Briar looked up, saw the peril to his clothes, and moved them away from the madman. While his mind knew that Sandry had made his garments to withstand all common wrinkles, his heart worried for his beautiful things. “Just leave Namorn,” he said. “No Namorn, no empress. No empress, no torturers with painful spikes and tweezers and spells with your name on them. You haven’t heard enough in any other country to make it worth their while, only here.” He shrugged into his over robe and glanced into his mirror. One of the good things about very short hair was that it never required combing. “Do you think I should grow a mustache?”

When no answer came, he looked around. Zhegorz sat, his long legs half-in, half-out of the wardrobe, with tears running down his cheeks.

Briar found his handkerchiefs. He took one over to Zhegorz. “You have to relax,” he told Zhegorz sternly. “You’ll rattle yourself to pieces at this rate. What’s wrong now? Or is it the thought of me in a mustache that made you get all weepy?”

“So simple,” the man replied in a voice that cracked. He blew his nose with a loud honk. “You, you and Daja and Tris, you take the knot that has built up for so long, and you just…cut through it. I’ve tried for years to untie it, and you chop it to pieces in a matter of days. Why didn’t I see that? I have the years of a man, while you’re just children yet—”

“Watch the ‘children’ stuff,” Briar advised. “It’s taken me all my life to shed that name. I’ll thank you to keep it in mind.”

Zhegorz gave his nose a second blow. “You’ve shed half a dozen names,” he said, his voice muffled by the handkerchief. “But there’s one you’ll never lose, and that’s ‘friend.’”

“That’s it,” Briar said, checking his cuffs. He was always embarrassed by emotional talk. “I’m going to go pay compliments to the empress. You can stay here, but you’ll be a lot more comfortable in a chair, or on the bed.”

Without looking back, he left the room, closing the door gently behind him. He’ll do better once he’s out of Namorn, Briar thought as he trotted down the stairs. Maybe better enough to salvage a decent life for himself with the years he’s got left.

As he reached the ground floor he thought, Someone’s got to do a better job of finding us peculiar ones, before they end up like Zhegorz.

He found the empress and her courtiers in the summer room of the castle, the one that caught the most light, and on the terrace outside it. Berenene sat on a chair placed against the terrace rail, where she could enjoy the scent of the roses that twined around the stone rail from the garden just below. Briar approached her and bowed deep, summoning a rose with an as-yet-unopened bud to him. The empress moved aside as the vine thrust its thorny arm out to Briar. The bud swelled, then bloomed as it came closer to him, revealing a heart as crimson as blood. He used his belt knife to carefully cut the blossom free, trimming its thorns and healing the cut on the main vine before he sent it back to the others.

The mage Quenaill leaned against the stone rail beside the empress. He’d twitched when the vine crept past her, the silver fire of his protective magic collecting around his hands and eyes. When he realized it was Briar’s work and not a threat to Berenene, Quenaill held the fire close but did not allow it to sink back under his skin until the vine had returned to its proper location.

“It’s forbidden to practice magic in the imperial presence without permission,” Quenaill said drily, as if it were no great matter. “Though I don’t suppose she’ll scold you as she ought.” When Berenene looked up at him, Quenaill bowed. “Your Imperial Majesty,” he said, to take the sting off his hinted-at rebuke.

She smiled impishly up at her guardian mage. “Viynain Briar has my permission to work any plant magic he feels is necessary in my presence, and has had it since I showed him my greenhouses,” she informed Quenaill. “Now stop sulking, Quen, there’s a dear.”

When she looked at Briar again, he presented her with the crimson rose. “It pales beside your lips, Your Imperial Majesty,” he said boldly. “But it was the best I could do on such short notice.”

“Hmm.” Berenene drew the rose down from her chin over her bosom. “Short notice to whom? I’ve been waiting here forever. I supposed you’d gone off to look at the Landreg fields rather than make your bow to an old woman like me.”

Briar grinned. “The Landreg fields need no attention from me. Saghad Ambros’s people are good farmers. No, I was in one of the cold rooms down below, working on medicines. I came as soon as I knew I could admire Your Imperial Majesty.”

“You, my dear young man, are a flatterer,” Berenene told him flirtatiously, tapping his cheek with the rose. “You mean to tell me that Rizu and my dear little Caidy held no charms for you? One of them hasn’t stolen your heart?”

“Caidy has stolen my arm, perhaps, or maybe my breath, but my heart could only belong to you, great lady,” Briar said, enjoying the flirtation. He knew better than to take it seriously.

“Then she has made more progress with you than my young men have made with Sandrilene,” Berenene observed, gazing darkly at Jak and Fin. If they noticed, they showed no sign of it. Instead, Jak fanned Sandry gently while Fin offered her a plate of delicacies.

“She’s not much of a player when it comes to games of the heart,” Briar said. “If you sent them to engage her in such a game, Imperial Majesty, they were doomed to failure.”