and way out of his league. Yet he dared to hope that their shared interests and experience might bring them together. Like the veterans of Vietnam, they had become part of a world that strangers would never understand, that would likely taint their lives for eternity. That alone would have to bring them together, if not as a couple, at least as lifelong friends. Her decision to touch him, her gentle kindness, gave him hope where once he would not even have dared to consider a relationship possible.

Necessarily, Collins' thoughts went to Zylas and his crew. The king's and Quinton's explanations brought so much that had once seemed fuzzy to brilliant clarity. A million tiny details that had eluded him or that he had tossed away as unimportant now worked their way to the fore. Clearly, Zylas had deliberately brought him to Barakhai. He remembered how the white rat had kept appearing just when he had lost hope of ever finding it. Zylas had led him directly to this world; and, he now knew, others before him. All the things Collins had gratefully accepted: Zylas and Falima saving his life, returning his watch and cell phone, feeding and clothing him, protecting him from taunts and disdain, had become a sham. Zylas owed him all of that and more. One simple discovery, that Zylas had deliberately lured him here, turned the whole relationship, the whole matter, on its ear.

Lattie rubbed against Collins' hand, purr insistent. He increased his attention, running both hands the full length of her silky body, dislodging fur to spin wildly through bars of sunlight. So many glances, so many stifled comments and otherlanguage exchanges gained meaning. It now seemed clear that he would give up Zylas, Falima, and Ialin to the king; but other things still needed consideration. He believed Terrin would understand Korfius' decision to join them, given that it mostly hinged on loyalty to the royal line, to which he believed Collins belonged. Though Vernon likely had some understanding of the scheme, Collins liked him and hated the thought of getting him into trouble. As to Prinivere, he needed to understand more about why dragons had become extinct. Given the greatness of her age and the withering of her magic, she seemed harmless without the enhancing stone. Perhaps he could negotiate for her life as well.

The thistles to Collins' left rattled. He glanced toward them, hands stilling on the cat.

Lattie b.u.t.ted his hand.

The plants quivered again, the movement too broad for wind. A yip wafted to him.

The cat froze, attention now on the sound as well.

Suddenly, a dog burst through the foliage. Ears swung down beside an ebony head, followed by a longlegged black body. It launched itself at Collins.

Lattie's body swelled to twice its normal size, and she yowled a warning. Her claws sank into Collins'

leg.

"Ow!" Collins sprang to his feet, dumping the cat. She scrabbled wildly, raking gouges into his already bruised thighs. The dog hurled itself into Collins' emptied lap, all legs and tongue. The cat raced into the gardens. The dog flew after her, tearing up plants and flinging dirt with every bound.

Collins charged after the animals, trying to stop them. "Hey!" he yelled. "Down, dog! Get down!" He watched helplessly as Lattie scrambled up a canopy post, the dog yapping at her heels."No! Bad dog!" Collins lunged for the dog's neck, but it bounced out of reach, still barking at the cat.

Lattie made it to the top, but the give of the canopy turned her motions into an awkward stagger and roll. The dog pranced around the stake for several moments, keeping just beyond Collins' reach. Then the cat lost her footing, tumbling to the center of the canopy where she thrashed desperately. The dog continued leaping and barking at the overhead lump in the fabric of the canopy. Lattie yowled in terror.

Abruptly, the dog raced from the garden.

For a moment, Collins breathed a sigh of relief. Then, realizing he could not rescue Lattie from beneath the canopy and that the dog might know another way to get to her, he sprinted after the dog.

Thistles jabbed his legs, ripping his right sleeve, and vines snagged his ankles. He fell on his face, rolling from the brush to the freedom of the gra.s.sy courtyard. He saw the dog running toward the stone stairway leading to the parapet. The nearest guards paced several yards away and clearly had not noticed the dog.

Collins struggled to his feet, every injury reawakened by the fall. Despite the pain, he managed a frantic sprint. The dog scrambled up the stairway. Collins reached the bottom as the animal gained the platform, then turned sharply toward the canopy. The dog's plan became clear. The canopy lay almost flush with the wall, and the dog could easily leap from the parapets to the entangled cat. Gravity would pull both struggling animals to the center where they might tear and bite each other to serious injury or death. Or the cloth could tear, spilling both animals to the hard ground. Collins quickened his pace, thundering up the stone stairs as fast as his screaming muscles would carry him.

"Hey!" someone shouted from the ground. A horse whinnied wildly. "Hey, you can't-"

Collins was not listening. He reached the parapets and turned sharply left, toward the garden and the dog, who had slowed to a lope.

"Stop," Collins yelled, trying not to look down. "No! Bad dog!"

To his relief, the dog whirled toward him.

"Bad dog!" Collins shouted again. "Leave that cat alone. Come here."

The dog obeyed, soaring toward Collins at a perilous gallop. Collins tensed to brace himself; but, at that moment, something sharp smacked into his left cheek. Thrown offbalance, he took a step to regain it.

His foot came down on a soft object that screeched, then disappeared from beneath his boot. Collins staggered backward, the world spinning dizzily beneath him. The dog hurled itself into his arms, throwing him and itself out over the parapets.

Air slammed Collins, slinging his scream back into his face. He flailed wildly, panic overwhelming thought. He saw the moat rushing up to meet him, the dog twisting in midair. Then, he slammed into something much harder than water, incapacitating pain arching through his gut, agony spiking through him and overwhelming logical thought. He felt the world moving beneath him and grabbed on to keep from falling into black oblivion. His fingers winched around rope, holding him in place, and water splashed his face. A highpitched voice sounded in one ear, over a disharmonious chorus of ringing, "Hold on, and you'll be all right. I promise."

Dazed and disoriented, Collins did as the voice told him. It reminded him of his tonsillectomy, awakening from anesthesia memoryless and suffering inexplicable pain. Then he had yelled for his mother, worsening the anguish in his throat, and he had cried for a long time afterward. "The cat," he croaked out.

"She's fine." The voice stayed with Collins, vaguely familiar, soothing, and the only thing he had on which to ground his reason. "You're fine. Lie still, and don't try to talk."

Collins closed his eyes, still clinging to the rope, and let his body go limp. He concentrated on tactile sensations, the steady movement and velvety surface beneath him. He tried to put the whole thing together. I was in an accident. A fall. They're taking me to surgery. Memory trickled back into his mind, and it did not fit the scenario at all. Anesthesia dreams, he rea.s.sured himself, but it did not ring true. He opened his eyes. The ground scrolled out beneath him: sticks, stones, gra.s.s, and dirt. He lay slumped across something hard, his legs dangling and his hands wound beneath smoothly braided ropes.

This is no hospital; I'm outside. That discovery led to more. He smelled damp air and the distinct odor of horse. Shouts ma.s.sed behind him, and birdsong wafted from in front. Finally, it all came properly into sync. I'm lying across Falima, and she's carrying me away from the castle.

Once Collins found the truth, it all seemed ridiculously obvious. Dyed as black as the horse, Korfiusran alongside them, and the voice in his ear could only belong to Zylas. Ialin had deliberately flown into his face, he had stepped on Zylas, and Korfius had completed the task by knocking them both from the parapets. The audacity of the plan floored him back to speechlessness. We could have been killed. He dared not move for fear of rolling beneath Falima's flying hooves. He knew they could crack open his head like a melon, and he could not take any chances. If he attempted escape, he might be worth more to them dead than alive.

The trailing shouts grew distant, then disappeared. Unable to fight for the moment, pain shocking through his body with every stride, he surrendered to the unconsciousness he had fought moments earlier.

Blessed darkness gradually overtook him.

Benton Collins awakened with clear thoughts and a near-total lack of pain. Both of these realizations surprised him. Moving only his eyes, he glanced around an irregular, dimly lit cavern that smelled densely of musk. It reminded him of driving down a highway after a previous motorist had run over a skunk.

Though a bit unpleasant, it compared favorably with the time he and some friends went hiking and one of the black-and-white striped animals ambled from the foliage. Before anyone could stop him, Collins' dog had leaped for the creature. So close, the resulting odor had burned Collins' eyes and throat. One of his companions had vomited, and the dog ran yelping to the car, tail wedged between its hind legs.

Zylas the man appeared from one of Collins' blind spots, circling to his head. The albino crouched, pale eyes studying Collins, hair falling in a milky curtain across his left cheek, features tensely sober. "Feel better?"

Much, Collins admitted grudgingly, but only to himself. "What did you do to me?"

Zylas blinked, but otherwise remained still. "Rescued you?" Clearly, the rat/man did not know whether or not he answered the correct question.

Collins had meant what had Zylas done to take away his pain, but he saw no reason not to continue the conversation from Zylas' response. "Rescued me?" He pushed up on one elbow. "Rescued me from going home? Or from a life of castle luxury?"

Zylas attempted humor. "Both?"

It was exactly the sort of thing Collins would have tried, but this time he saw nothing funny about it.

"You tricked me to Barakhai. You lied to me. You put me in dangerous situations, then pretended to rescue me." He glared. "Why am I even talking to you?"

Zylas swallowed, still answering Collins' rhetorical questions. "To find out why I did those things to you?"

Though somewhat flippant, the response satisfied Collins. "All right, I'll bite. Why did you do those things to me?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Rage warmed Collins' blood. He wanted to tell Zylas to go to h.e.l.l, to leave him alone and get out of his life; but curiosity would not allow it. He did have to know. "I deserve an explanation." He added bitterly, "But why should I believe anything you say?"

Zylas' shoulders slumped, and his head fell. "I'm sorry."

Collins gave no quarter. "Sorry I caught you? Or sorry you did it?"

"Sorry ... I involved you in this." Zylas carried the expression Collins' mother wore when he disappointed her with his behavior. It never failed to make him feel guilty.

Now, Collins shook off the snap reaction. He had every right to wallow in spite and anger. "So you admit you lied to me."

Zylas sighed. "Let's say misled. I don't think I ever actually lied." Wrinkles creased his forehead. "So you're saying the king wasn't going to execute you?"

"Would I have been strolling freely around in the outer courtyard if he was?"

"That did seem odd," Zylas conceded. "Made things a lot easier for us to ... to ..."

"Kidnap me?" Collins suggested.

"But I thought-"

Collins did not wait for the rest. "You thought wrong.""The others-"

This time, Collins let Zylas finish, but he did not. Instead, he went off on a different tack.

"Ben, the king wanted you to think you had some freedom. Had you tried to escape-"

"-the guards would have stopped me," Collins finished. "I know. He told me that."

"Once the king got the information he wanted from you, he would have executed you."

"I don't believe that."

"It's true."

Collins had proof. "He didn't execute Carrie Quinton."

Zylas went utterly still.

Collins sat, raising his brows in expectation.

A genuine grin broke out on Zylas' face. "Carriequinton is alive?" He did not wait for confirmation, but leaped to his feet and ran from the cave shouting, "Carriequinton is alive! Carriequinton! She's alive!"

Collins shifted to a cross-legged position, uncertain what to make of the whole situation. Out of his company, it had seemed so easy to surrender Zylas and his friends to the king. Now that they had come together again, the idea seemed heinous. Traitor or not, Zylas was still a human being. He did not deserve to die.

Zylas returned shortly with a slight woman in tow. Beyond her, Collins saw movement. Several others hovered in the tunnel behind them. Curious, he looked the other way. Another exit across from the first stretched into a blackness that contained several shifting shadows.

"Is Carriequinton ... all right?" Zylas asked carefully.

"She's an adviser to the king. And she seems happy."

The woman spoke next. Small and mousy, she sported black hair and fair skin. Dark eyes looked out from small sockets. "Are you certain it was Carriequinton?"

"Trust me," Collins said, reveling in the irony.

The woman nodded.

Zylas resumed his crouched position in front of Collins, while the woman sat down beside him. "You requested explanation. I will give it to you."

Collins refused to let Zylas off the hook. "How do I know you're not just telling more lies?".

Zylas pursed his lips in consideration, then brightened. "I swear to G.o.d, with sugar on top, that I will tell you only the truth from this moment forth." He spat on his right palm and offered it to Collins.

The absurdity of the moment melted away most of Collins' malice. Caught by my own lie. Rolling his eyes, he spat on his hand and exchanged a shake before wiping it on his britches. In my effort to pacify Vernon, I invented a new way to spread diseases in this G.o.dforsaken, Lysol-lacking world. "Talk."

Zylas cleared his throat and sank to his behind. He studied the rocky ceiling, as if deciding where to start. The onlookers shifted, their whispers barely reaching him, uninterpretable. "Over the years, the royals have taken a stronger and stronger hand in the coming-of-age of Randoms."

Collins nodded to indicate that he knew. "King Terrin said he had to in order to separate out those creatures likely to murder others."

"That was, ostensibly, the original reason for doing so."

"Ostensibly?" Collins remembered having trouble with the idea of executing people who mutated to carnivores simply because they might harm someone. He recalled something more personal. "He said he had to execute your daughter."

Zylas' eyes watered, but he managed to suppress actual tears. "Trinya." His voice cracked, betraying the withheld weeping.

Collins continued, speech slowing as he watched the effect of his words on Zylas. "He said that's why . . . you . . . cause him ... so much trouble." From the corner of his eye, he could see the woman cringing.

She placed a hand on Zylas' shoulder.

Zylas could not hold back the tears any longer; they glided down his cheeks, pale dewdrops on a background of snow. "I was trouble long before . . . that."

Collins said nothing more, allowing Zylas to regain his composure.

The mousy woman stroked the fine, white hair and looked anxiously at Collins through beadlike eyes.Zylas swallowed hard, wiping his eyes with the back of one white, long-fingered hand. "... before ...

he murdered Trinya and Erinal."

Collins shook his head. "Erinal?"

"His wife," the woman explained before Zylas could. "They were-"

"Seera ..." Zylas warned. She talked over him, "-childhood friends-" "Seera," Zylas repeated, apparently her name. "-and obviously deeply in love. I never saw two-" Zylas' verbal prompting did not stop her, but his dark glare did. "Ben has more important matters to worry about than my relationship with my dead wife."

At the moment, Collins did not agree. The dead wife might have much to do with a situation he was continuing to sort through, hoping to fully understand. "What happened to her?" Seera's face went as chalky as Zylas', and she placed a hand over her mouth. She left the explanation to Zylas, who rose and paced, clearly distressed. "She wouldn't let go." He dropped his head, hair flopping into ivory disarray.

"She wouldn't ... let . . . go."

"Of Trinya," Seera explained softly.

"The king's guards couldn't . . . couldn't . . ." Zylas remained in place, clearly waiting for Seera to finish his sentence this time.

Seera complied. "They couldn't pry the two apart." Zylas finished in a rush of hissing breath. "So they tried to cut off Erinal's . . . her hands. But they couldn't get all the way in one-" He dropped to his knees, sobbing, and Seera rubbed his upper back. "Screaming. There was blood and-"

Collins grimaced, trying not to picture the scene. But he could not banish the image of a young woman pleading desperately, grasping for her terrified child with hands dangling from half-severed wrists. "Oh, my G.o.d." "If only I was-"

Now it was Seera's turn to caution, "Don't. You couldn't be any closer than you were. You were a hunted outlaw. They would have executed you on the spot." "But maybe Erinal and Trinya-"

"They would still be dead. And you, too. Then where would the rest of us be?"

"They wouldn't let me staunch the bleeding." Zylas was weeping uncontrollably now. "Why wouldn't they let me staunch the bleeding?"

Even Collins could answer that. "Because they wanted you dead more than they cared whether or not she lived." Zylas' grief ached through Collins. He felt helpless as a statue while his usually unflappable friend dissolved in front of him. The anger and bitterness vanished, replaced by a pure rush of sympathy so intense it left him speechless.