of us could discern a disposition in it as we had before. It was puzzling me.
But everything around us was astonishing her still -- the refuse, the cats that chased the vermin, the bizarre stillness, the way that the darkest comers of the metropolis held no danger for us. She remarked on that. Perhaps it was that which enchanted her most of all, that we could slip past the dens of thieves unheard, that we could easily defeat anyone who should be fool enough to trouble us, that we were both visible and invisible, palpable and utterly unaccountable.
I didn't rash her or question her. I was merely borne along with her and content and sometimes lost in my own thoughts about this unfamiliar content.
And when a handsome, slightly built young man came riding through the darkened stalls I watched him as if he were an apparition, something coming from the land of the living into the land of the dead. He reminded me of Nicolas because of his dark hair and dark eyes, and something innocent yet brooding in the face. He shouldn't have been in the market alone. He was younger than Nicki and very foolish, indeed.
But just how foolish he was I didn't realize until she moved forward like a great pink feline, and brought him down almost silently from the horse.
I was shaken. The innocence of her victims didn't trouble her. She didn't fight my moral battles. But then I didn't fight them anymore either, so why should I judge her? Yet the ease with which she slew the young man -- gracefully breaking his neck when the little drink she took was not enough to kill him -- angered me though it had been extremely exciting to watch.
She was colder than I. She was better at all of it, I thought. Magnus had said, "Show no mercy." But had he meant us to kill when we did not have to kill?"
It came clear in an instant why she'd done it. She tore off the pink velvet girdle and skirts right there and put on the boy's clothes. She'd chosen him for the fit of the clothes.
And to describe it more truly, as she put on his garments, she became the boy.
She put on his cream silk stockings and scarlet breeches, the lace shirt and the yellow waistcoat and then the scarlet frock coat, and even took the scarlet ribbon from the boy's hair.
Something in me rebelled against the charm of it, her standing so boldly in these new garments with all her hair still full over her shoulders looking more the lion's mane now than the lovely mass of woman's tresses it had been moments before. Then I wanted to ravage her. I closed my eyes.
When I looked at her again, my head was swimming with all that we'd seen and done together. I couldn't endure being so near to the dead boy.
She tied all of her blond hair together with the scarlet ribbon and let the long locks hang down her back. She laid the pink dress over the body of the boy to cover him, and she buckled on his sword, and drew it once and sheathed it again, and took his cream-colored roquelaure.
"Let's go, then, darling," she said, and she kissed me.
I couldn't move. I wanted to go back to the tower, and just be close to her. She looked at me and pressed my hand to spur me on. And she was almost immediately running ahead.
She had to feel the freedom of her limbs, and I found myself pounding after her, having to exert myself to catch up.
That had never happened with me and any mortal, of course. She seemed to be flying. And the sight of her flashing through the boarded-up stalls and the heaps of garbage made me almost lose my balance. Again I stopped.
She came back to me and kissed me. "But there's no real reason for me to dress that way anymore, is there?" she asked. She might have been talking to a child.
"No, of course there isn't," I said. Maybe it was a blessing that she couldn't read my thoughts. I couldn't stop looking at her legs, so perfect in the cream-colored stockings. And the way that the frock coat gathered at her small waist. Her face was like a flame.
Remember in those times you never saw a woman's legs like that. Or the silk of breeches tight over her small belly, or thighs.