Tavi's old mentor gave him a strained look. "Your Highness, please. The Ambassador is, after all, a representative of a foreign power. My professionalism feels strained enough."

Tavi's weariness kept the laugh from gaining too much momentum, but it felt good in any case. "Crows, Magnus. You can't keep beating yourself up for not realizing I was Gaius Octavian. No one realized I was Gaius Octavian. I didn't realize I was Gaius Octavian." Tavi shrugged. "Which was the point, I suppose."

Magnus sighed. "Yes, well. Just between the two of us, I'm afraid that I have to tell you, it's a waste. You'd have been a real terror as a historian. Dealt those pig-headed snobs at the Academy fits for generations, with what you'd have turned up at Appia."

"I'll just have to try to make amends in whatever small way I can," Tavi said, smiling faintly. The smile faded. Magnus was right about one thing-Tavi was never going to go back to the simple life he'd had, working under Magnus at his dig site, exploring the ancient ruin. A little pang of loss went through him. "Appia was very nice, wasn't it?"

"Mmm," Magnus agreed. "Peaceful. Always interesting. I still have a trunk full of rubbings to transcribe and translate, too."

"I'd ask you to send some of them over, but . . . "

"Duty," Magnus said, nodding. "Speaking of which."

Tavi nodded and sat up with a grunt of effort, as Magnus passed over several sheets of paper. Tavi frowned down at them, and found himself studying several unfamiliar maps. "What am I looking at?"

"The Canim mainland," Magnus replied. "There, at the far right . . ." The old Cursor indicated a few speckles in the midst of the map, just at the edge of the paper. "The Sunset Isles, and Westmiston."

Tavi blinked at the map for a moment, looking between the isles and the mainland. "But . . . I thought it was about three week's sailing from those islands."