dragged away from me and I felt its absence in my heart. I couldn't let go of that old vision of my future life and the thought of what it was going to be like now.

  "What do you mean? Nothing? Not even a charm against–"

  "It's an impossible curse," Leila said lightly. "What did you expect?"

  "But you said… And the Order…" Naji threw up his hands and stalked away from her. The flowers shrank away from him, curling up into themselves. "I can't believe this."

  I was numb. I figured Leila knew from the moment she opened her front door that she couldn't help Naji, but she strung him along, cause – hell, I don't know why. Cause she was beautiful and he was all in love with her and so she could. This was why I hated beautiful people. They build you up and then they destroy you. And we let 'em.

  "Naji, darling," she said. "I still might be able to help you, of course."

  Naji picked up his shoulders a little, although he didn't turn around.

  "Liar," I said. It didn't give me the satisfaction I'd hoped for.

  She glanced at me as though I were as insignificant as a piece of pressed copper. Then she stood up and glided over to Naji, her dress rippling out behind her. She set one hand on his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He sighed.

  "The impossible curses are all from the north," Leila said. "A northern curse needs a northern cure. Even if it's impossible." She smiled. "Especially if it's impossible."

  "What are you saying?" Naji asked.

  "I can give you a boat."

  "What'd you whisper to him?" I asked.

  "None of your business." Leila swatted at me. "Naji, I can give you and your ward a boat and a promise of protection on the river."

  "We can take care of the Hariri clan ourselves."

  "I'm not concerned about some gang of unwashed pirates."

  "What?" I asked. "Who else is after us?"

  She twisted around, her hair falling in thick silky ropes down her spine. "The Mists, of course."

  The garden suddenly seemed too cold. "What's the Mists got to do with it?" I was trying to sound brave, but my voice shook anyway, at the memory of a pair of gray eyes swallowing me whole. "Why didn't you say anything? I thought it was just the Hariri clan we had to worry about. I mean, you kept going on about us being under protection–" I was babbling. The words spilled out of my throat the way they always do whenever I let my fear get to me.

  Both of them ignored me.

  "The river will take you down to Port Iskassaya, where you can book passage to the Isles of the Sky."

  "Kaol!" I shouted. "The Isles of the Sky!"

  Naji and Leila both looked at me.

  "I ain't going there," I said. "I ran out on Tarrin cause that's where he wanted to take me."

  Leila gave me this teasing little smile, but I turned to Naji and said, "You can't really think–"

  "It's the only way," Leila said.

  "I ain't asking you."

  "I agree with her, Leila," Naji said. "You know I can't go there."

  "Thank you," I said. Finally, he had learned how to talk some sense.

  "Oh, Naji, the enchantment from that charm is so strong I could feel it when you were three days away. They'll never catch you."

  "I still don't understand why you'd send me there, of all places–"

  "You know as well as I that if you want any hope of breaking an impossible curse, you'll need the magic of the Isles. And besides," Leila gave a bright smile, "it's where the Wizard Eirnin lives."

  "I've never heard of him," said Naji.

  "He's from the north, from the ice-islands. I studied under him as a child. Long before I met you." She smiled and pressed herself close to Naji and he sank into her like her closeness was a relief. "I've seen him cast impossible curses before. And a cure is only one letter off from a curse."

  I snorted and kicked at the powdery dirt of the floor.

  Naji gave her long hard look. "It's too dangerous."

  "So cast some more spells. Someone as powerful as you…" She made her eyes all big and bright. Naji gazed moonily at her. "You'll be fine."

  "And what about me?" I said. "Will I be fine? I know what happens when the untouched go to the Isles of the Sky. They get turned into rainclouds and dirt or they get sucked down to the depths and drown over and over."

  "You aren't untouched," Naji said. "You healed me by the river."

  I glared at him. "Well, I ain't as strong as you, then."

  "I have to protect you before I have to protect myself," he said. "Leila is right about the magic–"

  "Of course I am," Leila said, reaching over to toy with the curl of his hair.

  I couldn't say anything, thinking about the idea that he was putting my protection before his own.

  "It may be my only option," Naji said to me.

  "My only option, too," I said. "You're not the only one cursed here. And I still don't want to go." But already I knew it might be worth it, if the Isles really could break Naji's curse. They were the place where the impossible happened, after all. It was just that their impossible was supposed to be the sort of impossible that's also horrible.

  Naji gave me a sad, confused sort of frown.

  "Of course," he said, "no merchant ship is going to agree to sail to the Isles of the Sky."

  "No pirate ship, neither," I added. "And that's what Port Iskassaya is anyway, a pirates' port-of-call."

  "How convenient," Leila said, "that you travel with a pirate."

  Naji pulled away from her and trudged away from the flowers, back over to the center circle. "We need to talk," he said to me.

  "Can't argue with that."

  He gave me one of his Naji-looks. For a few seconds I didn't think Leila was going to let us leave the garden, but she didn't say nothing when Naji grabbed my upper arm and dragged me back into the dripping dimness of the house.

  "Told you she ain't trustworthy," I said. "She's been planning that little performance the whole time we were here. I'd put money on it."

  Naji didn't say nothing for a long time. Then he said, and it damn near knocked me over, "You're probably right. I was… hoping… that she wouldn't play any of her games with me. Not now. Not… with everything." He slouched down on the cot and stuck his head in his hands. "I knew she trained in the north, that's why I came here, but I truly hoped–"

  "And what did she mean about protecting us from the Mists?"

  Naji dropped his hands down to his sides. "Oh, her word is good for that," he said. "She wouldn't do anything to actually kill me."

  "That don't answer my question."

  "Because the answer doesn't concern you."

  "Really?" I said. "'Well, in that case, this curse of yours don't concern me neither. So if you don't mind, I'll be on my way." And I slipped off my charm and headed toward the front door.

  "Ananna!" Naji jumped up from the cot and grabbed me again. I wasn't really going to go. I ain't so heartless I'm gonna let someone be struck down with pain on account of me. Even if that someone is a murderer and a liar. Hell, murderers and liars used to sing me to sleep.

  I yanked my arm away from him. "Look, you want me to go with you to the Isles of the Sky – and I can kinda see how maybe it's not the stupidest idea in the world, all things considered, even if it's definitely up there – but if you really want me to go, you have to be straight with me. You gotta tell me things."

  "Tell you things," he said.

  "Yeah. You know how you didn't tell me who Leila was, or what we'd find here in the canyon? Or what that black smoke was when the Hariri clan attacked?" I glared at him and after a few seconds he nodded. "Well, no more of that."

  "I know what 'tell you things' means."

  "Sounded like you were asking. Keep in mind that if you want to barter passage on a pirate ship, you will need me. You don't got the cash to buy your way onto one, and ain't no pirate in the Confederation's gonna let a blood-magician on board without some kind of leverage." I jutted my thumb into my chest. "Which is me. So if you want to go on with your secrets, that's fine, but you can expect to wait out the rest of your days in Port Iskassaya."

  Naji got that flash of a smile around his eyes. I was too worked up to care.

  "I think that sounds like a deal," Naji said.

  "Now why the hell should I be worried about the Mists attacking us?" Kaol, even saying Mists sent the creeping shivers up my spine.

  "Someone in the Otherworld wants me dead," Naji said. "They'll have no fight with you, but they want me. It's a long–"

  Leila appeared in the doorway, that white dress swirling around her ankles. She had her cruel smile on, teeth shining in the lamplight. Naji stared at her the way he did, his face all full of longing. Then he turned back to me.

  "Let me tell you on the river," he said.

  "Fine." So he didn't want to talk in front of Leila. "But if I don't know the whole story by Port Iskassaya, I'm gone."

  Naji's eyes crinkled up again. Then he stuck out his hand. I shook it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Leila lent us the largest of the boats that had been tied up out front. It had a newly patched sail and a ropenet for fishing. I didn't want to trust that boat, but as much as it pained me to admit it, I knew Naji was right when he said Leila didn't want us – or him, anyway – dead.

  She gave us a basket filled with salted fish and some of the river reeds we'd been eating. I never wanted to look at another river reed again, but I accepted the basket anyway. She also produced a bundle of black cloth for Naji, which he unfurled into an assassin's robe. Leila had cut up his old robe when we first got here, for patching sails and blankets, and he'd been wearing the same cast-off men's clothes I had the past week.

  "Where did you get this?" he asked.

  "Surely you remember, dearest." Leila winked at him, and Naji looked down at his feet.

  "I'm afraid I don't have anything for you," she said, hardly turning her head to look at me. I resisted the urge to make some rude gesture at her. "Oh, and Naji dearest, I put your armor down below."

  "Thank you," Naji said, lifting his head. They regarded one another for a few seconds longer, and I turned away and set to fiddling with the ropes so I wouldn't have to look at them.

  And then we took off. Port Iskassaya was a three-day trip down river, according to Naji. (Leila'd told him, of course, though he don't know nothing about sailing.) When we arrived we were to release the boat the way you would a camel – I thought of our own camel and wondered if he was still trotting through the desert weighed down with our clothes and money and food – and it'd make its way back up the river to Leila's house. Magic again.

  Naji moped that first day, leaning against the railing and looking out over the river. He hadn't bothered to change into his robes yet, and his hair fluttered around his face so that he looked like a prince in a story. I tried to busy myself with the work of sailing, but the ship took care of herself, and after a while I was so bored I leaned up beside him.

  He glanced over at me but didn't say nothing.

  "You miss her, don't you?"

  He kept staring out over the water and didn't answer. The sun was sinking into the canyon, throwing off rays of orange and red, turning the water silver. I don't know why I asked him that. It was like I wanted him to say something to hurt me.

  "You don't miss someone like Leila," Naji said, after enough time had passed that I figured he'd no intention of answering. "You merely feel her absence."

  "That don't make sense."

  "It's hard to explain. She's always played games, but it got worse after–" He stopped. "It doesn't matter. I only came here because I was desperate. I hardly see her anymore."

  He leaned away from the railing. "Thank you," he said. "For coming with me to do this."

  I was a little sore from hearing him talk about Leila, so I just dipped my head and said, "I told you. I don't want you hanging around me none, either."

  "I'll find a way to repay you," he said. "When it's done. You'll be compensated."

  I didn't like the way he said that, like I was some hired hand.

  "I promise," he said.

  I didn't respond, just left him there, muttering something about needing to check on the rigging. And he didn't say anything when I walked away.

I wished there was more for me to do on the ship, so I could throw myself into working and not spend all my time brooding. Mama would have called it the doldrums, but those always came when you'd been at sea for months and months and you were missing civilization so bad you're almost willing to fling yourself overboard and try to swim to land. And it wasn't the river that was causing my trouble anyway.

  The second afternoon, Naji came out on deck and called my name. I was up in the rigging – not working or nothing, just sitting up there watching the walls of the canyon slide by. I hung onto the rope and leaned over and watched him clomp around, swinging his head this way and that.

  "Look up!" I called out.

  He stopped and then tilted his head toward the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. "How'd you get up there?"

  I shrugged and then swung down on the rope, crisscrossing through the rigging, until I landed on deck, a few feet away from him.

  "I owe you an explanation," he said.

  "I thought you forgot. I was looking forward to ditching you once we made port."

  He shook his head. His expression was soft, almost kind, and I wondered what he would look like if he smiled properly. Even with the scar, I bet it was nice.

  "Alright," I said. "Let's hear it."

  "You remember the woman from the desert? The one who gave you the spell to banish me to the Otherworld?"

  "I thought she was dead."

  "No. I sent her back where she came from."

  "But she bled all over–"

  "They don't die," Naji said. "It's not something I can explain – just know that they aren't human."

  I crossed my arms over my chest. This was a lot to work through in my head. I'd seen sirens before, and the merfolk too, but you can kill 'em easy as you can kill a man. No wonder I got cold thinking about the Mists.

  "So what'd you do to her?" I asked. "That got her so pissed?"

  "I didn't do anything to her," he said. "She serves someone in the Otherworld, one of the thousands of lords constantly clamoring for power. I severed some of her master's ties to our world."

  "What?"

  "I killed some of the children he planted here. They weren't children when I killed them," he added, since I must have looked appalled. There are lines that shouldn't be crossed. "They were attempting to rub bare the walls between worlds, in a move to gain power in the Mists. It's complicated, but…" His voice trailed off. "He was willing to sacrifice our world to gain power in his."

  The air was real still. The only movement came from the boat as it sliced through the river water.

  "Oh," I said. "You saved everybody. The entire world." I gave him a little half-smile, even though it was weird to think of him as a hero. "I gotta admit, I'm impressed."

  "Don't be." Naji frowned. "I was hired to do it. I didn't know who the targets were. In fact, I didn't understand the implications of what I did until much later, when she first attacked me."

  I leaned up against the rigging and thought about everything that happened these last few weeks, everything that happened before Naji went from my would-be killer to my protector.

  "You don't need to worry about it," Naji said, looking all earnest. "But that's why Leila offered us her protection against the Otherworld. Because–"

  "Just as long as we're on the river."

  "What?"

  "She only offered her protection as long as we're on the river." I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "And don't lie to me. You said yourself you were putting my protection ahead of your own."

  Naji sighed. "Fine. I'm worried the Otherworld will use you – the curse – to get to me."

  "Put me in danger, you mean? So you'd have to come and save me?"

  "More or less. Although really, you don't need to worry." Naji shrugged. "I've seen you fight. You could hold your own against any monster of the Mists."

  I turned away from him, embarrassed. The water glittered around us like a million slant-cut diamonds. The sky pressed down, heavy and bleached white with heat.

  "Thanks for telling me all that," I said. My words came out kinda slurred like I was drunk. "I appreciate you treating me like a partner."

  "You're welcome."

  I nodded out at the river, and that was that.

We sailed into Port Iskassaya at dawn, the air crisp from the night before. I was up at the bow of the ship, watching the city emerge out of the pink haze of the morning and thinking on how I didn't much want to leave the river for the sea, for the Isles of the Sky.

  Naji came up from down below all decked out in his assassin robes and his carved armor, with a new desert mask pulled across the lower half of his face.

"That don't look dodgy at all," I said.

  Naji sighed. "Ananna, these are my clothes. I feel comfortable in them–"

  "I was talking more about your mask."

  His eyes darkened. "I'm not taking it off."

  "I know. I'm just saying."

  I sweet-talked the bureaucrat at the river-docks into letting me and Naji set the boat for free. "We'll only be here half an hour," I said. "Won't be no trouble to you."

  The bureaucrat gave me this long hard look. "I'm giving you twenty minutes. You ain't back by then, I'm letting her loose."

  I smiled at him and gave a little salute and me and Naji went on our way. I figured he might cut the boat free or he might not, but whether or not Leila got her boat back wasn't something I was gonna concern myself with.

  Naji got real quiet, quieter than normal, as we made our way through the port town, which wasn't nothing more than some drinkhouses and brothels and a few illegal armories tucked away in the back alleys. He stuck close to the buildings, weaving in and out of shadow. Soon enough we were getting stink-eyes from busted-up old crewmen who ain't got nothing better to do than sit out drinking that early in the morning.

  I'd been to the Port Iskassaya sea-docks only once before, when I was a little girl. It ain't a major port, as it's surrounded by desert and the river don't go nowhere of interest, but somebody built it two hundred years back and since the merchants didn't want it, the pirates claimed it instead. Mostly folks use it as a place to stop off and refresh supplies before they head out to the open sea.

  I made Naji go skulk off in the shadows – which he did without question, no surprise there – while I wandered up and down the docks, looking for the right sort of boat to take us out to the Isles of the Sky. Which ain't any kind of boat at all, when you get down to it.

  I'd tried to make myself look as much like a boy as possible, though my breasts don't exactly bind easy. For one, the Hariri clan would be looking for a girl, but also it's usually easier to talk your way on a ship if you're at least trying to pass as a boy. Most people ain't that observant. I made my way through the docks as quick as I could, keeping my eyes on the ships' colors. I'd already decided against trying any Confederation ships since I didn't want word to get back to the Hariris, so my tattoo wasn't gonna do much good. As it turned out there weren't any Confederation ships at port anyway, but I did spot a couple of boats that obviously weren't entirely on the up-and-up.

  The whole time I was looking I was thinking about whether or not I really wanted to go through with it – it couldn't be that hard to tell Naji no one was willing to take us aboard. Maybe we could just spend out our days in Port Iskassaya, swapping stories with the sailors down in the drinkhouses. Given our last trip in search of a cure, taking to port might prove more fruitful than sailing out to the Isles. At least that way there wasn't no chance of the curse turning out worse than before. I mean, we were heading for the source of magic. That's not something you can just trust.

  But I patrolled the docks anyway, partly cause I promised Naji and partly cause I wanted my life to go back to normal. And after about twenty minutes I had two possibilities lined up: a busted-up old sloop that looked about a million years old, and a nice-looking brigantine with a crew that seemed to hail mainly from Jokja and Najare and the like in the south, all those strings of countries not bound by the Empire. I decided to try my luck with the Free Country ship, the Ayel's Revenge. Pirate's intuition, assuming it hadn't rusted out with disuse and bad decisions.

  A few of the crew were sitting on the dock next to the ship, drinking rum and playing cards. I strolled up, acting casual, and one of 'em, a guy with a mean squint I could tell was mostly faked, jerked his chin up at me.

  "You ain't a boy," he said.

  "Leave her alone, Shan." It was the one woman at the table, and the one who looked like she had all the brains besides which. She lay down her cards and looked up at me. She had dark brown skin and wore her hair in locks that she tied back with a piece of silk ribbon. There was something calm and intelligent about her expression, and I liked her immediately. "Ignore him," she said to me. "I assume any girl dressed like a boy either needs all the help she can get, or none at all. Which is it for you?"

  "I need passage," I said. "So probably the first."

  "Passage? To where?"

  "Wherever you're going."

  She gazed at me appraisingly. The guys at the table shuffled their feet and exchanged glances with one another. I could tell they didn't want me around, but I knew their opinions weren't the ones that mattered.

  "We're headed to Qilar," she said. "I suppose it's as good a place as any, for someone who doesn't know what they want."