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captive web. She knew only her home, loved the kappa, respected Dreams-of-War, and obeyed her Grandmothers, but she so greatly wanted to see what it was like elsewhere, to witness the world beyond the weir-wards and the oreagraph. With sudden longing, she re-membered the junk running in from the north.
    "When am I to be allowed outside?" she asked once more, for her guardian had not yet replied.
    "Not today," Dreams-of-War replied, simultaneously fanning and withering Lunae's hopes. Frustration rose to choke her.
    "When, then?"
    "When you are ready."
    "I would love to travel the Chain," Lunae ventured.
    Dreams-of-War laughed. "Would you? My home of Mars, perhaps, the Nine Cities of the Crater Plain? Winter-strike and Caud? Or would you prefer to ride the links all the way to Nightshade, see the sun as nothing more than a pinprick star?" She added after a moment, "Not that one can enter Nightshade space. The lab clans won't allow it."
    "Everything," Lunae said, wide-eyed. "I want to see everything."
    "Well, you have spirit, I'll give you that," Dreams-of-War answered.
    When Dreams-of-War had gone, Lunae rose restlessly from the window seat and made her way down the twist-ing stairs. Her footsteps clattered on the boards, for all that she tried to be quiet. The Grandmothers always told her off for making a noise, and when she told Dreams-of-War how hard she endeavored to keep silent, the Martian merely snorted and said that the floorboards were made deliberately creaky, so that the Grandmothers would al-ways hear who was coming. Lunae did not find it at all dif-ficult to believe this explanation and she took additional pains to walk softly.
    She passed the door that led to the Grandmothers' chamber and paused, but no sound came from within. The hallway smelled musty at this point, as though some-thing old and forlorn had leaked beneath the door and permeated the atmosphere. Lunae hurried on, seeking fresher air. Soon she found herself in the narrow kitchen. The stove had been lit, which made the room smoky. Lunae sneezed once, then went to the back door. She was not allowed to go into the garden without the kappa or Dreams-of-War, but she tried the door handle anyway, half-expecting the weir-wards to shriek up. They did not, suggesting that the kappa was already outside. It would surely be permissible, Lunae told herself, to go in search of her nurse. Stealthily, she opened the door and stepped out into the garden.
    The back of the mansion was overhung with trees— maple and oak, which towered up above the lower storys of the building. The skeins of moss that hung from their branches cast the garden beneath into a wan green light. The air was humid. Lunae made her way between over-grown rows of hibiscus, crimson flowers rearing out of the gloom, stretching long furred tongues toward her. A drag-onfly, jade and armored, hummed past her ear and Lunae smiled, reminded of Dreams-of-War. She could see the kappa now, bending over a pile of compost some distance away and digging industriously in it with a small sharp tool. She did not see Lunae, who was about to call out be-fore she checked herself. Instead, she slid past until she was concealed from the sight of the kappa by the hanging moss.
    At the far edge of the gardens stood a great oak, an-cient and gnarled. Only a fortnight before, Lunae had stood under it in the company of Dreams-of-War and had noted, idly, that she was too short to clamber up to the lowest branches. But she had grown since then. Without stopping to think, she reached up and clasped the branch, then swung herself up into the tree. It was not easy, dressed as she was in an ankle-length robe, so when she was in a more secure position, she reached down and tucked the robe up into her sash. Then she inched out along the coiling branch that grew in the direction of the wall.
    At the end, she looked back. The kappa had risen from the compost with a snort. Lunae held her breath. The nurse picked up a basket and