Heart and Soul by Sarah A. Hoyt

died. At least he went out fighting, as he should, and as he was due to retire soon, I’d like to believe he’d have preferred to go out with his boots on. Not that it isn’t a sad waste.”
    Nigel nodded, thinking of it. “Yes, but all the same, I shouldn’t put you in further danger.”
    Joe shrugged. “I have some magic. Not a lot. My family is not nearly so high up on the tree as yours. But I have enough to disguise your magic markers and some of your appearance, and to keep your dampers on that beautiful jewel there.”
    “But why would you trust me over Her Majesty’s servants?”
    Joe grinned. “Her Majesty never saved my life. And besides, I’ve never been one to care much what authority has to say to anything. If I’d listened to my father, my Charlotte would be married to some scrubby gardener, and I’d never have had the chance to watch my Hettie grow up.” His face became grave. “So you’ll lie there, Enoch, and take your ease until you’re recovered enough to continue your mission. And then you will go with my blessing.”
    Nigel nodded, but one thought tortured him. “I dreamed of a Chinese angel. I guess I must truly have been feverish.”
    Joe, already at the door, turned back, a wrinkle of thought on his forehead. “Well…I don’t know. It is possible you dreamed of the pirate girl. You talked of her enough. Uncommonly pretty, if I may say so, and I’ve wondered all along if you knew her, for her to do what she did for you.”
    “What did she do for me?” Nigel asked.
    “Why, she stopped the bleeding from your shoulder. Without it, you would have been dead in minutes. And I’ve never heard—though I don’t fly that part of the world much—of Chinese pirates being charitable before.”

 

    TORTOISE AND BONE

     
    Jade followed Third Lady along the edge of the women’s quarters boat. The boats were now moored on the river, with the familiar plain around them, looking like nothing but regular barges, inhabited by tramps or subsistence crafters, but certainly not pirates.
    Here, on familiar territory, the boats were moored end to end, their edges touching and the planks normally extended between the boats set across them, to allow people to walk across when they pleased.
    Third Lady had brought dark cloaks and they were both enveloped in them. Now she pulled Jade aside, toward a thicket of woods. In the woods, cool shadows fell on one of the lifeboats that were normally inside the Dragon Boats. So small it would fit just the two of them, end on end, it was, like the Dragon Boats, charged with its own flying spell, activated by the emperor’s magic.
    Jade looked at Third Lady. “I don’t understand,” she said. “If we must go at night, can’t I just fly? I could carry you—”
    Third Lady shook her head. She put her finger to her lips, as though requesting that Jade speak softer, then spoke in a trickling whisper. “At night is safer because fewer people are awake. But if they should wake…” Third Lady smiled, a sparkling, naughty smile. “If they see a boat being rowed away with two cloaked figures in it, they’ll think it’s the men going off to the city for a tipple, as they’re likely to do in the evening when we’re moored.”
    “They are?” Jade said.
    “Oh, yes. Didn’t you know? They can’t go as dragons, not without explaining exactly where they come from, but our little boats are not the only charmed ones about. Every were-clan has them. People see rowboats in the sky all the time. Besides, my lady, if you’ll forgive me…they would recognize your dragon form, but no one will recognize your cloaked form on the boat.”
    Jade shook her head. Another thought had intruded. This time she whispered, as she said, “But what about flying the boats? As the test of the new emperor’s power and the proof that he has the Mandate of Heaven to rule the Dragon Boats?”
    Third Lady nodded. “Of course,” she said. “But all the clans swear allegiance to the