“Spells, you damned witch.”
“Not while you can still curse me. I’m telling you a truth.”
“Half our nights are dreams.” He blinked, shook his head, blinked again.
“Dammit-“
“There’s no street in Sanctuary I don’t walk, there’s no door and no gate I
can’t pass, no secret I can’t hear. I gather things. I bundle them together and
put them in your hands. I have no luck of my own. I give it away. I’ve left
nobleborn dead in the gutter-oh, yes, and gathered up a slave and made him a
lord-” She bent and kissed, lightly, gently, teased the thinning hair at his
temple. “You feel a rumbling of change in the world and you rush to court your
death. But change isn’t death. Change is chance. In chance a man can rise as
well as fall. Name me your enemies. Name me your dreams, Straton-Stepson, and
I’ll show you the way to them.”
He said nothing, but stared at her in that dim lost way.
“No ambition?” Ischade asked. “I think you have- more ambition than I. You
belong in the sun; and I can’t bear that kind of light-Oh, not factually-” She
laid a finger on his lips. He was always quick with his questions on that score,
always mistook her. “It’s questions I can’t bear. It’s notice. I find my
associates in the dark places: the unmissable; the directly violent. I scour the
streets. But you belong in the sunlight. You were made for leading men. Listen
to me and think of this-are you a greater fool than Kadakithis?”
“Not fool enough to be Kadakithis.”
“A man could take this town and make it the wall behind which Ranke could