“Did Dekarta explain what has happened?” Glee had composed herself; she sounded brisk and professional again.
“Aside from me taking a great flying leap toward death? No.” All my clothes had been made for a younger man. They would look ridiculous on me now. I sighed and pulled on the most boring of what I found and wished for shoes that might somehow ease the ache in my knees.
Something flickered at the edge of my vision. I turned, startled, and saw a pair of boots sitting on the floor. Each had good, stiff leather about the ankles, and when I picked one up, I saw it had thick padding in the sole.
I turned to Glee and held up the boot in wordless query.
“Echo,” she said. “The palace’s walls listen.”
“I… see.” I did not.
She looked fleetingly amused. “Ask for something—or even think of it with enough longing—and it appears. The palace seems to clean itself as well, and it even rearranges furniture and decor. No one knows why. Some remnant of the Lady’s power, perhaps, or some property that has been permanently built in.” She paused. “If it is permanent, there will be little need for servants here, going forward.”
And little need for the age-old divisions between highbloods and low, among Arameri family members. I smiled down at the boot. How like Yeine.
“Where is Deka?” I asked.
“He left this morning. Shahar has kept him busy since Kahl’s attack. He and the scriveners have been setting up all manner of defensive magics, internal gates, and even scripts that can move the palace, though not with any great speed. When he hasn’t been here, tending you, he’s been working.”
I paused in the middle of pulling on pants. “How long have I been, er, incapacitated?”
“Almost two weeks.”
More of my life slept away. I sighed and resumed dressing.
“Morad has been busy organizing the palace’s operations and preparing sufficient living quarters for the highbloods,” Glee continued. “Ramina has even put the courtiers to work. Remath has begun transferring power to Shahar, which requires endless paperwork and meetings with the military, the nobles, the Order…” She shook her head and sighed. “And since none of those are permitted to come here, the palace’s gates and message spheres have seen heavy use. Only Remath’s orders keep Shahar here, and no doubt if Deka were not First Scrivener and essential to making the palace ready, she would have him visiting fifty thousand kingdoms as her proxy.”
I frowned, going to the mirror to see if anything could be done about my hair. It was far too long, nearly to my knees. Someone had cut it already, I suspected, because given my usual pattern it should have been long enough to fill the room by this point. I willed scissors to appear on a nearby dresser, and they did. Almost like being a god again.
“Why the urgency?” I asked. “Has something happened?” I hacked clumsily at my hair, which of course offended Glee. She made a sound of irritation, coming over to me and taking the scissors from my hand.
“The urgency is all Remath’s.” She worked quickly, at least. I saw hanks of hair fall to the floor around my feet. She was leaving it too long, brushing my collar, but at least I wouldn’t trip on it now. “She seems convinced that the transition must be completed sooner rather than later. Perhaps she has told Shahar the reason for her haste; if so, Shahar has not shared this knowledge with the rest of us.” Glee shrugged.
I turned to her, hearing the unspoken. “How has Shahar been, then, as queen of her own little kingdom?”
“Sufficiently Arameri.”
Which was both reassuring and troubling.
Finishing, Glee brushed off my back and set the scissors down. I looked at myself in the mirror and nodded thanks, then immediately ran fingers through my hair to make it look messier. This annoyed Glee further; she turned away, her lips pursed in disapproval. “Shahar wanted to be informed when you were up and about, so I let a servant know when you began to stir. Expect a summons shortly.”
“Fine. I’ll be ready.”
I followed Glee out of the bedchamber and into a wide, nicely apportioned room of couches and sidebars that smelled of Deka, though it did not at all feel like him. No books. One whole wall of this room was a window, overlooking the bridge-linked tiers of the palace and the placid ocean beyond. The sky was blue and cloudless, noonday bright.
“So what now?” I asked, going to stand at the window. “For you and Itempas? I assume Naha and Yeine are searching for Kahl.”
“As are Ahad and his fellow godlings. But the fact that they have not yet found him—and did not, prior to his attack—suggests he has always had some means of hiding from us. Perhaps he simply retreats to wherever Enefa kept him hidden before now. That worked well enough for millennia.”