But Sekenre continued, barefoot on stone, quiet as a ghost, and he could only follow.
He heard no voices, no music, no sound at all, and was astonished to find the roof-garden deserted, the canopies rolled up, the furniture cleared away. Dead leaves rustled across the pavement in a faint breeze. The moon, which had been full tonight, was now well past, and low in the east, though the hour must have been quite late.
His mind wasn’t working right. He couldn’t reason. He merely accepted. Such details were not clues, but portents, part of a vision.
His breath came in white puffs. The air was cold, as in winter.
Sekenre said nothing. In the moonlight, Vandibar Nasha saw that his initial estimation had been wrong. This wasn’t a beggar child: skinny, but not emaciated; his trousers roughly to
