Mamoru jerked awake from his nightmare, startling Sir Godfrey, who fussed nearby with Sanah. His face ashen, he reached for the watered-down wine beside him.
“You need to eat,” Sanah remarked, gesturing to a plate of food beside the wine.
“I’m not hungry,” the samurai muttered, throwing the cashmere blanket aside. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep.”
“You’re dead on your feet, my friend.” Godfrey stepped closer.
“I can’t risk one of your servants seeing me and talking to the wrong person. You two must stay free to coordinate my needs.”
Sir Godfrey harrumphed. “They wouldn’t arrest me. Would they? I am a man of some position. And I did save the empress’s life on the operating table.”
Mamoru gulped more of the wine, washing the bitterness of despair aside, letting his anger once more rise. “I no longer know what Adele will do. If she fears for that beast of hers, she may be capable of anything.”
Sanah flinched at his harsh tone, and he noticed because he glanced disapprovingly at her. His frown showed he would brook no dissension now.
“Is there a problem, Sanah?”
“No. I’m simply worried about you.”
“I’ll need you to gather crystals. I don’t have access to my personal collection.” He took a pencil and paper, and began to scribble notes. He handed the sheet to Sanah. “And mark you, they must be perfect.”
Sir Godfrey set a bowl of rice and vegetables in front of Mamoru. It was only grudgingly that he began to eat, more for nourishment than for hunger.
“There is no more time for pleasantries and schooling. I have lost control of the empress. Clearly the beast has her in his thrall.” He pointed his fork at Sir Godfrey. “I’ll want an airship standing by. A fast one. Do you have the ready resources?”
“Yes, indeed. I’ll make arrangements for a yacht. Do you intend to escape the Empire?”
“It isn’t for me. It’s for Adele. I need a ship to take her to the rift on Malta, if possible. But there are other sites that may suit me. Bring me the maps.”
Sir Godfrey went to a painting of a Turkish seraglio on the wall and slid it up to reveal a safe. A few twirls of the dial and he opened the heavy door, and retrieved leather-bound folios that he carried to the table next to Mamoru. The samurai shoved the fine bone china roughly aside and shuffled through the books until he found what he wanted. He opened the folio to reveal detailed maps of the Mediterranean and the north coast of Africa. The maps were marked with dots of various colors all connected by a network of lines. Rifts and the ligaments of their ley lines or dragon spines. They had been all painstakingly charted by Mamoru’s legion of geomancers over the last decades.
He touched the island of Malta, where a nearly infinite number of spines converged on a large rift. There were several rifts on the African littoral too, but none hosted nearly the number of lines.
“I much prefer Malta,” Mamoru muttered. “Nabta Playa could serve.”
“What about the Soma here in Alexandria?” Sir Godfrey suggested.
“If necessary. But not optimal. And I would much rather have her away from the capital and all her soldiers. I will need time to prepare her, and that would be difficult with her precious army knocking down every door in Alexandria.”
Sanah pretended to study the map, but she felt chilled fingernails scraping across her chest. “How will you convince her to do this? You said she had grown hesitant.”
“My days of convincing Adele are at an end. There is no reasoning with her. Her mind has been irrevocably corrupted. I will force her to initiate the final event.”
“You can force her?”
“I can. It isn’t my preference, but it will serve.”
Sanah turned to face him, her dark eyes glaring out from the veil. “She can trigger the rifts even against her will?”
Mamoru froze in place as he leaned over the maps. His muscles tensed. “Yes, Sanah.”
“And would you truly do such a thing? To her?”
“Yes, Sanah.”
The room seemed to darken with silence. Sir Godfrey rubbed his muttonchop whiskers. Mamoru continued to stare at the maps, but his breath hissed through his nose.
Sanah struggled to keep her voice steady. “But how will you live with yourself after the act?”
“I don’t care about anything after the act.”
“I know you won’t hear it, Mamoru, but I’ve come to believe that she loves this Gareth. And he loves her. The potential in that relationship could change the world too. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to explore that?” Sanah laid a henna-painted hand on Mamoru’s bruised knuckles.