whispered, “Yes? Your business, please.”
And Haught, so pretty, so fiery underneath his slave’s face, said, “I thought
you’d want a warning. His boyfriend’s coming. …” Haught’s chin jutted
Mazeward. “What use he’ll be once Crit’s come hence, you might not like. So if
you want, I could-“
There was murder in the slavebait’s eyes. Murder sure of itself and offered
teasingly, a sexual ploy, a sensuous violence.
She denied it, not telling Haught that Strat was so much hers that Crit couldn’t
get between them… because she wasn’t sure. But she was sure that Straton’s
leftside leader, Critias, could not be murdered by one of hers. Not ever. Not
and allow Ischade to keep what she had now-subtle power over more factions than
any other had, even those who dwelled in the winter palace and looked to gods to
aid them.
The dusky wraith that was Ischade said a second time, “I don’t want, Haught. I
never want. You want. I have. And I have need of both Stepsons-of Straton and
his… friend. Go back uptown, see Moria, talk to Vis; we’ll have a party for
returning heroes tomorrow evening-in the uptown house. Wherever Crit is, Tempus
is as well. Find the Band’s best and invite them all. We’ll play a different
game this season; you tread carefully, do you hear?”
Haught, motionless and unblinking till she loosed him. sought the door with the
slightest inclination of his head and the most refined swirl of his cloak.
Trouble, that one, by and by.
But in the meantime, if she must fight for Straton, would she? She didn’t know.