Chapter Thirteen

The only thing the good folk of the ton liked more than a ball was a ball abruptly interrupted by the misfortunes of others, and in this Lady Etheridge had served them admirably.

Mr. Caesar had made a concerted effort to pursue his sister through the streets but, lacking my swiftness, he had soon lost her in the crowds that never truly left the metropolis. He petered to a stop at the end of the road, a combination of social embarrassment, physical fatigue, and despair making the chase all but pointless. He stood, head bowed and shoulders slumped, while Miss Bickle and the Irregulars caught up with him. When they had, Miss Bickle put a reassuring hand on his arm and made sympathetic noises, while Captain James started issuing orders.

"Barryson, Boy William—take the park. Sal and Jackson, down St. James's. Kumar and Callaghan, north and see if you can't head her off. If you find her, one stay on her, the other come back to the Folly."

None of them spoke a reply, they just fell in line, fanned out, and vanished into the city. And no sooner had they vanished than Mr. Ellersley swooped down upon Mr. Caesar and the captain, flanked by a pair of extremely impatient-looking night watchmen.

"There!" Mr. Ellersley pointed an artificially trembling finger at Captain James. "There's the ruffian. I demand he be dragged to the watch-house at once."

Never having quite shaken the rookery dweller's fear of the law, the captain eyed the watchmen cautiously. "Bit busy right now."

The taller of the two watchmen gave a frankly jobsworthy frown. "Busy don't come into it. Gentleman here says you was making an affray. There's statutes about making an affray."

"There you go"—Mr. Ellersley smiled like a particularly petty shark—"Statutes. Can't argue with statutes."

A vein in Mr. Caesar's head was beginning to throb. "Tom, can you not see that this is—this is the opposite of the appropriate time."

The watchmen had already moved forwards to seize the captain and, contrary to his normally dashing idiom, he was making no attempt to resist them.

"You think it's appropriate for common soldiers to let off guns in the middle of Mayfair?" asked Mr. Ellersley, his tone sugar cut with strychnine.

Mr. Caesar bristled. "Captain James is not a common soldier."

That almost brought the watchmen up short. It was, after all, true that the captain wore an officer's uniform, and most officers outranked most thief-takers in most ways. But Mr. Ellersley assuaged their misgivings with a sharp: "He looks pretty common to me."

With a deep sigh, Captain James cast Mr. Caesar a reassuring look. "Don't worry, it won't be my first night in the cells."

"Why," replied Mr. Ellersley, "does that not surprise me?"

"Tom," Mr. Caesar tried again, " please don't do this. It's low even for you."

As pleas went, what it lacked in tact, it made up for in no way whatsoever. Mr. Ellersley sneered. "If you're trying to reenter my good graces, you're making a poor showing of it."

"I'm trying to"—Mr. Caesar stumbled, he wasn't sure what he was trying to, or how he was trying to do it—"Gods and powers, Tom, why are you being like this?"

Mr. Ellersley's sneer became a scowl. "Because I am like this. As are you. It's time to stop pretending to be somebody you aren't."

"Tom—"

"I know you, John. I understand you. I'm really the only one who does."

I have said many times, readers, how much I despise your species for all its many vanities and weaknesses. But what I saw in Mr. Ellersley now was a wonderfully fairy-like passion. If there is one thing my people hold to be an eternal truth it is that there is no better way to show affection for a thing than to destroy it utterly.

Mr. Caesar, naturally, did not see it this way. Indeed, he was so lacking in perspective that he stood, dumbfounded, while his former lover gave the final nod to the watchmen.

"Now gentlemen"—said Mr. Ellersley—"I suggest you do your duty."

With the grudging efficiency of poor men in terrible jobs, the two thief-takers began leading Captain James away to their watch-house. A hot blend of shame, embarrassment, and fear was prickling its way up Mr. Caesar's spine and making its way to the base of his skull. There was so, so much wrong with this situation and so, so little he could do about it. He could almost taste blood.

" Do you, " Mr. Caesar turned on the watchmen with pure instinct and adrenaline. "Have any idea who I am ?"

As opening gambits went it had been risky, but to two men of low birth whose professional lives mostly involved getting pushed into the mud by rich gadabouts, it was practically a mystical incantation.

"My grandfather is the Earl of Elmsley," not here right now but that isn't important, "my uncle is the Vicomte Hale" who hates me and actively wishes me ill, but that isn't important either "and my cousin is the Duchess of Annadale" that one is almost entirely a lie, but let it slide . "This man"—he took a step towards the watchmen, one of whom was actively trembling—"is performing vital service for my family and you have no conception of the enemies you will make if you impede him."

For all the watchmen knew, Mr. Caesar's list of names could have been a recipe for soup or the playbill of an unpopular theatre, but he delivered it with such hauteur and confidence that they released the captain at once and fell back to an appropriately deferent distance.

"Oh, come on, " tried Mr. Ellersley, "you can't actually—"

"And as for you "—Mr. Caesar rounded on his former lover with a fury that came at least six parts from desperation—"go home. Or to your club. Or to Paris. Or to Hell for all I care. I am finished with you, Thomas."

Mr. Ellersley's mouth remained hanging open for a few moments, then he snapped it shut, gave a stiff little bow and said simply. "Caesar."

"Ellersley," replied Mr. Caesar with a curt nod.

The clash of politesse lasted a few seconds more, and then Mr. Ellersley lowered his gaze and retreated, taking the watchmen with him. No sooner was he out of sight than the swell of aristocratic rage that had been keeping Mr. Caesar afloat abated and he slumped like an understuffed doll.

Captain James looked at him with two kinds of concern. "Where the fuck did that come from?"

"My uncle," Mr. Caesar admitted. "And my mother, sometimes. Occasionally my grandfather."

For a moment, the captain considered this. "I'll be honest, it's a little bit scary."

Mr. Caesar nodded. "I know. I've been on the other end of it more times than I'm comfortable with."

"Still. Good to have in your back pocket." Captain James looked back towards the Etheridge residence, where a crowd of rich mortals was still in mid-gossip. "Now I reckon you should take the ladies home."

The fact that his other sister was also at that moment unaccounted for did not help with Mr. Caesar's turbulent blend of emotions, but it was at least galvanising. He nodded and then, restricting himself to the manner of address that could be considered at least deniable in public, placed a comradely hand on the captain's shoulder. "Of course. And—" But there was no and, not really. There was no corollary that would undo the fact that he had once again let down his family and his new companions both. "And thank you," he finished.

"It's fine," replied the captain. "And thanks too. For sorting out those watchmen."

Unaccustomed to being thanked, or at least to being thanked sincerely, Mr. Caesar couldn't think of a sensible reply. Besides, with gawkers and rubberneckers surrounding them, there was little more that could be said or done, and so Mr. Caesar returned to the crowd to search for his other sister and Captain James set off for the Folly.

Mercifully—well, mercifully for Mr. Caesar, rather less mercifully for those of us with greater appetites for chaos—locating Miss Anne was rather simpler. She had elected to cling to Lieutenant Reyne, with whom she had danced twice and thus considered herself quite well acquainted. And the lieutenant for his part delivered the girl to her brother swiftly and without complaint, but expressing his deep regrets that the evening had been cut so short. Miss Bickle, for her part, had mercifully restrained her urge to wander off, and rejoined the group as Miss Anne was saying her goodbyes.

Having accomplished as much as he reasonably could—and having failed to accomplish rather more—Mr. Caesar was just returning to the carriage with his various feminine charges when he was interrupted by the young Mr. Bygrave.

"Is she—Miss Caesar, is she safe?" There was genuine concern in his voice, although I suspected that a good proportion of that was lingering enchantment.

Profoundly not in the mood to entertain young gentlemen, Mr. Caesar glanced down. "I do not know."

"Then should you not be searching for her?"

The practical answer was that he should not, because he had equal responsibilities to both of his sisters. The less practical answer was that he should, because the greater claim to protection lay with the lady in greater peril. The answer he gave was "I do not know."

"Then should I look for her?" asked Mr. Bygrave, and my hypothetical ears (I was still a raven, so I had ears of a sort, just not externally) pricked up at this. If he began roving the streets now, his chances of dying in an interesting way were excellent, and while it might prove tangential to the overall thrust of the narrative, your people and mine share a taste for unnecessary bloodshed.

Thus I was delighted when Mr. Caesar's reply was "Do as you wish."

As the Caesars' carriage rolled off into the night, I took flight, tracing wide circles over London and—with bird sight and fairy sight both—observing each of my various subjects as they moved through the city.

Thus I saw Mr. Caesar and his charges returning home by a straight route, Mr. Bygrave wandering with little aim or purpose, further and further from the paths he knew, and Miss Caesar fleeing like—and I apologise profusely for this analogy because it is profoundly, as I believe those mortals of the generations born between the end of the twentieth and the start of the twenty-first century would call it, basic —Cinderella from the ball.

It was, of course, entirely outside my remit as a dispassionate observer to guide, direct, or (perish the thought) misdirect any of these wanderers. So I absolutely did not.

In the end, the carriage reached its destination before anything murderous happened to either of the other two, and so I reverted to mists and followed the occupants inside. There Mr. Caesar, Miss Anne, and Miss Bickle were met by the elder Caesars who, if I was any judge (and since I am the narrator I am, in a sense, the only judge who matters), had been waiting in the same spots without moving since their children had left.

They said nothing as the ballgoers entered, and they did not need to. There was only one question to be asked and only one answer to be given.

"We failed," Mr. Caesar told them. " I failed. And Mary fled. Captain James and the others are looking for her now."

Miss Anne flopped into the window seat. "It was ill done on all fronts. John was wrong to interrupt the ball and Mary was wrong to flee from it. Things could have been so fine had you left well enough alone."

"Your sister being under an enchantment," Lady Mary pointed out, "is not well enough. "

In the spun-sugar labyrinth of her heart, Miss Bickle was struggling to reconcile a set of conflicting impulses that she very much did not wish to reconcile. "I think, " she began tentatively, "that it might be quite bad actually. Possibly even very bad. Which seems so unfair because enchantments should by all rights be enchanting, not horrible." She frowned with such exaggerated sorrow that she looked like a theatrical mask depicting tragedy. "Why must things always be more horrible in reality than they are in concept?"

"That depends on who you ask," Lady Mary replied. "Some would say it has to do with original sin. Others would suggest that we, as a society, have an unfortunate habit of making things worse than they need to be."

Miss Anne, having recovered from any shock or disappointment she might have experienced earlier in the evening, was now settling comfortably into the happy familiarity of complaining about her sibling. "Well, as I see it, Mary has made her bed and should lie in it."

"If it please you, miss," observed Nancy, who had been maintaining the traditional invisibility of the serving classes, "she's not."

This was, it seemed, new information to the elder Mr. Caesar. "What do you mean?"

"Her bed. She's not slept in it. And you've seen her not eating. Whatever's happened to her it's not right, and though it's not my place to say I'd not call it her fault neither."

"Well, who else's fault is it?" demanded Miss Anne, with entirely predictable petulance.

"Not everything is somebody's fault," the younger Mr. Caesar told her. "And I don't think you'd be such a pill about this if it weren't for Mr. Bygrave."

Despite being young himself, and having had two younger sisters for many years, Mr. Caesar appeared still to have vastly overestimated the constancy of youth. "Oh, but I don't give a fig for him, " Miss Anne replied, breezily. "Lieutenant Reyne is a finer man by far, do you not think?"

"He is certainly handsome," agreed Miss Bickle, unhelpfully.

"And many years your senior," added the elder Mr. Caesar.

Miss Anne looked affronted. "Certainly he cannot be more than two and twenty."

"And you are fourteen," her brother reminded her. His tone was reproving but, worn out after the night's events, his heart was not entirely in it.

The look of affront remained attached to Miss Anne like a stubborn tick. "So was Juliet."

"Did you, by any chance, watch the second half of that play as well as the first?" asked the younger Mr. Caesar.

It should, I think, go without saying that I would personally advise the reader to take dating advice from any being in the cosmos before they listened to the bastard bard.

The question of the precise minimum age at which happy mothers can be made being if not resolved then at least momentarily set aside, Mr. Caesar bowed a stiff farewell to his parents and made for the door.

"And where are you going?" asked his father.

"The Folly."

The elder Mr. Caesar's disapproval was seldom spoken aloud, and seldom needed to be.

"If any of the men hear word of Mary, they will report back there," his son replied. It was an excuse, and with the possible exception of Miss Anne, the whole room knew it.

"Ah." The elder Mr. Caesar rose from his chair. "Then I shall spare you the journey. I need a walk anyway."

"There's no need, Papa," Mr. Caesar insisted. "That is—"

"That is, you would rather be there than here?" asked Lady Mary. There was no accusation in her tone, just a terrible certainty. One that had the virtue of accuracy.

"Not at all," Mr. Caesar protested (and yes, that talentless fuckstain Bill has a line about that too). "It is merely that the gentlemen there know me and they do not know you and …"

"John." The elder Mr. Caesar was speaking sternly now. "I am sure these past days have been hard for you, but—"

" Days? Try years, Papa." The words were out of Mr. Caesar's mouth before he could subject them to his usual scrutiny. And once they had begun he found they would not stop. "Have you any conception of what it is like living in your shadow and Mama's? To have everybody I meet say, ‘Oh, you must be that one's son'? To know they're saying the same and worse about my sisters and that I can do nothing about it?"

It was perhaps the longest thing of significance he had ever said to his parents. Possibly to anybody, or anybody other than the captain. And though he saw how it stung he could not quite bring himself to regret it.

Still, the words hung in the air like gunsmoke.

"Your father and I have … we have done our best to give you ordinary lives," said Lady Mary. The elder Mr. Caesar, it seemed, was not able to reply at all.

"Well, you have failed," snapped Mr. Caesar. "Had you not, Mary would still be—"

"Would still be what?" asked his father as if those four words were the most he could manage without cracking.

And belatedly, the regret came. Of all mortal emotions it is the one that tastes sweetest to my kind, although in this instance I found my palate oddly dulled. "I didn't mean—"

"Perhaps not," replied Lady Mary. "Or perhaps you meant exactly what you said."

A sour taste was growing in Mr. Caesar's mouth. "I do not—I did not—there's just so much in my life, in Anne's and Mary's lives, that was decided for us before we were even born and—"

Lady Mary regarded her son with a look that bordered on the edge of betrayal. "We know," she said, softly. Though as she continued the softness ebbed away. "We have always known. And yes, when your father and I chose each other we chose for you as well, and I would tell you I was sorry if I could, but I will not because it would be a lie."

Beside her, the elder Mr. Caesar was silent. Two steps from defeated.

"You and your sisters," Lady Mary continued, "are the only things that matter to us. The truest things in our world. And we need you now, this family needs you."

A serpent was crawling beneath Mr. Caesar's skin, a sense like nausea moving with it. "And I—" he said, hesitantly. "I need space. I need to think."

The elder Mr. Caesar found his voice at last. "John," he said. "I have always trusted you to know what is right. For you, and for those around you. I trust you to make the right decision now."

The younger Mr. Caesar looked at his parents and sister, and what he saw looking back at him was twenty years of hope and love and expectation and disappointment that in that moment he could not face up to. So he said, "I'm sorry."

And he left.

And so did I.

London is a dangerous city for a young woman alone, and whether it becomes more so or less so if that young woman is also made of a notoriously fragile substance and illuminated with an inner glory that by turns entices and ensnares is left as an exercise for the reader.

I caught up with Miss Caesar as she was wandering from a mildly dangerous part of London-by-night into an extraordinarily dangerous part of it. Were I given to speculation (and I am not; I speak only truth in its most absolute and unvarnished sense) I might also have thought some force was guiding her, be it destiny or something more sinister.

And this time it really wasn't me.

Not that it was any of those other times either.

The streets were narrower now, and lit only by the moon. So the light that radiated from within Miss Caesar stood out like a candle in a darkened field. And like a candle it drew moths.

And by moths, I mean men with knives.

I should of course take this opportunity to remind my enlightened, modern readers that the average inhabitant of the London slums in this era was no less moral than the average inhabitant of Mayfair or the Houses of Parliament. Or indeed of your own great halls of power in your own countries in your own age. But then I suspect you will also need little reminding of how low a bar that truly is.

Thus it should not come as too great a surprise to know that the arrival of an obviously magical being with vast potential resale value encouraged at least some of the denizens of the less seemly parts of the city to put self-interest above self-preservation and try to acquire her.

"Lost, lady?" was the somewhat unoriginal opening line of their leader, a short, quick-eyed man with a mole on his left cheek.

Sheltered though her life had been, and young though she was, Miss Caesar was no fool. She took a step back and watched the stranger warily. "I am quite all right, thank you."

Taking a step back, it transpired, was not the wise precaution it seemed, because it brought her into contact with another gentleman, this one taller, more scarred, and more heavily built. "You don't seem all right. What do you say we find you somewhere to stay?"

Vulnerable as a glass girl intrinsically is, Miss Caesar had one advantage that she would not have possessed were she still flesh. Surprised by the arrival of the second man, she turned her head sharply, causing one of her glass roses to slash a thin red line across his face. And vulnerable, sheltered, and out of her element as she was, she had the wherewithal to take the opportunity afforded when he swore and recoiled in pain to take at once to her heels.

She had not, unfortunately, had the wherewithal to remain in the parts of the city she knew. So she fled blindly through unfamiliar streets, pursued by rough gentlemen who would not let a little thing like lacerating glass deter them for long.

Those of you who read my last novel might recall the surprisingly dramatic but assuredly very genuine moment when Miss Mitchelmore, being pursued by otherworldly enemies, stumbled at the last moment and fell, only to be rescued by an individual of dubious character.

Would you believe that it happened again? One would imagine that such charming parallelism could not possibly occur in real life. But as I watched, I saw Miss Caesar stumble, fall, find herself helpless as the men with knives closed in upon her.

What are the chances?

Except as she fell, she fell forward, and rather than crashing onto the cobblestones, she found herself caught in the arms of a woman she had never met. Tall and dark-skinned, she wore a headdress in the Egyptian style that had been briefly popular some fourteen years earlier when Napoleon moved into Alexandria. Her dress was long and decorated in white and gold, which, frankly, did not make it especially suitable for London's muddy streets. For a moment, I thought her eyes found me, but she made no mention of my presence.

The armed ruffians who had been pursuing Miss Caesar stopped short.

"Go," she told them. "You are not welcome here."

And, unwelcome, they went.

The heart Miss Caesar did not have was beating fast, causing the light within her to flicker like a candle flame or, if you prefer a more anachronistic analogy, a strobe. Eyes glimmering like stars and wide with gratitude, she gazed up at her rescuer. "Thank you," she said, "but … where am I?"

And the stranger smiled, and let her inside.

The building into which Miss Caesar had been led was one part temple, one part gaming hell. The walls were lined with frescoes in a range of styles from ancient to neoclassical and everywhere statues of Tyche and Fortuna gazed benevolently (and not so benevolently) down at tables where crowds of mostly men, their prospects mostly good, were playing at hazard and at games of dice as ancient as empires.

"You are here," said her rescuer. "And it is the only place you need to be."

Having, perhaps, decided at last that having her destiny decided entirely by mysterious women who appeared from nowhere was a suboptimal way to live her life, Miss Caesar rallied a little of her older defiance. "That is not an answer."

"You are in the house of prosperity. The home of Isis-Fortuna."

Miss Caesar looked unconvinced. "This seems to be little more than a den of degenerate gamblers."

"And you seem little more than a glass doll who dances for the pleasure of others." The stranger smiled. "Are you?"

In a more navigable world, Miss Caesar would have had an answer for that. "I am a person, not a building." A cheer went up from a nearby table. "And the nature of your clientele is plain."

"Three points," called a man from another table, his accent as cut glass as Miss Caesar's body, "and the game."

"Our clientele are men whose hands you would smile and bat your eyelids for if you met them in a different room," the stranger said. "All gentlemen are degenerates."

Miss Caesar stiffened. Or at least would have stiffened, were she not already rigid. "My father is not a degenerate."

"Your father is not a gentleman."

"And what do you know of my family?" asked Miss Caesar, worried that the answer would be Quite a lot actually.

"I know that your mother is the youngest daughter of the Earl of Elmsley, though the first to marry. I know that your father was a Frenchman's property, an Englishman's war prize, and an Englishwoman's bauble, then at last a free man in a kingdom that claims its air is freedom. Though many of us see that for a lie."

The stranger's accent, Miss Caesar could not help but notice, had a tendency to drift; though it was always London at its heart its register shifted from the gutter to the ballroom and back again depending on her subject.

"I know your brother is a dandy and a molly and dances in between worlds that will never accept him, and your sister, in the eyes of your society, is a bright jewel like a diamond from the Peacock Throne. And I know who you are, Miss Mary Caesar, more than you do yourself. And what you gave away to be what you are now."

Honestly, readers, I find this kind of trickery a little gauche. It is an easy thing for mortal witches to discover the biographical details of those they wish to impress and it is, I would argue, a vulgar thing for mortals to be impressed by such flimflammery. It bespeaks a self-regard that is unbecoming in such unremarkable beings as yourselves.

For a being like me, of course, it is a different thing entirely.

"Have you been spying on me?" asked Miss Caesar. It was the wrong question, but mortals persist in asking it anyway.

"Fate has been spying on you. I have been spying on fate."

Miss Caesar's eyes narrowed, white light spilling from between her fine glass-fibre lashes. "Then I should at least know your name."

"Should you?"

"It would be polite."

"I am a witch, child. And a woman of business. Politeness interests me only if it gets me what I want. But you may call me Amenirdis."

Speak the name of a thing three times and it will emerge. Sometimes. But in this instance the name that conjured and the conjured entity were far less related. No sooner had Amenirdis shared her moniker (it was not the name of her birth, probably; witches and fairies wear names as casually as hats) than the door opened once more and Mr. Bygrave burst in. Ignoring the entreaties of a sharply dressed croupier trying to invite him to a gaming table, he searched the room for Miss Caesar and, finding little difficulty in the task, for she stood out like—well, like a glowing glass girl in a magical gaming hell, he pushed his way through the crowds towards her.

He had acquired, in his journey through the city, a number of scrapes and bruises. The same people who had harassed Miss Caesar would undoubtedly have tried their luck with a young and callow officer, but having a sword and no purse, Mr. Bygrave had proved uninteresting prey and survived his journey with minimal jostling.

Of course, that was before he decided to draw said sword and point it at the hostess of the temple.

"Unhand her," he demanded despite the fact that Amenirdis's hands were nowhere near Miss Caesar.

"Or?" asked Amenirdis, staring down the blade with commendable apathy. "Will you murder me in cold blood?"

"It is no murder to rescue a lady from a …" He stumbled, his list of pejoratives running short in the circumstances.

Amenirdis walked slowly forward and put one fingertip on the point of Mr. Bygrave's sword. "Set this aside. You will have no need of it here."

Faced with running through an unarmed woman (albeit one who likely had defences of her own the like of which Mr. Bygrave could not possibly comprehend) or sheathing his weapon, Mr. Bygrave chose peace. Miss Caesar, however, hurried to his side.

"I have come to find you," he explicated quite unnecessarily. "Your family will want to know that you are safe."

"She was quite safe," Amenirdis told him. "And she will be better if she stays."

Raucous laughter at some unrelated joke echoed around the hall, and Miss Caesar slipped her arm into Mr. Bygrave's. "If I am not a prisoner," she said, "then I shall leave."

With that enigmatic smile common to all witches, Amenirdis nodded. "You are not a prisoner. Go if you will. You know where to find me."

Without waiting for any further discussion, Mr. Bygrave drew Miss Caesar back into the streets, and I was about to follow, but I was checked by the voice of the witch.

"And what do you want, aboatia?"

I turned. "A story. And for what it's worth the mmoatia are not quite the same as my—"

Amenirdis shrugged. "You live in forests, disguise yourselves as animals, and play tricks on people. What kind of story?"

"One that pleases my master and vexes Titania, who I sincerely hope you aren't going to tell me is one of the ten thousand names of Isis."

"Do I need to?"

One of the more complicated things about taking one of my extremely true and directly personally experienced narratives and wrangling them into linear shape for mortal consumption is that it is not only time but identity itself that works fundamentally differently for our people. In the play that I once gave an otherwise talentless glover's son I am called Robin Goodfellow amongst other things. But that is as much a name for a species as an individual and may be used plurally for all of my kind just as hobgoblin may (though not, please, to my face). We are ideas as much as people and people as much as ideas, which makes keeping track of the relationships between us and then communicating those relationships to three-dimensional beings an utter chore.

"Is this going to make things difficult?" I asked her. "I'm just a dispassionate observer. Whatever purposes you and the Lady have in mind, I'm more than happy for you to fight it out amongst yourselves."

With a studied casualness, Amenirdis picked up a deck of playing cards from a table nearby. She cut the deck and turned over the top card to reveal the seven of spades. "For some reason," she told me, "I do not consider you trustworthy."

"I would offer to swear oaths to the effect that I am here only to observe, but I doubt that you would trust those either."

Amenirdis nodded. "Never trust the word of a shape-shifter. Oaths mean nothing to a creature that can say ‘I' and mean a hundred different things."

"I do so hate it when mortals work that out."

"I've had a long time to study." She turned another card. The two of clubs. "Continue watching, spirit. But interfere with me or this place, and it will end badly for you."

To which I responded with my most winning smile. "I am eternal, little witch. I have no endings, good or bad."

In hindsight, it was probably an unfortunate thing to have said. The gods have such a pissing awful sense of irony.