Deymorin cursed under his breath, set his feet, and pulled. Hard. The strings snapped and Deymorin stumbled backward to come up against a dressing table.

Kiyrstin turned, disgust on her face.

"Oops," he said as he held up the two ends. "Sorry. I guess we should have accepted Lidye's offer of her lady's maid. Shall I send a message?"

"Only for another set of corset strings. You insisted you could manage, and you're going to manage." She slid into a chair before the mirrored dressing table and began study- ing the array of cosmetics they'd found in the market that morning. "Unless, of course, you want me to send a mes- sage to Madame Tirise."

"We got the girl out of Sparingate and settled her debts.

Do I have to invite her to dinner as well?"

She shrugged and picked up the largest jar. "Seems to me she'd liven things up around here."

"I think we can leave Mistress Beauvina right where she is," Deymorin said firmly.

"If you say so, luwie," Kiyrstin sighed heavily and began applying blue-green slime to her face.

Which meant he should probably start checking in the corners for Beauvina.

Deymorin pulled the bell cord to summon a footman, then leaned on the back of her chair and propped his chin on her head to stare at her increasingly blue-green image.

"Charming."

He reached over her shoulder and stuck a cautious finger in the jar, raised the slime to his nose, and sniffed. Green eyes glared at his reflection.

A light chime announced a servant's arrival. Deymorin stuck the finger in his mouth and licked off the slime.

"Yum," he whispered and bit her earthen dodged for the door.

The wide-eyed junior footman listened solemnly to Deymorin's request, straining all the while to catch a glimpse within the room. Deymorin made him repeat the message twice before he shooed the youngster on his way.

He supposed he should have insisted Kiyrstin use the room Lidye had had prepared for her instead of allowing her to take up residence in his suite, but Kiyrstin had been adamant. She hadn't risked Rhomatum only to be shut up and forgotten.

Besides (she'd argued) hadn't he promised her they were going to set the two greatest cities in the world to gossip- ing? How could they possibly manage that if they were sleeping in separate rooms?

So here she was and, truth to tell, here Deymorin wanted her to be, even if it meant he had to tie her damned corset strings and watch her perform arcane rituals man was not meant to witness.

He leaned again on the back of her chair, watching those rituals with a morbid fascination.

"What's it do?" he asked, when she'd sat, blue-faced and silent, for several minutes.

"Fades the freckles, so the man claimed."

"No!" He grabbed a cloth and began scrubbing at the slime.

She slapped his hand away and snatched the cloth.

"Take it off!" he cried indignantly, "I've an intimate ac- quaintance with each and every one of those specks!"

She laughed and dabbed at the slime. "Don't worry, it won't work. This stuff never does." She slid a finger over the exposed flesh. "It just prepares the skin."

Prepares it for what, he wondered, and frowned at the growing spot, pretending to count the freckles as they ap- peared. When an entire cheek had been reexposed, he leaned over and tested the skin's preparation with his lips.

"Mrnmm . . ." She hummed, twisting to meet his kiss Leaving a slime trail across his face. He protested and grabbed a towel to rub it off, then splashed lemon-water into a glass and retreated to the bathing room to expecto- rate in private.

When he returned, she was back at her ritual.

At this rate, to use the entire array of pots and sticks and brushes would consume the balance of the afternoon and well into evening. But he trusted Kiyrstin to know what she was doing. She knew the schedule. Besides, the private Rhomandi House floater-coach was outside, waiting to take them to this Conduct Committee meeting.

"How did the widows take the news?" she asked, and he paused halfway across the room.

"How did you know?"

"Magic, Rags."

He forced a smile, and clasped the hand she stretched toward him.

"I'd have gone with you, if you'd asked, Deymio."

"I know you would have, but it was my duty."

"Actually, it was Nikki's. They were his men. They died while under his command."

"They were lost on my behalf. Shepherdess. I offered."

"He should have insisted. He should at least have been with you."

"Perhaps. But I can't blame Nikki. He's been distracted."

"By his wife."

"Even more reason to forgive. She's not at all what he feared, and she's entranced him with her talk of Darius'

wife and Tamshirin. You know how he feels about the Tamshi. He'd love to be out in the mountains right now searching for that Tamshi creature that saved Mikhyel."

"We can't always have what we want."

"I know that. So does Nikki. But it's hard to see it that way when one's lifelong fantasies are involved."

"Your brother lives in a fantasy world. Someday, Big Brother Deymorin, reality is going to rise up and bite him on the ass."

"It already has."

"Not hard enough!"

He frowned. "He did go with me. At least to see Ben's widow."

"How noble of him. Ben died saving his hide."

"And Nikki expressed his sorrow and gratitude very eloquently."

"I should hope so. He's a poet, or so he claims."

"Kiyrstin!"

"And how much of that eloquence did he really mean?"

"Every word."

She turned back to the mirror, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Lie to me, Deymorin. Just don't lie to yourself."

"I'm not. He was sorry. Is. He liked Ben a great deal."

Kiyrstin met and held his eyes in the mirror, and it was Deymorin who turned away. He couldn't expect Kiyrstin to understand Nikki to the depth he did, not even if he explained all that had happened in those hours in prison.

He'd pressed Nikki's self-confidence too much then. He couldn't press on this issue. At least for now. For every- one's sake.

Arms slipped around his waist, and her head rested be- tween his shoulder blades. "I'm sure he did, Deymorin.

And I like Nikki, for all he's convinced otherwise. But you're protecting him from the consequences of his deci- sions, and that's not good. More than that, it's not fair to Nikki. He did nothing wrong. His decisions weren't fool- hardy or wrong. But bad things happened. He needs to face that. Accept it as one of the unhappy consequences of leading men into unknown circumstances."

He turned in the circle of her arms, and brushed her cheek with his thumb. She'd finished removing the blue- green slime and the skin was marvelously smooth and supple.

"You're protecting him, Deymorin, from growing into the man he can be."

"Is that you talking?" he asked. "Or Mikhyel?"

"Does it matter where the truth comes from?"

He chuckled, and pushed her back into her chair. "Keep going, woman. We're running out of time."

She patted his hand as it rested on her shoulder, and turned to the next pot.

More slime, this time one that matched her lightly tanned, befreckled, skin. It was as if she were preparing for a stage performance.

He supposed, in a sense, she was.

"Why is it," he asked, "that you're the one facing those old fools and I'm the one whose knees are shaking?"

"Obviously, it's your proximity to my distracting self that has your knees in jeopardy. I find this quite familiar. We had our own old fools in Mauritum, you know. Only ours were all men." She picked up a tiny sponge and smoothed an irregular patch of color. "Besides, your brother has the hard job."

"I wish I'd had a chance to talk with him before he left for his office. Last night, he could barely sit upright."

"Raul says he's fine, just catching up on a lifetime of too little sleep. Raul is quite pleased. Besides, Mikhyel's no fool. He wouldn't have gone this morning if he wasn't prepared."

He picked bits of hair off her shoulders, and brushed his fingers across the bare skin. "You like him, don't you, Shepherdess?"

"Raulind?" Her reflected eyes glittered at him. "Of course."

"Kiyrstin..."

"Why do you ask? Worried? Shouldn't be. I already turned down his offer to be second to Nethaalye."

"What?"

She chuckled. "Seriously? How can I not? Don't you?"

He didn't answer. She twisted in her chair to face him.

"Deymorin?"

"I don't know how I feel. Except worried. He's . . . not the man he used to be."

"Are any of you? Sweet Maurii, JD, after what you've been through"

"You don't understand. In all due respect, you can't understand."

"Because I don't hear his thoughts the way you do?"

"Because you're a woman."

"I see."

Fraught with innuendo, those two words. But she didn't know . . . couldn't.

"Tell me, JD, has this anything to do with the Crypt?"

He shrugged, avoiding her eyes.

"Come, man, talk to me. Ever since you brought Mikhyel out, something's been festering. What happened down there?"

"I don't know."

"Then why"

"I don't know!"

"You were there, weren't you?"

'Wo, dammit!" He caught himself shouting and repeated, in a quieter voice, "No. Dammit." He moved a chair to her side and sat down. "The first time . . . I could under- stand that. Not easily, but it made practical sense. He was preserving the deception. And from the inmates' continued interest, he evidently played his part quite satisfactorily."

"Does that bother you? I could replace Beauvina in a heartbeat, Deymorin."

"Beauvina? Kiyrstin, my love, you could replace Tirise."

It was a moment before he realized the expected laughter hadn't come.