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How many times had he told me the truth, even if he never said the words?

No amount of artifice could make a dreamscape lie. The place where I had first embraced him was the place he felt safest – so safe it had reshaped his inner sanctuary, gathering it wholly around that memory of us. Only a formative experience could do that. I didn’t understand it – I couldn’t believe it could mean what it did – but it had still been like that when I pulled him from the brink.

Did that mean he forgave me, or just that he had nowhere else to feel safe any more?

I had to ask him. He had experienced the memory with me; he knew as well as I did that I had worked it out that night. He knew that I had run across a burning citadel to find him.

I found a door ajar upstairs. Arcturus was asleep, lying the way he had in the wine cellar. I stopped, knowing I couldn’t wake him. Not when he had overstretched himself for my sake.

Standing on the threshold, feeling more powerless than I ever had, I recalled an Irish word:beochaoineadh, a lament for the living. To weep for someone not yet dead, but out of reach, and missed.

18

A WAKING DREAM

Terebell returned in the morning, confirming that she and Arcturus would speak to Command. I left before Arcturus woke. By that time, the high water had come and gone. I walked through glistening streets and puddles, over the swollen canals, back to the Palazzo del Domino.

All the way, I couldn’t stop thinking about Arcturus, or the fact that he had covered me with a duvet in the night. He cared enough to have made sure I didn’t get cold as I slept.

He had looked after me for so long. It was my turn to be the strong one, and to stand behind him for as long as he needed. In Paris, he had let me open the door to my dark room in my own time. I would afford him the same patience. I would not fail our friendship again.

The walk should have drained me, but one dream had already lifted some of my fatigue, as if the aster had been a physical weight. I took a quick shower and chose an outfit, intending to find Ducos and give her the good news. I was drying my hair when I sensed Maria.

‘Paige Mahoney,’ she said when I opened the door. ‘We had dinner plans. Did you stand me up?’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I went to see Arcturus.’

‘Well done. How did it go?’

‘He undid some of the amnesia. Other than that, I’m not sure yet.’

Maria chuckled. ‘All right. Keep your secrets.’

‘You’re always going to be like this now, aren’t you?’

‘Possibly. Any word on your next assignment?’

‘I’ve asked if I can go to Rome. I’m just waiting for confirmation.’

‘I’ll come with you, if they’ll let me. If I have to sit around and wait for the arm to heal, I may as well do it where I can be useful.’

‘I’d like that, if you’re up to it. Are you?’

‘At this point, I’m up for anything that doesn’t involve resting. Verca and I are having a late breakfast, if you’re hungry,’ she said. ‘We’ll be in the bar at eleven. I’ll ask Nick along.’

‘I thought Verca went to Trieste?’

‘She’s back. It isn’t far.’

‘Okay.’

She set off down the corridor, cradling her sling. I shut the door and finished drying my hair.

Ducos lived on the second floor of the Palazzo del Giorno. I homed in on her dreamscape and found myself faced with an oak door. When I knocked, she opened it in moments.

‘I was about to come looking for you,’ she said. ‘I never told you where my room was.’

‘It’s the mind radar.’ I tapped my temple. ‘Terebell and Warden have agreed to speak to you. I’ve told them to be here at dusk.’