“Not only that,” Richard added, “but you are well-known and well connected. If you fall, you will drag your sister, your brother-in-law, and your brother down with you. You can help, George. But you must do it covertly.”

“We’re out of luck,” Kaldar said.

“Not if I become Casside,” Richard said.

What?

“Come again?” Kaldar asked.

“I’ve met him,” Richard said. “He wouldn’t be difficult to impersonate. You said yourself, there is a strong resemblance between us.”

“You’re good with prosthetics, I’ll give you that.” Kaldar crossed his arms. “But this isn’t some meeting in the middle of the night in a dimly lit tavern. You don’t look enough like him to pass, and if you glue shit to your face, it will be clearly visible in the bright lights of all those ballrooms.”

“Not if it’s under my skin,” Richard said.

She realized what he was saying. “Facial surgery?”

He nodded.

Charlotte stared at the picture, comparing the two faces. Richard’s chin was too sharp, his nose bridge too low, his features too defined, and the eyebrows too high . . . No, too much, too many differences. It would never work.

“You’re insane. Who’s going to do this?” Kaldar demanded.

“Dekart,” Richard said.

Kaldar frowned.

“Who is Dekart?” she asked.

“He is a defector from Louisiana,” Kaldar answered. “They were going to exile him for some creative surgeries, and he turned tail and ran across the border into the waiting arms of the Department of the Interior. What makes you think he’ll go for it?”

“I have access to the Camarine and Sandine combined finances,” Richard said. “Dekart needs money.”

“Ridiculous,” she told him. “You’re going to trust your face to some defector?”

“Charlotte is right. The man is an artist with a scalpel, but you’ll still die on the operating table,” Kaldar said.

“Not necessarily.” Richard looked at her.

No. Not in a million years. “Forget it.”

“Charlotte . . .”

“I said forget it!” She got up off her chair. “I would have to continuously heal you while the surgeon cut at your face. Look at your chin and look at his. It means cutting the living bone, Richard, and reshaping it. I will have to regrow it beyond its natural shape. Do you have any idea how difficult that is? I’ve assisted in reconstructive surgeries before. I know exactly what’s involved. What you’re proposing is suicide. There is no guarantee I can keep you alive. Best-case scenario, you would be disfigured. Worst case—dead. It’s too dangerous.”

He simply looked at her.

“It’s too dangerous, Richard. I won’t do it. One slip of the blade, one overlooked infection, and you’ll be gone.”

“Charlotte,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to assist. I can hire a healer.”

“First, then you will die for sure. Second, no healer is going to do this for you. It’s suicide.”

“What other way is there?”

“I don’t know, but this isn’t the way.”

“I’m willing to take the risk,” Richard said.

“I’m not!”

“I ask that you respect my commitment,” he said.

The words lashed at her. She had said the same thing to him when he tried to dissuade her from going with him. They had agreed that they would keep their relationship from interfering with the mission. If they hadn’t made love and he was simply a man she knew, she would caution against the operation, but she wouldn’t become borderline hysterical trying to prevent it.

But they had made love. And she was in love with him, whether he felt the same about her or not.

The words tore out of her before Charlotte could catch them, but she had summoned her poise, and when they came out, she said them calmly, with a touch of distance. “What if I lose you?”

“You won’t. You’re the best healer of your generation.”

RICHARD lay prone on the table under the harsh sterile light of the surgeon’s lamp. From this position, he had an excellent view of Dekart, a short, lean man, dressed in surgeon’s robes. His face had a look of complete concentration as he reviewed his instruments. On the table in front of him, an imager presented Casside’s face, enlarged to twice its normal size. The imager captured one’s likeness completely, and Dekart was very good.

Charlotte stood next to the surgeon. Her face was glacially cold, her iced-over beauty almost sharp enough to cut. He was on the receiving end of the coldest stare he had ever seen.

Dekart’s daughter-assistant tightened the last leather belt, pulling Richard’s left arm tight against the surface of the table. The buckle clicked, locking. He was strapped in.

“Suicide,” Charlotte said.

Richard smiled at her.

Ever since he pointed out that she was thinking with her emotions, Charlotte had shut them down. She had argued for three days with cold, flawless logic, trying to overwhelm him with facts. She explained the operation in detail as they sat by the fire. She found an anatomy volume on the shelf and detailed how easily a scalpel could cause damage. She threatened him with the lingering, chronic pain that came with reshaped bones and nerve damage. And when they made love, she took his breath away. She was trying to give him a reason to back off.

She had no idea she only made it worse. He wanted to keep her away from using the darker side of her magic at any cost. He had come up with a plan that would call for him to bear almost all of the danger. She wouldn’t have any cause to kill anyone. It hinged on his having Casside’s face, and so he had listened to everything she said and acknowledged the full validity of her arguments, but he refused to budge.

Dekart began drawing lines on Richard’s face, holding the ink stick in gloved hands. “How proficient are you in healing, my lady?” His voice was soft and quiet. A slight Louisiana accent tinted his words.

“I’m the Healer,” she said in a brisk tone.

“I understand you are a healer,” he said.

“Not ‘a.’ ‘The,’” she said.

Dekart glanced at her. “You will forgive me if I don’t believe you. The Healer worked miracles until she retired. Still, you must have some ability, since my patient places such confidence in you. Such procedures are . . . quite gruesome. I ask that you restrain yourself from healing until I ask, or you will prematurely heal the changes I will make.”

Charlotte fixed Richard with a deadly gaze. “If you die, I’m coming after you. Don’t expect a peaceful afterlife.”

It must be excruciating for her, he realized. If their roles were reversed, and she lay on the table, while he was forced to watch her face being cut open and mop up the blood, could he do it?

“Dekart, give us a minute.”

The surgeon gave a one-shouldered shrug, and he and his assistant stepped out.

“Did you have a moment of clarity?” she asked. “Should I undo the belts?”

“I’m sorry for making you do this. It must be difficult for you.” He couldn’t let her realize why he was doing it. If he did die, she would never forgive herself.

Her narrow eyebrows rose. “Have a care, my lord Mar. First you ignore my advice, now you insult me. I assure you that watching living flesh sliced by a surgeon is nothing new to me. Contrary to your expectations, you are not that special.”

She was furious with him. “If I could trade places with you, I’d . . .”

Her eyes sparked with anger. He’d clearly said the wrong thing.

She reached over and slapped him.

“If you could trade places with me, I’d die on the operating table. You deposited the responsibility for your survival on my shoulders against my will. Don’t offer me empty platitudes.” She turned away from him and walked out of his field of vision. “He’s ready.”

The door swung open. A moment later, Dekart loomed over him. “Please don’t damage the patient. If you feel the need to injure him, kindly do it on other parts of his body.”

“I’ll heal it before you start,” came the icy reply.

A cold needle punctured his arm.

“I will count to ten,” Dekart said. “I want you to repeat the numbers after I say them. Ten.”

“Ten.”

The room grew fuzzy. “Nine.”

“Nine.”

“Eight.” Dekart’s voice sounded as if coming over a great distance.

“Eight,” Richard whispered.

“Seven.”

The light blinked out. Everything went dark.

“Look at me.”

A voice called him. Richard swam toward it through the endless colorless water. He wasn’t sure whose voice it was, but it had awakened him, and now he moved. A small part of him wondered why he wasn’t drowning and where the surface was, but those questions were too faint to need his attention.

Below him, darkness gaped. It was reaching for him, its long tendrils twisted, ready to coil and pull him under. He knew it wasn’t death. Death was nowhere near. It was something else. As he swam, he felt its coldness, spreading through the waters underneath. It smelled like blood, he realized.

He wasn’t afraid of it. Far from it, it felt familiar, as if it were a part of him.

“Richard?”

Charlotte . . . He spun around in the water looking for her. Where are you, love? The water stretched out on all sides of him, a transparent eternity.

“Come back to me, Richard.”

I’m trying. I’m trying, my sweetheart. I’m looking for you.

“Come back to me.”

He felt warmth on his skin and turned toward it. A luminescent golden glow suffused the crystalline depth. He swam into it.

The darkness chased him. The icy restraints of its tentacles wound about his legs. It pulled, but the light anchored him, refusing to let him go.