Damian lifted an eyebrow at him. The only woman the guard would describe as a visitor whom he would let into his rooms was Cella, and he couldn’t imagine what she would be doing here. Her regular nights were the fourth, fourteenth, and twenty‑fourth. “Is there a message?” he asked, and the guard shook his head.

“No, sir. She just asked to be let in.”

“How charming.”

Damian turned away, made his way down the echoing corridors toward his own suite of rooms. The palazze’s floors were seamarble, quarried from the uninhabited, and uninhabitable, Midseas Islands; his footsteps sounded hollow on the green‑veined stone, and he found himself stepping lightly, trying not to wake the distant echoes. The automatic lamps lit at his approach, fretted globes held in fantastic sconces, and closed down again after he had passed, so that he walked in the center of a moving tunnel of light. His private rooms were at the northwestern corner of the palazze, where short domed towers sprouted like mushrooms, looking out over the old city toward the rising mass of the Landing Isle and Newfields. As he approached them, the security board outside the main door lit, and chimed softly for his attention. The lights glowed green and yellow among the wide leaves and thick clustered fruit of the frieze of sea grape carved around the doorway, spelling out a familiar pattern. Even so, Damian Chrestil slid his hand into his pocket, curled his fingers around the familiar shape of his household remote, feeling for the control points by instinct. He trusted Cella as much as he trusted anyone, but it was as well to be prepared. He palmed the device, cutting off the system’s programmed announcement of his presence, and let himself into the suite.

Cella was waiting in the reception room, as he’d known she would be, in the corner of the room under the arches that held up the main tower. Moonlight poured in through the window on her left, draping her with the shadow of the fretwork tracery outside the window, drawing blue fire from the seabrights scatter‑sewn across her fractal‑lace overskirt. Behind her, the Old City was spread like a faded carpet, the regular lights of square and street broken by the darkness of the distant reservoirs and the unlit lines of the Straight and the Crooked rivers and the velvet texture of the parklands. She was wearing a violet bodice above the lavender and silver lace, dyed raw silk cut close to her full breasts, rising and sweeping outward to expose her shoulders; braids of the same clear violet were woven into the glossy black of her hair. The double light, the moonlight and the city lights behind her, rounded even further the lavish curves of her body. Damian Chrestil caught his breath as she turned to smile at him, and saw the faint pulsing light of an orbiter rising over her shoulder from the pens at Newfields. It was perfectly timed, it had to have been timed, and he knew he should laugh, tease her for it, but the effect was too perfect, good enough to convince even him. Then she took a step forward, and he saw from the look on her face, the uncalculated, crooked grin so different from her usual cool smile, that effect was the last thing on her mind. He blinked, but touched the remote to light the wall lamps and opaque the windows, and said aloud, “What brings you here, Cella?”

Her grin widened. “You told me,” she said, “you told me you wanted Ransome back on the nets, and by the very God, he’s back.”

“So?” Damian was suddenly very tired, not in the mood for games or the Game. “So you’re good. I knew that, it’s what I pay you for.”

Cella tilted her head at him, still smiling, but turned away toward the sideboard bar. She ran her hands across the carved border of lions and deer, fingers working deftly on the disguised controls, and then extracted bottles and two ice‑lined tumblers. She poured two drinks, ardentecut with the sweet‑and‑sour syrup distilled from sugarwort, and brought one across to him. The ice in the tumblers cracked sharply as the warmed ardentehit it. She said, over the random noises, “But I didn’t do it, Damiano. He came back on his own.”

Damian lifted an eyebrow at her, and settled himself on the long, low chaise, deliberately stretching out his legs to keep her from sitting beside him. Cella smiled, not the least put out, and seated herself demurely in a willow‑work chair opposite him. She might, from her expression, have been the perfect salarywife greeting her corporate husband.

“I’ve been trying to lure him in, get him interested–I even botched a scenario on his account–but he’s been too damn careful.” She grinned suddenly, lopsidedly, an expression as unexpected as her attempts at respectability. “Or at least too busy with those story eggs of his. I was beginning to think you’d do better to commission one, Damiano.”

“But he came back,” Damian said. “Do stick to the point, Cella, I’m tired.”

One eyebrow flickered up in mute but pointed question, but Cella said only, “That’s right. He came back because there’s a new notable in town, and she had the temerity to play one of his Grand Types. And she did it well, too. So I think Na Ransome will have his mind on the Game for at least a week–that’s how long this woman is going to be here. Or maybe longer. When I left, he was buying Rulebooks, and I haven’t heard of him doing that in years.”

“So.” Damian sipped at his drink, considering her news, and slowly allowed himself to smile. The Game, or at least the new notable, would keep Ransome busy in the Game nets, and he could slip the lachesi quietly into the system, and ship without interference from the Republic, local Customs, or Chauvelin. It seemed that ji‑Imbaoa’s interference hadn’t roused anyone’s suspicions after all. “Tell me about this new notable.”

Cella shrugged, a calculated indifference. “I don’t know much. She’s a Republican, union pilot–from Callixte, or at least she plays out of Callixte’s nets. Her ship’s supposed to be in dock‑orbit for repairs, and she’s planning to spend the time gaming. Decent‑looking woman, if you like them thin and stern. And a damn good session leader.”

“Find out about her,” Damian said. “Politics, background–whatever.”

Cella nodded. “Ransome was really interested,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in a club in years, he won’t let it rest at just one session. He’ll be busy with this scenario for the rest of Storm, at least.”

“Not bad,” Damian Chrestil said, and allowed his approval to color his voice. He considered the invitation that he knew was waiting in his files, added, “Are you working tomorrow–I mean, tonight?”

Cella frowned slightly, slipped a hand into the folds of her skirt to consult a scheduler hidden somewhere out of sight. “Tonight, no. Why?”

“Chauvelin is having his annual night‑before‑Storm party,” Damian said. “I’d like you to accompany me.”

Cella paused, shrugged slightly. “All right. Our usual arrangement, I assume?”

“Of course.”

“All right, then.”

“Excellent,” Damian said.

“Not bad,” Cella answered, “not bad at all.” She set her now‑empty tumbler aside, and came to sit next to him, pushing his legs out of her way. “All things considered, I think I have every right to be pleased.”

“For whatever it was you did,” Damian said. He eyed her almost warily, recognizing the mood. It was neither drink nor drugs, but the solid high of an unexpected success, and he would reap the benefits of it, whether he liked it or not. She smiled down at him, well aware of her own excitement and his lack of immediate response, and ran two fingers up the inside of his thigh. It was a touch that rarely failed to rouse him; he laid one hand flat against her breast, and felt her nipple already stiff against the palm of his hand, easily discernible through the rough silk. She had done the job he wanted, however she’d done it, and her choice of coin was sex: sex of her choice, for her pleasure, at her whim. He caught his breath as her hand moved higher, brushed past his groin, and came to rest flat against his lower belly, a steady, urgent pressure. Not that it was a difficult payback– a hard one, maybe–but it was unavoidable, if he wanted to keep their tacit agreement. Cella’s smile widened, as though she’d read his thoughts, and she slid an expert hand under his clothes, ending all possibility of protest.