be avenged. You will be remembered. Go now, with Bey, the Mother of us all.’
‘If it wasn’t you, then who was it?’ Cythen demanded, though the women were
already melting back into the shadows. ‘It couldn’t have been one of us. None of
us has the venom, or knows of the Harka Bey …’
They continued to vanish, as silently and mysteriously as they had arrived.
Prism lingered the longest; then she, too, vanished and Cythen was left to
wonder if the alien women had been there at all.
Still full of the delayed effects of her terror, Cythen clambered loudly over
the wall. The Maze was still black as ink, but now it was silent, caught in the
brief moment between the activities of night and those of the day. Her soft
footfalls echoed and she pulled the dark cloak high around her face, until the
Maze was behind her and she was in the Street of Red Lanterns, where a few
patrons still lingered in the doorways, shielding their faces from her eyes. The
great lamps were out above the door of the Aphrodisia House. Myrtis and her
courtesans would not rise until the sun beat on the rooftops at noon. But her
staff, the ones who were invisible at night, were working in the kitchens and
took Cythen’s hastily scribbled, disappointed message, promising that it would
be delivered as soon as Madame had breakfasted. Then, weary and yawning, Cythen
slipped back into the garrison barracks where Walegrin, in deference to her sex,
had allotted her a private, bolted chamber.
She slept well into the day watch, entering the mess hall when it was deserted.