Among Thieves

Chapter Twenty-five

The house was large, well-appointed, and empty. Decorated with wrought-iron willow trees and laurel leaves, the gate to the street opened onto a summer garden not yet in bloom. A crushed-gravel path curved up from the gate to the front door, past budding trees and weed-crowded flower beds.

It was a gilt-ken-one of the fine, furnished houses that was rented out to country nobility when they came to court. These houses supposedly sat vacant the rest of the time, watched over by caretakers-except when the caretakers rented them out to well-heeled Kin. Gilt-kens usually played host to traveling games, flash whorehouses, or high-end cons, but I wasn’t surprised to learn that a Gray Prince might hire one out for meetings as well.

Iron led me along the path. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, blinked again. It had taken a while for us to slink out of Ten Ways and get across the city, and somewhere along the way the sun had come up. Now, the morning light reflected off the gravel path, making my eyes sting and blur.

It was leftovers from Shadow’s flash glimmer, I knew. While my night vision had come back, my eyes were still overly sensitive to light, much as they had been when I first got the gift from Sebastian. It would pass, I knew, but the question was how soon.

I blinked and squinted until we entered the shadow of the main entry. Iron opened the doors without knocking. The foyer beyond was small, with a tiled floor and dark wood covering the walls. It was cool inside. The only light came from a pair of small windows set high in the wall behind us.

I sighed for the shadows and felt some of the tension drain out of my neck and shoulders. Then I noticed the woman in the archway across from us.

Solitude looked different in person than in the dream. She had traded in the close-cut jerkin and hose for an unremarkable blue dress, and her hair was falling casually to her shoulders. There were the beginnings of small lines at the edges of her eyes and mouth-from laughing or frowning, I couldn’t tell-but the eyes themselves were still the same gold-sprinkled jade that would make any jeweler wring his hands in envy. Those eyes regarded me for a long moment before they turned to Iron.

“Well?” said Solitude.

Iron Degan stepped in close and spoke softly in her ear. Solitude’s eyes narrowed in response to what he said, but otherwise her face stayed a careful blank.

When he was done, Solitude turned and led us deeper into the house, the charms on her dress and in her hair tinkling softly through the empty spaces. I couldn’t help but notice that some of them were old pilgrim’s tokens.

Of course-I should have guessed earlier.

We passed through three rooms, each larger than the last, each filled with furniture covered by cloths. The rugs had all been rolled up and set aside, and the drapes were still drawn across the windows. The place smelled of dust and disuse.

The fourth room we entered was smaller than the previous three. A pair of low chairs stood uncovered, a small slate-topped table between them. A book sat open on the table, with an extinguished taper next to it. One entire wall of the room looked to be made up of windows, given the size of the drapes and the amount of light leaking in beneath them.

Solitude settled herself in one chair. I moved toward the other.

“You’ll stand,” she said. There was no hint of warmth in her voice, none of the candor I’d experienced in the dream. She was all cold steel today.

I stopped and hooked my thumbs in my belt. Iron Degan took a position a few feet behind me.

“Well?” said Solitude after it became obvious I wasn’t going to start.

“I don’t have the journal on me, in case you’re wondering,” I said.

“Yes, I can see that. Where is it?” Her lisp, I noticed, became more pronounced when she was irritated.

“I didn’t tell Kells and I didn’t tell Shadow; what makes you think you’re any different?”

Solitude leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. They were nice legs. “They haven’t got you. I do.”

“Threats,” I said. “How imaginative.” I crossed my arms. “Let me explain something to you. I’ve been targeted by Nicco, cajoled by Kells, beaten by a White Sash, found a dead assassin floating in my bedroom, and gone up against Shadow face-to-face, all in the past three days! And those are only the highlights. So you’ll understand if I don’t give much of a damn for your threats. If you want to get your hands on Ioclaudia’s journal, you’re going to have to give me a better reason than, ‘I’ll make you bleed.’ I’ve been bleeding since this thing started, and it doesn’t bother me that much anymore. So offer me something besides blood, or shut the fuck up.”

The room grew silent. I could hear the house settling, a temple bell ringing in the distance, Iron Degan shuffling his feet behind me. The last sound made me tense my neck.

Solitude didn’t move. She sat watching, her body still. Except now, there was a hint of fire in her eyes.

“Ironius,” she said at last, her voice making me jump, “leave us.”

There was a brief silence behind me; then I heard Iron Degan turn and move away. His footsteps were far softer than I would have expected from someone his size.

“Never trust a sell-sword,” pronounced Solitude once the door had closed behind him.

“Even a degan?” I said.

“Especially a degan. People who charge promises for their lives worry me. And people who can call those promises in anytime it suits them worry me even more.”

“And yet you’re working with one.”

“Some worries are larger than others,” she said.

I had to agree, but not when it came to Bronze Degan’s promise. I’d seen what that had entailed, and I was still amazed. My worry with him centered around whether he was still alive; whether Shadow was dead; whether my sister was in danger. I wasn’t worried about what I owed Degan; rather, I was comforted by the thought that he may still be out there, looking out for my interests.

Solitude gestured at the chair across from her. “Please,” she said. I sat. “Tell me what you know about Ten Ways,” said Solitude once I was settled.

“It’s a shit hole,” I said.

“And?”

“It’s surrounded by imperial troops.”

“And?”

“And there’s a Kin war going on there,” I said. “One you started.”

Solitude didn’t even flinch. “Good. Why did I start it?”

“You tell me.”

She showed me a smile that would have made a razor seem dull. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said. “You spill what you know. Then I fill in the gaps.”

“So you can keep back whatever you don’t want me to know?” I said. “No. If you want to hear my side, I get to hear yours. All of it.”

Solitude settled back and folded her hands before her face. I heard a faint clicking. It took me a moment to realize she was tapping at her front teeth with a thumbnail.

“Done,” she said. “But you still go first. I need to know what Nicco and Kells and Shadow think I’m after in Ten Ways. You’ve been their main source on that count. I need to hear your version before you start adjusting it to fit my facts.”

I pulled out a seed and rolled it between my palms. The combination of sweat and warmth released a burned, musky-sweet scent from the ahrami. I bent down and breathed it in, an old friend in a strange room.

This was the woman who had told me-in a dream, no less-to keep things close to my chest. I had to assume she played the same way. But there was a difference between being careful and being stupid, and holding out on a Gray Prince when she was willing to meet me halfway definitely fell into the stupid category. I doubt I’d get a better offer any time soon.

“All right,” I said, still hunched over my hands. “You want to be the next Dark King. You needed the war in Ten Ways to pull Nicco and Kells in and get them reeling so you could take them down. From there, you’re going to move into their territories, and then the rest of Ildrecca after that.”

Solitude didn’t move. “What about the other Princes?” she said. “They won’t much care for that kind of a move on my part.”

“That’s why you want the book,” I said. “It’ll give you the power to roll over them if they decide to get in the way.”

“Ah.” Tap, tap, tap-the sound of a nail on a tooth. “And this is what you’ve told them?”

I put the seed in my mouth and clicked it against my own teeth. Tap, tap, tap. “More or less,” I said.

Solitude smiled. At first, I thought it was in reaction to my imitation of her; then, she began to laugh.

“I could kiss you, Drothe,” she said. “This is perfect!”

“Um?” I said.

“If Nicco, Kells, and Shadow think I’m after all of Ildrecca, they’ll try to stop me outside of the cordon. None of them truly wants Ten Ways, so they’ll pull back and try to keep me contained. That means the cordon will fall even easier.” A dark gleam entered her eyes. “And if the war doesn’t go past the cordon’s walls, then the empire will pull out, too. Once they’re done wrecking the place, of course.” She laughed again, clapping her hands together. “Oh, this is beautiful. I should be paying you to tell tales like this!”

I sat up in my seat, suddenly feeling far less clever than I had a moment ago.

“You mean this is all about Ten Ways?” I said. “The setups, the rumors, getting Nicco and Kells at each other’s throats-even drawing in the empire-is all so you can take Ten Ways? You don’t want to be the Dark King?”

“Hell no!” said Solitude. “I have enough headaches without anyone becoming the next Dark King, let alone myself. No, I just want the cordon.”

I asked the obvious question-the one she was waiting for. “Why?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

No. “Yes.”

“I thought you might.” Solitude smiled and leaned forward. “Because it didn’t always used to be called Ten Ways,” she said. “Because a long time ago, it was called Ten Wise Men.”

I noticed that somewhere along the way I had chewed and swallowed my seed without noticing. I put another one in my mouth. “How long ago?” I said, starting to have a bad feeling.

“Right around the time Stephen Dorminikos became emperor,” she said, “and before the beginning of the Endless Cycle.”

“And why was the cordon called Ten Wise Men?”

“I think you’re starting to suspect why,” said Solitude. I kept silent, and she shrugged. “It was called Ten Wise Men after the people Stephen Dorminikos granted it to. He gave it to his Paragons-ten of them to be exact-so they could conduct research for him, uninterrupted.”

“And one of those Paragons was named Ioclaudia Neph,” I said.

Solitude nodded. “Including Ioclaudia. Who wrote a journal as insurance against her life, for all the good it did her.”

“Insurance?” I said. “Why would she need insurance if she was working for the emperor?”

“Why does anyone need insurance when they work for someone of great power?”

“To protect them against that power.”

“Precisely. The emperor didn’t put them in Ten Wise Men to work on Imperial magic; he put them in there to work on soul magic. He put them in there to make him immortal.” Solitude leaned forward and stared me in the eye. “The Angels didn’t choose Stephen Dorminikos to serve as the Undying Emperor-he did. He charged his Paragons with finding a way to make him immortal, but it didn’t work. For some reason, reincarnation was the best they could manage. So they broke his soul into three pieces and somehow arranged for those pieces to follow one another in a constant cycle. That’s how Stephen Dorminikos Progenitor became Markino, Theodoi, and Lucien. The Angels had nothing to do with it.”

My heart gave a flop, but I hardly noticed it. “And the Paragons?” I said, already knowing.

“Dusted. Them and everyone else in Ten Wise Men-servants, apprentices, bakers, everyone. All on the same night. The emperor surrounded the cordon, sent in his troops, and when they were done, he had the place burned to the ground. It’s been rebuilt countless times since, and each time the name has changed slightly. But underneath it all, Ten Ways is still Ten Wise Men. And there are secrets buried there.”

“Like Ioclaudia’s journal,” I said.

“Like Ioclaudia’s journal,” agreed Solitude. “Hers is supposed to be the most complete, but there are notes, fragments of journals, ancient runes, and circles of power still down there. And I want to dig them all up, which means I need Ten Ways.”

I stared at Solitude, trying to wrap my mind around what she had just told me. If what she said was true, then the Angels had had nothing to do with Stephen Dorminikos’s reincarnations. And if that was the case, then his whole foundation for sitting on the Undying Throne-being the chosen of the Angels, being an intermediary between Them and humanity, being guided in his rule by aspects of the divine-was all a construct, a hoax, a fucking con.

I felt my world starting to shift, and I didn’t much care for it.

“How?” I said, scrambling for purchase. “How could anyone possibly set something like this up? The religion, the cults, the sheer belief. It’s not possible!”

“Of course it is,” said Solitude, her green eyes flashing. “How do you start a rumor on the street? You tell a few key people the tale you want spread, give them an incentive to talk, and step away. If done right, it’ll take on a life of its own. Look at what I did with Nicco and Kells in Ten Ways-that was small-time.

“Now, think about what an emperor can do, especially if he has years to prepare. He could lay the foundations for a cult, create a corps of fanatics, indoctrinate the bureaucracy so it would be waiting for him when he came back. Stephen’s Paragons didn’t come up with the Endless Cycle overnight, and he didn’t die the instant they worked the magic. There was time to plot, to lay groundwork, to make sure he would be reborn into an empire that was counting on his return as an article of faith. And when he did return?” Solitude spread her hands. “Everything was confirmed. The hardest part for Stephen was throwing down the First Regency when they decided they didn’t want to surrender power to him. After that, it was just a matter of meeting the expectations he had already set.”

I rubbed at my temples. The pain was back, but I knew it wasn’t solely from my strained vision. “But why?” I said. “Why go through all of this just to keep the throne?”

“Why did Stephen kill his uncle and become emperor in the first place?” said Solitude.

“To save the empire,” I said. Or, at least, that was the popular story. Now I wasn’t so sure.

“Exactly,” said Solitude. “He saved the empire, but he also knew that, no matter how good a foundation he laid, it would collapse someday. You know history-sooner or later, someone comes to the throne who undoes all the work of his predecessors. Have enough of them close enough together, and the empire falls.” Solitude held up a finger. “Unless.”

“Unless he stays on the throne forever,” I said.

“That’s the theory, anyhow. And so far, it’s been working.”

“But what about the Angels?” I said. “Stephen’s been claiming to be their Chosen One since he came back. If They didn’t set him up to come back, why haven’t They cast him down?”

Solitude shrugged. “How should I know? I’m no theologian. Whatever They think of this, it’s between Them and Stephen. For all we know, his creeping insanity is the punishment for blaspheming against Them, but I hope not. It’s too damn tame for me.”

I rubbed at my temples some more and reached for my herb wallet. It wasn’t there. Of course. It had gone the way of my clothing seemingly so long ago. I pulled at one of the altered seams of Nestor’s doublet and felt it give a little. I wasn’t much longer for this outfit, either.

“Pardon my asking,” I said, “but you have to understand when I say, where the hell are you getting all of this?”

“You mean, assuming I’m not making it up, or crazy, or both?”

“The thought occurs,” I said. “Even you have to admit this isn’t the kind of thing you find in any old history book.”

“I have fragments of another journal,” said Solitude. “Mainly bits and pieces, but enough to get a basic picture of what happened. The rest I’ve pieced together from ancient histories I guarantee you’ve never heard of, heretical theologies, and other sources. As you can imagine, information on this… aspect… of imperial history isn’t thick on the ground. But it’s there, if you know where to look.”

“And you know where to look,” I said, somewhat snidely.

“As do you.”

I fidgeted slightly. She was right-it was easy enough for me to find out if she was telling the truth. I had Ioclaudia’s journal; I could look it up. That alone made me more inclined to believe her, at least for the moment. The only problem was, if I started believing her, I would be buying into something far bigger than I had ever imagined.

That made me nervous. And suspicious. I was getting answers, but not the one at the core of everything-not the Why.

“What about Shadow?” I said. “How does he fit into all of this?”

Solitude’s expression turned dark. “He doesn’t,” she said. “Or, at least, he didn’t until recently.”

“When he found out about the journal?”

Solitude didn’t answer.

“You said you’d tell me all of it,” I reminded her.

“When one of my people turned out to be a Long Nose,” she snarled. I raised an eyebrow. “If you say anything,” said Solitude sharply, “I’ll have Iron bend you into interesting, complicated shapes.”

I held up my hands. “Professional appreciation only,” I said. Long Nosing against Solitude must have been a hell of a dodge. “How much does Shadow know?”

“Shadow knows the journal exists, but I don’t think he’s aware of its full implications. For him, it’s a source of power, a potential guide to potent magic. I don’t think he knows the imperial connection, but even so, the journal is too tempting a prize to ignore, and a bad enough threat on its own. Shadow with imperial glimmer is something I’d rather not contemplate. But if he gets his hands on Ioclaudia’s notes and recognizes their true value…”

“He’ll use them,” I said. I didn’t know Shadow well, but I’d seen enough in the meeting with Kells. He wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to put himself on par with the emperor. “He’d tear Ten Ways apart to get the rest of the journals, and then he’d do it-he’d start another Endless Cycle, only for himself.”

“Giving us two undying emperors instead of one,” said Solitude. “One for the Lighters, and one for the Kin.”

“Unlike you,” I said.

Solitude’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“What the hell do you think I mean?” I said. “You tell me you want an ancient Paragon’s journal, you tell me it holds secrets untold about reincarnation, and then you tell me you want to dig up Ten Ways to find whatever else you can about the process? Even if you don’t want to become the next Dark King, you sure seem damn interested in finding out about not dying.”

Solitude came out of her chair so fast, the tinkling of the charms on her dress formed a single multitonal note.

“Is that what you think?” she demanded. “That I want to shatter my soul so I can keep coming back to life? That I want to live as a fraction of myself for the rest of eternity?”

“Why else?” I said, prodding on purpose. “What’s the point in finding the journal and taking over Ten Ways if you aren’t going to use them? If you aren’t going to reincarnate yourself?”

“Because knowing about something doesn’t mean you have to use it in the same way!” she shouted. “Because magic can work both ways!”

I sat, staring at her, absorbing what she had said and what she had let slip.

“Shit! ” said Solitude, kicking the table. It teetered and fell over with a crash. The marble top shattered, scattering itself across the floor. Iron immediately opened the door and stuck his head in. Solitude shooed him away with a gesture.

“This isn’t how I wanted to broach the subject with you,” she said. “Not until I knew where you stood.”

“It’s the emperor, isn’t it?” I said, ignoring her complaint. “It’s not about you or Shadow or the Kin-it’s about him. You want to throw down the fucking emperor!”

“No,” she said, shaking her head ruefully. “Rebellion is easy. It’s been done more times than I can count. I want to kill him. Permanently. Forever. I want to figure out how the first Paragons made him immortal, and I want to undo it.”

“You’re insane,” I said.

“You have it backward,” said Solitude. “It’s the emperor who’s insane. All three incarnations of Stephen Dorminikos-Markino, Theodoi, and Lucien-are slowly going crazy.”

“That’s not exactly a revelation,” I said. “Everyone knows each of them gets loose in the head as they get older. It’s always been that way. That’s why the next incarnation, or a Regent, is ready to step in and take over when the sitting incarnation passes fifty.”

“But it’s not harmless,” said Solitude, “and it hasn’t always been this way. The emperors have only begun to slip in the last two hundred and fifty years. Before Theodoi the Sixth, there weren’t regular Regency courts, nor was the heir required to stay within a day’s ride of Ildrecca. But after Theodoi went mad at the end of that reign, things began to change. The insanity has been creeping forward over time, coming on faster and running deeper every cycle.”

I thought about what Solitude was saying, what I had read in the histories, what Lyconnis had told me about the Fourth Regency. If you looked at the history of the empire, as Solitude said, there was a pattern. The Regencies had become more common over time, and the various incarnations were less willing to leave the city than they used to be, both before and during their reigns. Hell, stories were that Markino, Theodoi, and Lucien had even spent time together, back in the early days. That never happened now, though, not in public, and likely never in private, either.

“Before long,” continued Solitude, “we won’t be talking about paranoid or obsessive old men on the throne who drool when they talk. We’ll be talking about three active, alert, clever men, each of whom has convinced himself that the other two are out to destroy him. I’m talking about paranoia, dementia, and God complexes, with an entire imperial structure in place to back the whole thing up. Each incarnation is at his predecessor’s, or successor’s, throat now more than they ever were during the first five centuries of the empire. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to fight one another openly.”

“Imperial civil war?” I said incredulously.

Solitude nodded. “A civil war with three emperors, each one returning from the dead, each one hungry for vengeance, each one able to raise and lead an army, again and again and again.”

“But the empire has survived crises in the past,” I said, though not with as much conviction as I would have liked. “The Reign of the Pretenders, the Bastards’ Revolt, the betrayal of the White Sashes under Silverhawk-the Imperial Court kept going through all of it, without any version of Stephen on the throne. Who says they won’t be able to handle a bent-headed emperor?”

Solitude crossed her arms. “Think about it,” she said. “Even a ‘bent-headed’ emperor is still the emperor.”

And people obeyed the emperor. Or, at least, they obeyed one version of him. But with three imperial camps to choose from, it would be chaos-unending chaos.

The world that had been shifting beneath me until now began to crumble. I could sense a tidal wave of events building beyond the horizon. When it hit, it would overrun everything and everyone in its path. Only a fool would be standing there, trying to build a dike when the wave broke.

“This isn’t my concern,” I said, standing up a bit too quickly. My vision flickered for half a heartbeat, then stabilized. I had my sister, Kells, and myself to worry about, not the empire. “I’m a member of the Kin-I’m in no position to oppose the emperor, let alone save the entire fucking thing. Let it fend for itself.”

“Is that so?” said Solitude archly. She sat down and settled back into her chair. “I don’t think so. You didn’t sit on that journal just to save your ass, Drothe. If all you wanted was that, you could have given it to Kells or Nicco or Shadow or even me before this. It would have been easy, especially for you. But you didn’t.”

“We all make mistakes,” I said.

“Yes, but it wasn’t a mistake for you. Do you know why? Because, at some level, I think you want to be a player. You knew the journal was important, and you knew you could use it to make yourself important, too. Well, guess what, Drothe-it worked. You’re in it, whether you like the final stakes or not. And I’m here to tell you it’s too late to wash your hands and walk away.”

“Watch me.” I headed for the door, expecting Solitude to call out for Iron. Instead, I heard her sigh.

Then she said it. “Hypocrite.”

That stopped me, although I didn’t turn around. “What?”

“I’ve heard a lot of things about you, Drothe,” said Solitude. “A lot of words used to describe you: tough, dangerous, relentless, clever. I’ve heard some less than pleasant ones, too. But there’s one word I keep coming across that I almost never hear in relation to other Kin.”

“You’d better not be getting ready to say ‘honest,’ ” I said. “Even I won’t buy that one.”

“Not honest,” she said. “Honorable.” Solitude chuckled. “People actually call you honorable, Drothe.”

Now I did turn around.

Solitude had her radiant smile on. “Imagine someone using that word to describe one of us, the ‘gutter crawlers.’ I’ve heard nobles, soldiers, priests-even merchants, Angels help me-called honorable, but rarely a Darker, and never a Nose.”

She stood. I watched her as she came across the floor, bits of marble crunching softly beneath her shoes.

“When someone chooses a word like that for a man like you,” she said softly, “I have to wonder whether it’s smoke or whether it’s true. Are you honorable, Drothe? Are you loyal, not just to your boss, not just to your friends, but to the Kin? Because that’s what it’s about now. If you want to survive, if you want to hold on to the chips you have in the journal and make us take you seriously, then you have to admit that it’s about more than what’s in it for you. It’s about all the Kin, be it keeping them alive, taking control of them, or even keeping the empire from wiping them out. The picture is bigger than you now; bigger than a single organization. I don’t think you’d be here if you weren’t interested in that. If it were just about you, the journal would have been sold or bartered a long time ago.”

Solitude took a final step, bringing herself so close, we almost touched. She smelled of vanilla and cedarwood and summer wine. “What do you think?” she said.

I stared down into those green eyes and understood the stories about how she supposedly recruited all of her operatives on her own. She was good-damn good. And she was right.

I’d been-hell, still was-willing to go to the emperor to save the Kin. Even if it meant betraying Kells, being cast out, being hunted. It was what needed to be done.

But that didn’t mean I had to give the journal to her, pretty speeches and green eyes aside.

“Even if you’re right,” I said, “and I’m willing to take one for the Kin, I don’t see how giving you the journal accomplishes anything. If I want to keep the empire from wiping us out, I’m better off going directly to them. If the journal has everything in it you say it has, I ought to be able to cut a nice deal for both me and the Kin with the emperor. Giving it to you doesn’t get either of those things.”

Solitude nodded slowly. “Good,” she said. “You see it.”

“See what?” I said.

“The threat the empire poses.”

“It’s hard to miss when they surround an entire cordon and try to kill every Kin in it.”

Solitude shook her head. “I’m not talking about Ten Ways, Drothe, nor even about what they did to Isidore. I’m talking about the emperor going mad-about the three incarnations going to war and dragging every aspect of the empire down with them. Including the Kin. You don’t think we’ll choose sides? You don’t think that Gray Princes and Upright Men won’t make deals with one emperor or another to benefit themselves? In a war that will be fought not just in the fields and forests, but in the streets of the empire, you don’t think the various incarnations of Stephen Dorminikos will be able to overlook their distaste of us long enough to see the excellent tools we would make? Tools he could use and then discard, because after all, we’re only Kin?

“No. This isn’t about any threat to the Kin right now, Drothe-this is about what will happen to the Kin down the road. Fifty, one hundred, two hundred years from now. It’s about the Kin surviving as an organization, as a way of life. If the empire falls, it will take the Kin with it. You can’t have darkness without light, and you can’t have the Kin without the empire. The great irony is, if we want to keep the empire, and therefore the Kin, alive, we have to kill the emperor to do it.”

I was right; I hadn’t liked where this was going. I swallowed and took another step back. Solitude followed me.

“Why should I care about what happens to the Kin in a hundred years?” I said.

“Why should you care about what happens to them now?” she replied. “You could have walked away anytime if you wanted to. But you didn’t. Because you’re Kin. Because you’re honorable. Because you care enough to see the bigger picture. That’s why.”

I stood there, not saying anything, my mind racing and blank at the same instant. There were so many things going through my head, I couldn’t grasp any single thought on its own-except for one.

Solitude was right. Damn her, but she was right.