“Bhishna solkatay ahshaleh! Do not be so … itu with me right now! So fey! I am serious.”

“As am I.” He sat up, back a pry bar against the temptation of the tufted upholstery. Drawing long on his straight, he exhaled fully before he continued. “If it comes to exposure, the hounds will round up my employees. Fine. When I was the monarch of the demimonde, I let them take my friends.”

Daoud stood for a long moment staring, lips parted: an expression of shock he might have worn after being slapped by someone he trusted, before the flush began to rise.

More fool him. He’d had years to learn where he could place his trust, and should have learned that Aristide struck those closest to him all the harder.

A woman came up to Damesfort at the weekend—or, Cyril thought it was the weekend; he hadn’t been paying attention to the days. She appeared in time for lunch, crisply dressed in a green plaid suit. Silver liberally streaked her dark hair, which was drawn into a twist so tight he worried her cheekbones might cut through her skin. The angle of her chin was high and crooked, and her epicanthic eyes narrow with unspoken judgment. Where the black edge of her gaze caught, it cut like volcanic glass.

“Mr. DePaul,” she said, nodding a greeting as she sat down. And that was all she said to him until the meal was over. He gathered from the conversation that she was some kind of school friend Lillian knew from Sackett, but the cool-friendly way they spoke made it seem she wasn’t here for a social call.

That, and the thick briefcase none of the staff had taken from her.

He was ready for it, then, when they had all made an effort on the cold cuts, cheese, and pickles. Ready for her to set aside her napkin, exchange a glance with his sister, and then say, “Mr. DePaul, I wonder if I might speak with you privately?”

“If I say no, will you go back to Amberlough?” he asked. “Or stay here until I break?”

Her smile had the same edge as her eyes, though her teeth were white as bicarbonate of soda. “Lillian’s hospitality is tempting, and we have lots to catch up on, I’m sure.”

“You’re a lawyer,” he said, for her answer had not answered anything, even as it implied intent.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m yours.”

And so after lunch he found himself sitting on the sofa in the library, staring into the fire rather than look at Rinko Higata as she spoke to him.

“I understand you have undergone something of an ordeal,” she said, removing a thick folder from her briefcase. Paper hissed on paper, faintly reminiscent of a knife against a whetstone.

“Only compared to some,” he said.