not unless she can get it what she promised. Then she’ll open it. She’s lost her
power, she’s lost her hiding-place, we’re that much better off, but not if you
go head-on against her ally-“
“That’s not the worst of it,” Randal said. “Your apprentice just stole the globe
in all the confusion. I heard him coming and I couldn’t get here in time. I do
trust it wasn’t your idea.” Ischade opened her mouth to say something. The air
shuddered and Niko choked and moaned. Then she shut it and her jaw went hard,
her fists clenched. “It wasn’t,” she said. And did not speak any curse, which
restraint sent a chill down Molin’s back and reminded him what she was. “Well,”
she said, “now we know where Roxane’s gone, don’t we?”
“Don’t hurt him,” Moria said, “Haught, don’t.”
“Another of your lovers?” Haught asked, and prodded Straton’s side with his
booted toe.
“No. For Shalpa’s sake-“
“Your old patron.” Haught shifted the globe he held to the crook of his arm and
touched her under the chin. “Really, Moria, I make you a lady and look at you,
you smell like a whore and you swear like a gutter-rat. Carry a knife in your
garter, do you? No? Your brother stole it. What a life you lead.”
“Stay out of my mind, dammit!”
“You’re going to have to leam to control yourself, you know. Stilcho does. He
thinks about things when I ask him questions. He thinks about things other than
what I’m asking, he’s gotten very good at it. Sometimes he remembers being dead.
That’s his greatest weapon. Sometimes I see other things in his head, like what