what he had become and know the answer to that. She recovered her wits and
stepped back with a small push of her hands. The robe gaped and she cared
nothing for that, small and dumpy and wine-sotted woman who had given away all
advantage.
“Where is he? Where’s my brother?”
“Oh, about the streets. Going those places he can go.” He reached into his shirt
and drew out a thing that never could have come from the lower town. “Here.” The
red rose showed a little rumpling. It glistened and glowed then, dewed with the
illusion of freshness. “I gathered it for you.”
“From Her garden?”
“The bushes can bloom-even in winter. With a little urging. She doesn’t care.
She cares for very little. You might bloom too, Moria. You only want a little
tending.”
“Gods-” Her teeth chattered. She shook sense back into her head and looked up at
him. At the man she had once known and no longer did, with his fine (foreign)
speech. She held the rose in her hand and a thorn brought blood. “Get me out of
here. Haught, get me out.”
“No. That’s not the game, Moria.” His hands held her face, straightened her
hair, smoothed her cheeks. “There, now, you can be beautiful.” And there was a
softer feel to her face and to his hands, cool, like the winter rose. “You can.
You can be anything you want to be. Your brother has his uses. But he’s weak.
You never were. He’s a fool. You were never that either.”
“If I’m so smart why am I here? Why am I locked in this place with gold I can’t
even steal? Why do I take orders from a-“
His finger touched her lips but the silence was hers, sudden and prudent. She