"And that doesn't bother you?" she asked finally.

"Not particularly."

"So it's all right for your mistress to be a whore, but not your brother."

"I didn't say that."

"No?"

"No!" He rubbed a hand across his eyes, trying to sort his thoughts. "It's not what he did. It's that . . . he was able. Where did he learn? How?"

"Same way I did?" Indignation crept into her voice.

"No, Shepherdess." He reached for her hand, and lifted it to his lips. "I'm sorry for what Garetti did to you. I look forward to the day when I can express to him exactly my feelings on that topic, but . . . it's not the same. Somehow.

You're . . . still alive."

"And Khyel's not."

"He should have been outraged. Bitter. Angry. Violated.

Horrified. Anything but indifferent."

"Sometimes indifference is easier."

"Not for a man!"

She drew her hand away and frowned.

"I'm sorry, Kiyrstin. I didn't mean"

"Didn't you?"

"No. Dammit, listen to me. You've never hidden your past, not from me, not from yourself. Whatever happened, you came out of it healthy. Normal. Able to hate Garetti for what he did, and able to enjoy lifeand love. Khyel . . .

For a man to endure . . . that from another man and come away content"

"You said nothing about content."

"I said, the first time I could understand. Even the next morning, when one of the inmates cornered him in the latrine and roughed him up a bit. That's . . . that's prison politics. It might make me inclined to kill Ganfrion, but I can understand, painful as it is, why Mikyhel felt compelled not to start anything. It was later . . ."

"When you went back after him."

He nodded. "I felt him the minute I entered the Crypt.

He was . . . with Ganfrion."

"And this Ganfrion is still alive?"

He grunted. "Whatever had happened was over, more's the pity. I wish I'd had the excuse. But Mikhyel was on the edge of sleep, and that slime was wrapped around him." A cold chill passed through him at the memory. "I felt his arm under my head, the other wrapped around me and his body pressed up hard against my back . . . And I was relaxed. Content. For the first time in years."

"You felt."

He biinked the memory aside. "I mean, Khyel, of course.

I called to him, inside. Woke him up and got him out in the open where we could find him."

"And where Sironi wouldn't see what you felt."

He shrugged. "When Mikhyel appeared, he was a mass of dirt and cuts and bruises. For all I could tell, considering the circumstances, his exhaustion and his determined with- drawal from my thoughts, he had been . . . serviced by every would-be stud horse in that hell-hole. How could he be indifferent, let alone content?"

"Perhaps . . ." She picked up a brush and eased escaped powder into a pile on the table. "Perhaps he was just re- lieved that whatever happened was over, and he was still alive."

"Then why in the eighteen hells above Rhomatum wasn't he glad to see me?"

"What makes you think he wasn't?"

"I don't think. I know. He . . ." Deymorin clenched his fists. "He resented my being there."

"That can't be right, Deymorin. You're misreading"

"Hell if I am. I know when I'm not wanted."

"Have you asked him?"

"Damned if I will. I saved his ass when he wanted to die a month ago, and I'll save it again, if I have to, whether he wants to live or not."

"Maybe it didn't need saving this time. Maybe he'd set- tled the situation himself, and was glad for a respite."

"Respite. From me."

"You can be a bit . . . overwhelming at times, JD."

Deymorin turned that over in his mind, and recalled: "He says I coddle him."

"Possibly. You unquestionably hover."

"Can you blame me? Most of what's wrong with him is because I wasn't there!"

"Is that what this is all about? Guilt? For your absence years ago?"

"No!"

"Why did you want to see him this morning?"

"To make sure he was all right, obviously."

"Not to discuss the meeting. Maybe possible strategies and tactics?"

"Of course not. Mikhyel knows . . ." He clamped his jaw on the rest. "Rings. Point made. Shepherdess. Watching the wrong hand, aren't I?"

"Possibly. Can you handle another question?"

"What now?"

"You said, most of what's wrong with him. What do you think is wrong with Mikhyel?"

The sheer number of responses that swelled in answer surprised him, but one thought seemed to summarize the rest. "He should expect more out of life. Personally."

"Perhaps. Certainly he deserves more. I know that.

You do."

"But does he?" Deymorin finished for her. "That's the question, isn't it?" He stared at her subtly transforming image as she brushed colored powders on her cheeks. And he thought of how much she'd added to his life and how lost he'd be without her, now he'd found her, and said, out of those thoughts, "I wonder whether perhaps we should send for Nethaalye. If we can just get her down here, let them be together, perhaps she'll still be interested."

"Why?"

"She's Mikhyel's fiancee. Beyond that, they're friends.

It's got to bother him that she left under such circumstances."

"Get him a woman and everything will be all right?"

"I didn't say that."

"Does it occur to you that sex might not be the answer?"

"It couldn't hurt!"

"Unless he's not interested. Then, you just create more pressure on him to perform to your expectations."

"Of course he's interested."

"That's why they're still engaged rather than married."

"She's his friend. She's bright and clever. She shares his interest in politics."

"If she's such a paragon, why did you turn her down?"

"I didn't. I objected to being engaged before I was'ten."

"I see. And Mikhyel didn't."

"Mikhyel never objected . . . to . . ."

"Anything?"

"Rings."

"He's twenty-seven, Deymorin. Why hasn't he married her yet? Why hasn't he three or four children of his own running about?"

He said nothing.

"Perhaps, he's just not interested in a quiet, gentle woman, Deymorin."

"He's not like that! He's just confused!"

"Like what? What are you talking about? Afraid he pre- fers men? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing! I just wish it were that simple. I do know that when he's thought of Nethaalye in the past month, the underneath has been calm. Secure. Surely that's good.

Calm, normal . . - someone kind and gentle. Someone who cares about him. What more could a man want?"

"That's what scares you, isn't it? That maybe he's not interested in someone who cares about him?"

"Scared? No. Concerned for Mikhyel, yes. Concerned for the mental stability of the man who holds more keys to the City secrets than anyone I know . . . damned right."

Her mouth opened as if to answer, then snapped shut.

She frowned into one of the pots. Then: "You have, my dear Rag'n'Bones, a point."

Upon which history-making concession, the bell chimed, and Deymorin had to leave her to retrieve the corset strings. This time, when he returned, the mirror reflected a one-eyed raccoon.

"Good god," he said, and took a step back.

The tip of her tongue made a rude appearance then dis- appeared, before she attacked her other eye, matching its decor to the other. She ended the procedure with a polish on her lips.

"Well," she asked, when she'd finished, and she pursed her lips at him. It was, he had to admit, an unusual and very attractive effect. Not the painted mask Anheliaa sported, not the unabashedly alluring look of the ladies of Peplondi Street, or the faint touches of color Lidye favored.

But the color, the definition, added a subtle power to her already strong features.

"This is how the ladies look in Mauritum these days, is it?"

"Men, too, Rags."

"Oh?" He leaned forward to gaze fondly down her cleav- age. "Really?"

She tapped his nose to back him away, and stood up to face him. "Really." And she kissed him soundly, then leaned back in his arms and smoothed a finger across his lips. "There." And tilted slightly so he could see into the mirror. "What do you think?"

The sight that greeted him was worse than the one- eyed raccoon.

"I think I'm not going to Mauritum any time soon," he answered, and used the rag to scrub his lips free of the pink polish, relieved when it came off almost as readily, though not as pleasantly, as it had gone on. "Strings, Rags,"

she said and pointed to her back. He began working the broken strings free, taking his time. The dress waiting on the form was of Kiyrstin's own ordering.

The design was, so she said, in Rhomatumin fashion, but with suggestions of Mauritum. Just enough, so she'd said, to remind them of who they were talking to.

"Do you realize," he said, picking at a knot, "that I've never seen you in a proper dress?"