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glanced at me with a flicker of amusement. The one we don t want to know about.
Do you? I asked.
Gods, no. She rolled her shoulders. We ve got burdens enough, you and I.
I shifted to rub her neck and shoulders. You were gone a long time.
We had a good discussion. Her voice was soft and low. The first in a long time. I was angry.
She should have trusted me with the knowledge.
I pressed my lips to the nape of her neck, inhaling her scent. Why didn t she?
For many of the same reasons you didn t, so she said. Sidonie sighed. Because it s
dangerous. And because there s no proof and naught to be done about it without stirring the waters.
Spies will be spies, she said. We have spies, too, you know.
I blew in her ear. Oh, do we?
Sidonie wriggled. Do you want to talk or . . . ?
Both. I let go of her and reclined on the couch, folding my arms behind my head, smiling at her.
Elua, you re insufferable! With an agile movement, Sidonie turned and stretched atop me,
propping her elbows on my chest and resting her chin on folded hands. Yes. She gazed down at me.
We have spies, although not so extensive a consortium, and none successful enough to find your cursed
mother. But you recall the situation in Carthage that Raul mentioned? Mother is concerned about it.
Aragonia has been a loyal ally.
Carthage, I echoed, shifting my hips so that my phallus, erect and aching in my breeches,
pressed against the warm cleft between her gown-clad thighs. Where an ambitious young general
threatens war.
He s not . . . Sidonie writhed against me. At this point, there s no . . . I unfolded my arms
and reached down to grasp her buttocks, pulling hard. She shuddered and narrowed her eyes at me.
Why in the name of all the gods do you find it so perversely arousing to discuss politics while making
love?
I don t know, I murmured. But you want me inside you, don t you?
Yes, she whispered. Gods, yes!
It had been this way between us since the beginning, and neither of us could say why. The desire
between us was like an oil-soaked rag, ready to ignite at a single spark. And yet it was more than that,
too. We reflected one another, the bright mirror and the dark. Sidonie sat back on her heels, undoing the
laces of my breeches. I pushed her skirts up around her hips, tugged her underdrawers down. She took
my throbbing phallus in hand, fit me to her slick opening. I pushed.
We fit.
She sank onto me, sighing. I filled her.
So it was a good talk, I said.
Yes. Sidonie rocked atop me, her eyelids flickering as I dug my fingernails into her buttocks. I
think . . . I think mayhap the truth of it is she was waiting to see if you would tell me on your own. About
your mother and the Unseen Guild.
I jerked my hips upward. And I did.
You did, she agreed. Eventually.
You were the one who didn t want to face the cost of winning your mother s blessing until we
had to, I reminded her.
True. Her pace quickened. I need to not talk for a moment.
A moment; many moments. I watched her face transformed with pleasure, alight and
incandescent. It never failed to shock and thrill me, how utterly and thoroughly my cool, collected cousin
was willing to surrender to complete abandonment. We hadn t even begun to test the limits of it. I
watched her ride me to climax, again and again, waiting a long time to join her.
Mmm. Sidonie collapsed on my chest. Also a good talk.
I ran a few strands of her hair through my fingers, watching her blurred, black gaze sharpen,
coming back from wherever pleasure took her. Do you suppose it will always be like this between us?
Her lips curved. Always?
I nodded. Always and always.
Sidonie kissed me. Gods, I hope so.
Five
The months that followed were among the best of my life.
They weren t perfect; Elua knows, nothing ever is. Not in my life, anyway. But this came close.
I d won the respite I d prayed for. The Queen had made her pronouncement; the gauntlet had
been cast. I had countered. My letter to Hyacinthe was dispatched by courier; the Master of the Straits
made a prompt reply. There was a debt of honor between us, he wrote. I had played a crucial part in
Phèdre s quest to find the Name of God and free him from his curse. I had ventured into the depths of
distant Vralia to avenge his wife s niece. Of course he would search for Melisande in his sea-mirror.
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