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The rest of her kept walking, in defiance of Genevieve’s request She had her parasol hanging from its chatelaine at her waist She had the address of the location on a scrap of paper She moved across the reception room and out into the street, Genevieve unaware of her movements

There Alexia hailed a donkey boy and told hierly With very little effort at all, she climbed astride, the boy yelled to his creature in Arabic, and they started forward

The donkey took her into an unfa structure behind the custoenerously, sending him ahen he would have waited She clih the reed mats of the doorway into what looked to be some kind of warehouse, possibly for bananas, if the sweet smell was to be believed

"Cohtly accented voice out of the di interior

With a flitter of speed custoht up next to her, al, Chancellor Neshi"

"You are alone"

"As you see"

"Good You will explain to "

"First lether here? Oh, no, she is left behind, and she is safe But I thought the abolish and your hter? You got the wrong child"

The chancellor reeled back and blinked at her "I did?"

"You did You got my friend’s baby She has not been happy about that"

"Not the abo pause

"So ht we have her back, then?" Alexia asked

The vary, to resolved "No If I cannot use the aboer"

"Is this about Queen Matakara?"

"Of course"

"Or should I say Queen Hatshepsut?"

"To use that na Hatshepsut"

"What does your queen ith hter?"

"She wants a solution An easy solution One that could be s But, no, this had to be difficult There had to be two black-haired English babies, and we got the wrong one Now I ale"

"You most certainly are not, Lady Maccon"

"Yes, but why?"

"Come with me and you will learn why"

"And Primrose?"

"And ill return to you the useless baby"

He led her froether they walked toward the hive

It was a long, quiet walk through the city Lady Maccon allowed herself to drift on that sea of absence

Despite this, she found herself eventually thinking about Queen Matakara Trapped in that chair, her eyes as sad as anything Alexia had ever seen or felt until now They were the eyes of someone anted to die She could syht, stopping in her tracks

Chancellor Neshi stopped as well

"She set the God-Breaker Plague originally and she started it up again She and my father" Alexia talked out her revelations "They struck a deal"

The chancellor continued for her "He broke with the OBO without telling thereed not to tell the Teue’s expansion with the certain knowledge that eventually it would takea preternatural an walking once more

The vampire said, exasperated, "Do you think I haven’t tried? But your father left iron orders None of et to a preternatural body fast enough It’s like they are networked It’s like there is soe who keeps an eye on all the preternaturals in the world He won’t let rave"

Alexia wondered if Floote had done as he said and had her father’s body cremated, or if Alessandro Tarabotti was one of those who lay exposed above Hatshepsut’s Teht there I would have been happy to touch her"

"Not in front of the others They can’t know that their queen wants to die They can’t possibly know Done at the wrong time, they would swarm--sithout a queen That is not pretty, Lady Maccon I could sneak a child in and out easily enough, but you, Lady Maccon, are not sneaky Besides, if Lady Maccon, English, killed Queen Matakara, it would cause an international incident"

"Why not siue to expand? It’s already reached the edge of Alexandria"