11

EACH KISS was longer and fiercer than the last.

Locke’s hands shook with the hot anxiety of impatience and inexperience. There were so many things to figure out so quickly between short, desperate breaths. It was one thing to throw a girl around in dreams, where the mind can discard the inconveniences of physical reality, but real girls have weight and mass and demands that dream girls lack. First passion is a complicated dance.

Strangely, it helped that Sabetha seemed just as impatient. She held him at bay a moment while she all but tore the ribbon out of her hair, spilling it across her shoulders. She was flushed, sweaty, as awkwardly excited as he was, and through that she’d shed the imposing grace that usually made Locke feel so small and stumbling around her. Neitherof them could be graceful at such close quarters, and Locke found that an immense relief.

The heat grew in the tiny enclosure as they wound their arms and legs together, and the shock of actually being there with her gave way at last to the explosion of pent-up longing. Their tongues met, hesitantly at first, and they shared a nervous, muffled laugh. Then they explored the new sensation together, more and more boldly. Their hands, too, seemed to come unshackled from inhibition and roamed freely.

Order and planning were forgotten. Locke found himself having done things without any realization that he’d even started them. Their clothes were shed with reckless speed, as though torn off by ghosts. It was almost like being in a fight—the same fearful exhilaration, the same sense of time disjointed into bright, hot, all-consuming flashes. His hands on her breasts … her lips against the taut muscles of his stomach … their final scramble to arrange themselves for something that neither of them understood.

Toward that somethingthey fought, and fought was an apt description. However passionate they were, however deep and pure the pleasure of their connection, there was something hesitant and incomplete about their lovemaking. They were like two pieces of an unfinished craftwork, not yet trimmed and polished to slide together properly. At last, they eased apart, exhausted but not content. It was obvious to Locke that Sabetha was straining to conceal disappointment, or discomfort, or even both.

Is that it?The thought came unbidden from whatever corner of his mind was responsible for unhelpful pessimism. Was that all? Thatwas the act that turned the whole world on its ear, that made men and women crazy, that bedeviled his dreams, that made hounds of the Sanza twins?

“Look,” he muttered when he’d caught his breath. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “I, um, I’m sorry—”

Sabetha pulled him back down and held him tight, her breasts against his back. She spread her hands possessively across his chest and kissed his neck, an act that instantly disconnected him from whatever willpower he’d managed to summon.

“What are you apologizing for?” she whispered. “You think that’s it? You think we never get to try again?”

“Well, I just thought you’d—”

“What, banish you like a passing fancy?” Her kiss became a playful bite, and Locke yelped. “Preva help me, I’m sweet for an idiot.”

“Did we … did I hurt you, just now?”

“I wouldn’t say hurt, exactly.” She tightened her embrace reassuringly for an instant. “It was … strange. But it wasn’t bad.”

There was a muffled thump from one of the nearby rooms, followed by some sort of passionate outburst that quickly subsided.

“That could be us when we’ve rested a bit,” she said. “Believe me, I have every intention of practicing until we get this right.”

They lay there for a while, muttering sweet inanities, letting the minutes unroll in delectable languor. Sabetha’s hands had just begun roaming again, testing Locke’s returning ardor, when the room’s secret door slid open barely an inch. Someone moved against the dim light of the hall, and Locke’s heart pounded.

“Get dressed,” hissed Calo.

“What the hell,” said Sabetha. “This isn’t funny!”

“Damn right it’s not. It’s bad.”

“What can possibly—?”

“Don’t ask questions. If you trust me and want to live, get your bloody clothes on. We need you both, this instant.”

Locke’s relief at not seeing Boulidazi outside the little chamber was instantly squelched by the cold dead gravity of Calo’s voice. A serious Sanza was one hell of an ill omen. Locke found his clothes with the most extreme haste, and still Sabetha beat him out into the hall.

12

NO ONE else was in the hall as they emerged, though the noise of revelry continued unabated from the direction of the common room. Calo, visibly on edge, led them the short distance to Jenora’s chamber door. Locke’s sense of dread grew as Calo knocked softly in a three-two-one pattern.

It was Galdo who answered, ushered them in, and slammed the door shut behind them. The scene within the room made Locke’s knees feel as though they’d dissolved, and he found himself grabbing Sabetha to stay upright.

Jenora was huddled in a corner beside an overturned cot, wide-eyed and shuddering, her tunic torn open at the neck. Jean crouched next to her, hands on her shoulders.

Gennaro Boulidazi lay crumpled against the opposite wall, his imposing frame strangely deflated, his face pale. A pair of seamstress’ shears, their plain handles roughened and stained by Jenora’s long hours of work, was deeply embedded in a spreading red stain on the baron’s right breast.

As Locke stared in horror, Boulidazi moaned softly, shuffled his legs, and coughed more blood onto his tunic. Dull and helpless as the baron seemed, mortal as his wound had to be, for the moment he was still very much alive.

CHAPTER NINE

THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: REASONABLE DOUBT

1

“WHAT LOCKE IS,” said Sabetha, “is the man about to cook my dinner.”

“Surely you both saw further than that,” said Patience.

“It’s no affair of yours.” Sabetha slipped out of Locke’s arms, dangerously tense, her air of cautious respect banished. “Locke might answer to you, but I don’t. Best think on how my principals might respond if you use your magic to keep me from dragging you out of this house.”

“Take care when throwing rules at a rule-maker, my dear,” said Patience. “Provoke me outside the bounds of the five-year game and I’m free to respond as I will. And you are quiteoutside the bounds of the game this evening, aren’t you? Because if you’re not, you’d be perilously close to the one thing you both agreed—”

“Shove your collusionsomewhere dark and painful,” said Locke, setting his hands on Sabetha’s shoulders. “You know we weren’t talking business when you appeared. Only a snoop could have such flawless dramatic timing. Why the hell are you here?”

“A matter of conscience.”

“Really?” said Locke. “Yours? You keep alluding to its existence. Somehow I’m not convinced.”

“This interruption is entirely your own fault!” The archedama stabbed a finger in Locke’s direction. “I gave you the clearest, fairest possible warning! I told you to set aside your personal business. To get to work, not to wooing. And what have you done?”

“What have we bothdone?” said Sabetha. She folded her arms, but Locke could still feel that simmering tension, as familiar to him as her voice or her scent. He tightened his grip, doubting that she had his experience with physically attacking magi. She didn’t relax, but she gave his hand a brief, reassuring squeeze. “Enlighten us, Archedama. And I do mean us.”

“This reckless pursuit of your old romance,” said Patience. “Set it aside. Go back to your appointed tasks. Don’t make me carry out this obligation, Sabetha. Locke is my responsibility now, and there are things about him that you don’t understand. Things you don’t needto understand, if you would only stop here.”