counts. And I hate to shatter your illusions about the Itreyan clergy, but I was Luminatii for six years, ’Singer. Priests get far more use out of their balls than you might think.”
’Singer grinned and shook her head. “You’re a good man, Sidonius.”
The big Itreyan laughed. “You only just noticed?”
Bladesinger looked the man up and down. Battle-scarred and hard as iron. Pretty blue eyes and a boyish charm that all the scars in the world couldn’t quite cover up.
“Aye,” she said softly. “I think I did.”
Bladesinger refilled their wines, lips pursed in thought.
“If Mia does follow that crazed librarian’s advice and seeks this damned Moon’s Crown, you know we’re like to die at it, don’t you?”
“Aye, probably.” Sidonius shrugged, lifted his cup. “But what can you do?”
’Singer downed her wine in a single gulp.
“Well, seems as we’re like to be dead soon … fancy a rowing lesson?”
“… Rowing lesson?”
Bladesinger raised an eyebrow and glanced suggestively below her waist. And gathering up the wine cup and the jug, she tossed her saltlocks back and stood.
“Coming?” she asked.
Sidonius seemed to have caught on at last. The big Itreyan set his book aside, pushed his chair back, and gifted her a wicked grin.
“Ladies first,” he said.
“Hmf. We’ll see about that, Crossbow Sid.”
“I insist, Mi Dona.”
And insist he did.
* * *
Mia wasn’t thinking.
She waited in her old chambers, ensconced in a pile of pillows and soft furs. The gentle light of an arkemical lamp lit the room. The silence left by the choir’s absence seemed an eternity wide. A thin gray finger of smoke drifted from the cigarillo in her fingertips. It was her fifth of the hour, the remains of her former victims piled in an ashtray beside her bed. She placed the smoke upon her lips, dragging deep, trying not to think about the Athenaeum. The Crown of the Moon. Aelius. Scaeva. Naev. Butcher. Eclipse. Poor little Jonnen.
No.
No, she wasn’t thinking about it. She was lying in bed and smoking and waiting for her girl. Watching the door through long, black lashes. But the hourglass beside her had slowly drained the hour through, and Ashlinn still hadn’t returned from the bathhouse. Mia was beginning to wonder if perhaps Ash intended to sleep in her old chambers in the acolytes’ wing instead.
She didn’t want to spend the nevernight alone.
And then the door handle turned, and her girl walked in, and Mia felt all the weight upon her shoulders vanish, as if by magik.
Ash’s hair was still damp from the bath, dark blond tumbled across her shoulders. She wore a slip of black silk and a thin frown, only sparing Mia a glance as she stepped inside and closed the door. Her eyes were clouded, a troubled, storm-tossed shade of blue. But Mia’s heart still beat a little quicker to see her. Watching the arkemical light playing on her skin, sharp shadows and gentle curves and legs that went all the way to the heavens.
“Hello, beautiful,” she said.
Mia tossed aside the furs without ceremony. She was almost entirely naked beneath. Long dark tresses about her shoulders, rolling in black rivers down over pale skin. Cigarillo smoke drifted from her lips. A ribbon made of shadows was wrapped around her waist, a pretty bow arranged to leave just a little to the imagination.
“Like it?” Mia smiled, running her fingertips over the velvet black. “It’s what all the finest donas are wearing this year.”
Ashlinn looked her up and down.
“It looks chilly,” she said.
Mia ran her hands down her breasts, her stomach, slipping ever lower to press between her thighs. Her back arched slightly, she breathed a little heavier.
“No, it’s warm, Ash,” she murmured. “It’s so warm.”
Mia didn’t want to think. She wanted to feel. She wanted to fuck. Just the promise of it set her pulse racing. The thought of throwing Ashlinn down on the furs, taking and being taken in turn, of just shutting off the wheels spinning inside her head and silencing the questions and just …
But Ashlinn stayed where she was. Hovering by the door.
“Come here, lover,” Mia whispered, opening her arms.
“No,” Ash replied.
“Please,” Mia breathed. “I want you.”
Ashlinn just shook her head. “You don’t want me.”
“How can you—”
“You just want to avoid a conversation, Mia.”
Mia looked her girl in the eye. A tiny spark of temper blooming in her chest.
“And what should we be having a conversation about, Ashlinn?”
“O, I don’t know, the price of virgins in Vaan?” Ash flailed her hand, incredulous. “What the fuck do you think we should be