Nothing more to do than this! Near the curving back of his room, Fox sagged in a vast reclining chair, very nearly a loveseat, which had bounded from the floor when he pressed a button on the furniture remote. After much debate, he’d switched things around so that his bed was well toward the back, hidden at the head by the oversized chair, and the kitchen and sitting areas were integrated at the front.

  The remote hadn’t taken him long to find, but he’d satisfied himself by going over absolutely every reachable inch of the pce in every configuration. By now, he’d learned all the buttons on four of five remote controls and found a panel of buttons to control the window shades, the lights, and the temperature.

  There was a simir panel in the bathroom. A number of dials controlled the shower and released different fragrances; he hadn’t had the time to experiment earlier, but he had at length since, trying to wash Frixm off his skin. The remote controls could all be used from the tub.

  He shifted his legs to drape off the arms of the chair and let his head dangle from the footrest. There was a rge midair projection of footage taken from something like an Eye; a camera, Eagle would have called it. Fox had discovered the source of the footage changed whenever he used up or down arrows on the remote control.

  He still used them now, clicking through his choices, forward and back, trying to reason out what the people in the projection were doing—but everything felt as completely useless as the next. There was nothing to read—not that he hadn’t torn through every drawer, even the secret ones, in the hope of ying hands on some printed matter.

  He saw some sort of sport, pyed by a host of ants with a purple, suspiciously man-shaped ball; a story about corrupt police featuring a woman with green snakes for armpit hair, improbably named George (either her or the snakes, but who could say?); and some kind of frightening thing that involved several rge vats of what he hoped was pudding and one hapless cat strapped to a trebuchet. He changed quickly away from that and crunched up on the chair. Perhaps he ought to put something on, but why bother? It was warm enough.

  Sooner or ter, Itef would come. He was a liar and an oath breaker; he hadn’t given Katie’s predicament a second thought. Whether Fox wanted it or not, there would be sex.

  He wished he didn’t care. That would make it easier—if he were like Father, or like Muirrach, so that anything that walked would do the job. Anything with a hole. Instead, flipping, flipping through the sources (and by the Word, there were so many!) Fox wished for Fiachra, who excited him with willingness to please, or better, Eagle.

  Always Eagle. It wasn’t so much the magic—though Fox must necessarily admit that was part of the appeal—as that it would be Eagle. Vulnerable, small, and confusing though he was, Eagle’s aegis covered Fox while they were together; Fox was protected rather than kept. Rather than strictly business or a fillip of attraction, with Eagle, Fox was nothing less than adored.

  He squirmed upright, snagging the (all too familiar!) white silk dressing gown from the back of the chair. Pushing back with his heels, he depressed the footrest and stood. He put the dressing gown on, so it fell neatly down his front, then caught up the sash. As he tied a knot to belt it, a commotion from the projection brought his eyes up.

  He’d mostly stopped listening; whatever the Matil were using for transtion, it seemed to function well, but though he understood the speech, he had not the slightest clue what anyone was talking about.

  This was Matil footage; there were ordinary-looking people in bck uniforms. There was a little false sun at the top of the screen, and a pretty white-and-gss pza, and the people—

  Among the uniformed ones—no, the uniformed ones were among them. People with varying degrees of… of snakiness, he thought. If he hadn’t seen Jatus’s forked tongue or Frixm’s nictitating membranes for himself, he wouldn’t have guessed they were the same.

  The people talking into wands in the middle of the chaos smiled their fanged smiles, dispying purple gums in otherwise ordinary faces. A hairless little girl with a spectacur weaving pattern of red and orange scales, perhaps the Mountain’s retive age, stepped out of a door and between the barricades. She carried a wand and wore a filmy gown.

  The legend beneath her named her Arrivadanza! with an excmation point. She began to do something his ears couldn’t quite interpret as singing; it seemed to work well in her own earless head and in the heads of the crowd.

  Frowning, he finished his knot and sat to watch her performance. A bit harsh and hissing for his taste, perhaps, but there was something catchy in her little song, which seemed to be about boys on artificial beaches who flirted outrageously from white hoverboards. He tried to hum it but didn’t quite match her tone; her vocal apparatus was likely different from his. Not bad.

  The footage changed to advertising. Fox sat again to watch pots of hair gel dance across the dispy in front of a rotating, slickly styled woman’s head. He curled his lip in horrified fascination as a restaurant excimed that the Famous Bucket O Pinkies would be 49% off for its anniversary. The paper buckets shown overflowed with writhing baby mice. The next advertisement was for an air purifier, which matched the lumpy contraption he’d seen in the bathroom.

  With both hands, he rubbed at the sides of his nose. It was only a matter of time before Itef came, but he had no way of knowing how long he had to wait. It could be days.

  What an exhausting thought! He pulled on a pair of white cotton drawers beneath the robe, took them off, and put them back on again. He paced through the projection; it was visible from either side. With a muttered apology to Arrivadanza!, he switched it off.

  There was nothing to do and nothing to read. Fox colpsed back across the chair. He hadn’t mastered Eagle’s trick of sleeping the time away, but then, how could he be expected to sleep? If Fox were asleep when Itef came—

  No.

  Fox swallowed. He wanted to control the encounter as far as he might—not that he had any illusions about who would actually be in control, but one of his least favorite ways to wake was in fgrante, so to speak. He would have liked to spare himself that mental death spiral if at all possible.

  He paced. Let it be soon. The sooner the better. By the Word! What if Itef was massive below? It hadn’t felt like that st night. What if it was so small Fox ughed by accident? That would be a disaster… Jerking at his hair, he tried to remember if the bulge had seemed particurly like anything at all. Perhaps a bit oddly shaped?

  Itef had been so very interested in how hard he could kiss Fox, in groping and in Fox’s response. They were of a height, but that meant nothing.

  Someone less like Eagle, Fox couldn’t have imagined if he’d tried. That alone wound the dread in his limbs tighter.

  He paced, but his brain was a bck tangle of thread without a single end in sight. No matter which way he turned the problem, he’d get something hard, and he was more intelligent than to imagine that would make an end, either.

  His hands came away full of deep brown and golden hairs. His eyes burned. Eagle would have made certain he didn’t need to do this. He ought to have had a little faith, but instead he’d pyed himself right into Itef’s grasping hands.

  The doors slid open with their soft rush like an exhale. Fox couldn’t breathe. His ribs cmped down viciously as Itef came in alone—and then the contraction eased. This wasn’t Father.

  This wasn’t Father, so Fox could fold his arms and open his mouth. “What do you want?”

  “What do you think I want?” Itef asked mildly. There was a vacancy in his eyes that sent a shiver down Fox’s spine—too te.

  Too te. Kill me instead—

  “Be explicit,” he added. His voice was as clean as vacuum.

  “I’m afraid my ass will no longer be quite so avaible to you,” Fox said coldly. Itef wasn’t Father. Muirrach and Eilis couldn’t threaten him now. What was left for him to fear? Only never seeing Eagle again, and he feared that every day anyway. That Katie would die of iron poisoning. “Why would I sleep with the likes of you, oath breaker?”

  Itef chuckled emptily and stepped forward. He undid the knot in Fox’s robe, then helped it slide open. “Is it true your people indicate status with—” He seemed too ashamed to say it.

  “Piercings.” He ran a fingertip along the bottom of his ear, passing over the studs, striking the hoops that stuck out from small to rge. “If you’ll observe my earrings, Captain, and yes—those too.”

  Itef had jerked down the front of his pants. Fox sucked in a breath as Itef examined him intimately with a tight squeeze. Any time now, it would really begin.

  At least then it would be over. No one had touched Fox this way in what seemed like ages, but it was so short a time in real terms, particurly compared with the decades he’d spent currying favor on his knees.

  “You have quite a number here,” Itef said, stepping close to tweak Father’s favorite tweak, the guiche.

  Fox didn’t let himself react. He let his head fall slowly to the side. “I do indeed,” he said, with all the ice his rank would afford.

  “They go all the way back.” Itef prodded a gloved, dry finger at his pierced hole.

  He let his eyebrows rise and rise. If Itef would resort to such childish games, so be it. Fox had pyed them all; he was more than equipped not to py.

  Itef bared his fangs and shoved Fox farther back into the rooms, toward the bed.

  Fox dashed manicured nails across Itef’s face, drawing cold blood.

  With startling ferocity, Itef hissed and forced him back. When he staggered, Itef seized a fistful of his hair and dashed him to the ground instead.

  At st. This would be over, and—

  Fuck you, Fox thought, you power-mad snake. “First blood to me,” he said, lifting bloody nails.

  Itef stepped over him, casting him into shadow.

  “You told me you would see to Princess Katherine’s bracelet. That was a lie. You consulted no one. You simply let the matter run its course.” Fox couldn’t stop his mouth. “She’s dead, isn’t she? You let her die because—”

  “Quiet.”

  There was a whisper of pressure, Itef’s smooth sole on his fingers.

  Fox fell silent.

  “Oh, see? I know what to do to a sorcerer. I’ve had practice.” The captain straightened his uniform. “I can ruin you, Bearach, but I hope you know I pn to take it slow and enjoy every st moment.” The foot pressed on Fox’s hand, not enough to make him cry out—but nearly.

  He swallowed it; it went to the same pce as every other pained cry.

  “There’s so little that entertains me anymore,” Itef said. “I’m going to milk you for every drop you’re worth.”

  The captain straightened, lifting his over-neatened head as he stepped back from Fox. The smirk on his face was nearly as faint as Eagle’s.

  Not quite, though, Fox reminded himself. “Do you think I’ve never been this before? Amusement for the ancient, powerful, and bored?”

  “Then you’ll be very familiar with what I want you to do.”

  “I know I’m good for one thing more,” he added, dazzling up at Itef. “You’re getting plenty of magic off me.”

  The captain shifted on his feet.

  “I don’t know how you measure these things, but I know what’s avaible to me.” Fox crossed his legs beneath him, keeping his hands off the floor.

  “And so, what?” Itef’s expression didn’t change.

  He shrugged. “I don’t doubt things will go awry for you if you kill me.”

  “That may be, Rev Liedan, but don’t doubt my ability to make you miserable even so.” Itef smiled again, remembered pleasure that put Fox’s hackles up again. “I’ve had a lot of practice—but next time, my flower. For now, you may come and go as you like.”

  “And Princess Katherine?” Fox demanded. “You told me you would consider it. You haven’t answered me.”

  “You may come and go as you like, as may the princess.” That was no answer, either, but Itef id his foot gently over Fox’s crotch. Only a fine yer of silk protected him. “I’m looking forward to everything you have for me. Especially here.”

  “I’m looking forward to shitting your bed.”

  Itef very nearly ughed, then leaned down and caressed the side of his face. Already, the captain’s cheek knitted together, the bloodless flesh closing, the skin regrowing. “You won’t enjoy yourself.”

  “Neither will you,” Fox said.

  Itef strode out without another word. The peaked doors hushed shut behind him.

  Fox waited a few beats—all he could stand. Then he lunged for the doors himself. Itef had said nothing of Katie’s condition.

  He feared the worst, but when the doors slid open, he ran anyway.