Kushiel's Dart

trailed downward from my belly, a cool and deadly caress, until I felt it hovering near my nether lips, and trembled like a leaf. I knew where next the blade would go. I could almost hear Melisande's smile. "Say it."
    "Hyacinthe!" In a paroxysm of terror, I gasped the signale , and every muscle in my body went rigid against the force of the climax that overtook me. Not until it ended did Melisande laugh and withdraw the flechette, and I sagged, limp, at the end of the chain.
    "You did very well," she said tenderly, removing my blind. I blinked upward in the lamplight, half-dazzled, as her beautiful face swam into focus. She had taken off her mask, and her hair fell loose, rippling in blue-black waves.
    "Please." I heard the word before I realized I'd said it.
    "What do you want?" Melisande cocked her head slightly, smiling, pouring warm water from a ewer over my skin. I didn't even glance as it sluiced away the blood.
    "You," I whispered. I had never asked it of a patron before: never.
    In a moment, Melisande laughed again, and unbound my hands.
    Afterward, she was well-pleased and let me stay, toying with my hair. "Delaunay saw to your training well," she said in her rich voice, sending a thrill through every fiber of my being. "You could match your skills against any House in the Night Court, my dear." She drew one finger up the line of my marque and raised her brows. "What will you do when it's done?"
    Even now, I shivered at her touch with the aftershocks of pleasure. "I don't know. I've not decided."
    "You should think on it. You're near enough to it." She smiled. "Or has Delaunay some target left for you?"
    "No," I said. "I don't know, my lady."
    She wound a lock of my hair around her fingers. "No? Perhaps he's satisfied, then. He used you to gain access to Barquiel L'Envers, didn't he? And used the Due to gain revenge on the Stregazza." She laughed at my expression. "Who do you think taught Anafiel Delaunay to manipulate others, my dear? Half of what he knows, I taught him; he taught me in turn to listen and observe, and the two skills together are more formidable than either alone could hope to be."
    "He said you were well-matched in many ways," I said.
    "All but one." Melisande tugged gently at my hair and smiled. "Sometimes I think we should have wed anyway, for he's the only man who truly makes me laugh. But then, his heart was given long ago, and I think a large part of it died with Prince Rolande."
    " Rolande ?" I sat upright, staring at her, my wits scrambled into a dazed sort of alert. " Prince Rolande ?"
    "You really didn't know, did you?" Melisande looked amused. "I wasn't sure. Yes, of course, ever since they were together at the University of Tiberium. Even Rolande's marriage couldn't come between them, though of a surety, Delaunay and Isabel detested each other. You've never read his poetry?"
    "There's no copy to be found in the City." My mind reeled.
    "Oh, Delaunay keeps a book of his verse, locked in a coffer in his library," she said idly. "But what's he up to, then, if he's no longer using you as his eyes and ears?"
    "Nothing," I said absently, trying to remember. There was a coffer; I'd seen it, atop a high shelf on the eastern side of the room. It was dusty and uninviting, and I'd never wondered what was in it. "Reading. Waiting for word from Quintilius Rousse. Nothing." Too late, I remembered where I'd heard him mention Quintilius Rousse, and glanced quickly at Melisande, but she was disinterested.
    "Well, mayhap he'll have sent a message with the Duc de Morhban's party; Rousse's fleet is anchored just north of Morhban." She drew me back down, tracing the lines of a sigil carved into my skin. The bleeding had long since stopped, but the lines were clear. "He'll want to see you."
    "De Morhban?" Delaunay, Prince Rolande, oaths and poems and coffers; Melisande's mouth moved on me, following the lines she had graven, and it all went out of my head.
    "Mmm. He's a Kusheline lord, albeit a half-bred line." Melisande drew back and watched the flush mount to my cheeks, amused. "Choose as you will, but remind him who he has to thank for the knowledge of you." With no bonds, no blades, no pain to compell me, she parted me effortlessly and slid her fingers inside me. "Say your little friend's name again, Phedre. Say it for me."
    There was no reason for it, no reason to give the signale .
    "Hyacinthe," I whispered helplessly, and the long-cresting wave broke over me once more.
    In the morning, I woke in