Kushiel’s Dart

"No." I tugged at another drawer, but it was locked. Didier took a key from a chain about his waist and opened it. A row of slim-hafted, razor-edged steel blades gleamed against a red velvet lining, like a chirurgeon’s tools, only beautiful.

"Flechettes," he said. "We require a reference and a guarantee for their usage." He gave an involuntary tremor beside me and his voice changed. "I hate them."

I imagined an anonymous hand pressing the sharp point of one into my skin, tracing it slowly, a trickle of red following the bright blade. It would be very vivid against my skin. I came out of the reverie to find Didier watching me again.

"You are what the stories say, aren’t you?" The envy was mingled with an obscure pity. "I hope Delaunay screens his clients well. Come on, I’ll show you the upper levels."

My tour of Valerian House continued for some time, through a myriad of rooms; seraglio boudoirs, baths, a folly garden, royal chambers, a harem, a throne room, a room of swings and harnesses, even a child’s nursery, although Didier hastened to add that they abided by Guild laws regarding the minimum age for adepts. In the flagellary, he lectured at length on the different types of whips and rods; crops, quirts, scourges, floggers and tawses, the cat-o'-nine-tails and the bullwhip, birches, canes, straps and paddles. Of course many patrons, he told me in his dry voice, preferred to bring their own implements.

I never saw a single patron throughout the tour. It is the policy of the Night Court to provide privacy, but there were always patrons at Cereus House who treated it as a salon, meeting with friends and acquaintances to enjoy each other’s company as well as the services of Naamah. By contrast, Valerian House was marked by an air of hushed secrecy. Fetes and galas were arranged with great care, Didier said, for very select guest lists.

When all was said and seen, I was glad that I had gone to Delaunay and not to Valerian House. Although there was nothing I saw that did not in some way intrigue me, it seemed a dull life without the spice of mystery and danger-and indeed, even the cursed intellectual rigor-that life as a Servant of Naamah in the household of Anafiel Delaunay promised. Any spark of disobedience or rebellion had been long conditioned from the adepts of Valerian House; and how not, when their motto was, I yield? Mighty Kushiel did not minister to the yielding, but to those who disobeyed and dared suffer the agonies of defeat. This I believed then, and I believe it still, though I daresay I might not have then, had I any inkling how long and difficult the path would be. At any rate, you may be sure that if I left Valerian House without the wisdom of experience to support my beliefs, I left it considerably wiser in the ways of my art.

I returned to Delaunay’s house full of new-found knowledge, finding to my dismay that he had invited friends for a small dining-party, and talk was of nothing but the Cruarch of Alba. Still, if there was consolation, it was in the fact that Delaunay was in high spirits and called me to join him on his couch.

"Surely if you are old enough to enter the service of Naamah, this evening’s conversation merits hearing," he said, patting the cushion beside him. He was still dressed for court, and fair glowed with elegance and the flush of good wine and talk. "You know the Comte de Fourcay, of course…Gaspar, make her a bow, she is nigh a lady now…and our poetess; Thelesis, I cower in your shadow…this is Quintilius Rousse of Eisande, who is the finest admiral ever to command a fleet, and my lord Percy of L’Agnace, Comte de Somerville, of whom you have heard tell."

I don’t know what I stammered-something inept, no doubt-as I rose to make my curtsy. I was used to Gaspar Trevalion, who was almost like an uncle to me (insofar as my notion of kin extended); Thelesis de Mornay awed me, though I had met her. But these new additions…the commander of the fleet of Eisande was legend in three nations, and the Comte de Somerville was a Prince of the Blood, who had led the charge against the Skaldi with Prince Rolande and Prince Benedicte. It was rumored that if the King should ever need to appoint a warlord, it would be the Comte de Somerville.

Because he figured in a tale out of my childhood, I expected he would be old, like the King, but he was no more than fifty years of age, hale and fit, with grey dimming his golden hair. A faint odor of apples clung to him; I learned later that this was a mark of the Scions of Anael in general, and of the Somerville line in particular. He smiled pleasantly at so I would be less fearful of him.