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“Gracious lord!” he breathed. “Never!”
    “Good.” Joscelin put up his daggers and gave a cross-vambraced bow. A faint smile hovered at one corner of his mouth where only I could see it. “Then we will heed your advice. Thank you, Nesmut.”
    “Gracious lord,” he said warily, pointing again. “ It is this way.”
    It was well done of Joscelin, for the rate of exchange proved more than fair, and I daresay a good deal of it was due to the impression Nesmut conveyed of our seriousness. In short order, the transaction was done, and we left having exchanged our Serenissiman solidi for a considerable amount of Menekhetan coin. Nesmut led us to the Street of Crocodiles with a renewed air of importance.
    The address Melisande had given me was in the jewelers’ quarter and proved, indeed, to be that of a jeweler’s shop. Tiny bronze bells rang as we opened the door, passing from bright sun into the relative coolness of shadow within the thick sandstone walls. To my sun-dazzled eyes, it was murky as night within the shop. I made out the angular figure of a man hunched over a worktable positioned in a patch of morning sun that slanted through a window. The figure’s head lifted, and I heard a gasp; his hands moved in a flurry, overturning a number of cabochon gems on the worktable and laying them facedown before he arose to greet us.
    “My lady.” He addressed me in Hellene, placing both hands together and bowing deeply. His face, when he straightened, was filled with awe. “I am Karem. How may I serve you?”
    “Karem,” I said, blinking. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He was young, his beard still patchy on his chin, and clearly Menekhetan. “I am Phèdre nó Delaunay, Comtesse de Montrève in Terre d’Ange. I am looking for a man named Radi Arumi. Do you know him?”
    “The Jebean.” Karem’s face showed his disappointment. “Yes, I know him, my lady; he rents a room in my father’s lodgings in the back when he is in Iskandria. Wait here, please, and I will tell him you have come.”
    With another bow, he vanished out a rear doorway. Nesmut wandered over to a sitting-area to the right of the shop, low-slung leathern chairs arranged about a low table. He clambered into one of the chairs and sat cross-legged, quite at his ease. Karem was gone a long time. I looked at his worktable. Semiprecious gems lay scattered; carnelian, amethyst, chalcedony. I wondered why he’d overturned them. His jeweler’s tools were works of art in and of themselves, tiny blades and picks and chisels, immaculately wrought, reminding me, with an uncomfortable shock, of Melisande’s flechettes, those exquisite little blades capable of causing such exquisite pain.
    When all is said and done, I am an anguissette . This is what it is to be Kushiel’s Chosen. No purpose, no quest, can change the nature of what I am; for good or for ill.
    After a while, Joscelin and I both took seats, waiting. And in time, Karem returned, with a second man in tow, of indeterminate years, black-skinned and leathered with exposure to the sun, an embroidered cap perched atop his wooly hair.
    “Radi Arumi,” I greeted him, standing and inclining my head. “In’demin aderq.”
    A grin split his creased face at my words, showing strong white teeth. “Ha! It is a dream-spirit that speaks to me in Jeb’ez,” Radi Arumi said in pidgin Hellene. “Do I dream? My friend Karem dreams, and covers his groin with embarrassment.”
    I colored, although I daresay I grew no redder than poor Karem. “Messire Arumi,” I said directly, ignoring it, “I am looking for the descendants of Melek al’Hakim, the Queen of Saba’s son. And I am told you know where to find them.”
    “Ah.” Radi Arumi sat down, eyeing me and my companions. He wore loose-fitting, brightly colored robes, frayed at the edges. “There was a man, a Hellene man, asking about such things, a year or more gone by. He served a mistress in La Serenissima, he told me. He wanted to know if the stories were true. I guide the caravans to Meroë. He wanted to know if I could guide him to the scions of Saba. I told him yes.”
    “You told him yes.” It was Joscelin who spoke, shifting subtly in his chair to show the hilts of his daggers, his sword. “Can you?” he inquired.
    Nesmut drew up his knees and looked from one to the other, bright-eyed with interest. “Yes, kyrios,” Radi Arumi answered, giving Joscelin a seated half-bow. “Though it is far, far to the south, I can