Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

of Baron Rikku’s death. It’s the tale of mine.
    But afford me a moment for my professional pride and let me say this: in the Chateau Shayon, no one ever again shat unworried.

    * * *
    “What I don’t understand is why you came to Cenaria. There’s nothing here. It’s a hole,” Yvor Vas says. He’s a skinny, freckled redhead who – improbably enough – hails from Ladesh.
    “They don’t know me here,” I say. I’m drinking ale. He’s drinking ootai – all Ladeshians are addicted to the bitter drink, apparently even the redheaded ones – in a little safe house I’d purchased in the Warrens on the edge of swampland. This conversation is too dangerous to risk it being overheard. “In the last fifty years, I’ve become famous in most of the great nations. There’ve been so many wars, and I always seem to end up in the middle of them.”
    He says, “You were Vin Craysin in eastern Alitaera, Tal Drakkan in Seth, Gorrum Quesh in Modai, and Pips McClawski in western Alitaera?” Trying to impress.
    “You know I found a collector who had Pips’s dice in Aenu? And no, I wasn’t Gorrum Quesh, though I fought with him for a time. You Society folk, always so curious.” I wasn’t Vin Craysin either, but I don’t like to reveal all of my cards, even when it doesn’t matter.
    “The Society of the Second Sun would like to be an asset for you, Master Starfire.
    Allies who will help you, regardless of your circumstances. Think of it!”
    “I have,” I say. I pause, deep in thought. “And I want to tell you everything.” His eyes light up.
    Everyone thinks they’re special. It’s what makes lying so easy.

    * * *
    “Gaelan Starfire! What an honor. Thank you for agreeing to meet me.” Gwinvere Kirena owned the kind of beauty that made a man remember being twelve and unable to speak in the presence of a girl. Gaelan had met great beauties before. The truth was, most of the encounters left him convinced that people were idiots. Great beauties and stunningly handsome men were accorded virtues: people found them funnier, smarter, more insightful than they actually were.
    Conversely, he’d met women reputed to be great beauties who’d been merely attractive but with great confidence, charm, or vivacity. Gwinvere Kirena might be the former, but she definitely wasn’t the latter. He’d heard her described as “the courtesan of the age.” She was maintained by many men, owned by none. And this, at perhaps thirty years old.
    His pause had to have been obvious, but Gaelan guessed Gwinvere was used to men finding lead in their tongues – and iron in their…elsewhere. “It’s not my usual kind of gathering, but you roused my curiosity,” Gaelan said.
    He was looking at her eyes, not her generous cleavage, as he said “roused.” A beauty, much less a courtesan, would be accustomed to men’s advances, from the most vulgar to the most genteel. Her eyes gave away nothing. Either she’d missed it, didn’t care, or she chose not to give anything away.
    “Are you enjoying the party?” she asked.
    Gaelan’s back stiffened. It was a masque, held in some absent lord’s rented manse.
    He hadn’t seen such degeneracy since the waning days of the first Alitaeran Empire. He was reasonably handsome and very athletic, but no less than three women had groped him in the time between his coming through the front door and coming to this study.
    He’d even recognized one of them – the young wife of an earl, her face covered with a swan mask, and not much else covered at all. She’d laughed and addressed her friends by name, apparently not concerned about being identified. Gaelan hadn’t seen anyone actually copulating, but the night was young.
    “It’s been an education,” he said.
    Gwinvere Kirena herself had opted for a thin, high-collared, shockingly red dress perfectly cut to show every curve. She was bedecked with narrow gold chains, crossing between her breasts, bound with a padlock that hung in front of her hips. On a ribbon choker around her neck, she wore a little golden key. Some tailor’s fantasy of a Khalidoran harem girl, complete with chastity belt.
    “I held it for you,” she said.
    “I’ve never had anyone hold an orgy for me,” he said honestly. Not in 680 years.
    She chuckled. “I was testing your rectitude,” she said. A slight pause before rectitude .
    Setting him up for the double entendre, if he wished. Allowing him to pursue her, if he wished.
    But what she meant was that