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Ivan stared at his venomous tone. "Have you got rid of that little toy you're packing yet?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Yes . . . and no."

"Oh, shit. I knew better than to trust—what the hell do you mean by Yes and no? Either you have or you haven't, right?"

"The object has been returned, yes."

"That's that, then."

"No. Not quite."

"Miles . . . You had better start talking to me."

"Yes, I think I better had." Miles sighed. They were approaching the legation district. "After you're done in the infirmary, I have a few confessions to make. But if—when—you talk to the ImpSec night-duty officer about Yenaro, don't mention the other. Yet."

"Oh?" drawled Ivan in a tone of deep suspicion.

"Things have gotten . . . complex."

"You think they were simple before?"

"I mean complex beyond the scope of mere security concerns, into genuine diplomatic ones. Of extreme delicacy. Maybe too delicate to submit to the sort of booted paranoids who sometimes end up running local ImpSec offices. That's a judgment call . . . that I'll have to make myself. When I'm sure I'm ready. But this isn't a game anymore, and it's no longer feasible for me to run without backup." I need help, God help me.

"We knew that yesterday."

"Oh, yes. But it's even deeper than I first thought."

"Over our heads?"

Miles hesitated, and smiled sourly. "I don't know, Ivan. How good are you at treading water?"

* * *

Alone in his suite's bathroom, Miles slowly peeled off his black House uniform, now in desperate need of attention from the embassy's laundry. He glanced at himself sideways in the mirror, then resolutely looked away. He considered the problem, as he stood in the shower. To the haut, all normal humans doubtless looked like some lower life-form. From the haut Rian Degtiar's foreshortened perspective, perhaps there was little to choose between him and, say, Ivan.

And ghem-lords did win haut wives, from time to time, for great deeds. And the Vor and the ghem-lords were very much alike. Even Maz had said so.

How great a deed? Very great. Well . . . he'd always wanted to save the Empire. The Cetagandan just wasn't the empire he'd pictured, was all. Life was like that, always throwing you curveballs.

You've gone mad, you know. To hope, to even think it . . .

If he defeated the late Dowager Empress's plot, might the Cetagandan emperor be grateful enough to . . . give him Rian's hand? If he advanced the late Dowager Empress's plot, might the haut Rian Degtiar be grateful enough to . . . give him her love? To do both simultaneously would be a tactical feat of supernatural scope.

Barrayar's interests lay, unusually, squarely with the interests of the Cetagandan emperor. Obviously, it was his clear ImpSec duty to foil the girl and save the villain.

Right. My head hurts.

Reason was returning to him, slowly, the astonishing effect of the haut Rian Degtiar wearing off. Wasn't it? She hadn't exactly tried to suborn him, after all. Even if Rian were as ugly as the witch Baba Yaga, he'd still have to be following up on this. To a point. He needed to prove Barrayar had not filched the Great Key, and the only certain way of doing that was to find its real thief. He wondered if one could get a hangover from excess passion. If so, his was apparently starting while he was still drunk, which did not seem quite fair.

Eight Cetagandan satrap governors had been led into treason by the late empress. Optimistic, to think that only one could be a murderer. But only one possessed the real Great Key.

Lord X? Seven chances of guessing wrong, against one of guessing right. Not favorable odds.

I'll . . . figure something out.

Chapter Seven

Ivan was taking a long time, downstairs in the infirmary. Miles shrugged on his black fatigues and, barefoot, fired up his comconsole for a quick review of the eight haut-lord satrap governors.

The satrap governors were all chosen from a pool of men who were close Imperial relations, half-brothers and uncles and great-uncles, in both paternal and maternal