“If you like. It won’t dissolve.”

It was soft and smooth. Nothing like Monza’s hand—scarred, tanned, callused as any Named Man’s. Even less like her other one, twisted as a nettle root under that glove. Shivers pressed his lips to the woman’s knuckles, caught a giddy whiff of scent. Like flowers, and something else that made the breath sharpen in his throat.

“I’m, er… Caul Shivers.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“We’ve met before, though briefly. Carlot dan Eider is my name.”

“Eider?” Took him a moment to place it. A half-glimpsed face in the mist. The woman in the red coat, in Sipani. Prince Ario’s lover. “You’re the one that Monza—”

“Beat, blackmailed, destroyed and left for dead? That would be me.” She frowned up towards the high table. “Monza, is it? Not only first-name terms, but an affectionate shortening. The two of you must be very close.”

“Close enough.” Nowhere near as close as they had been, though, in Visserine. Before they took his eye.

“And yet she sits up there, with the great Duke Rogont, and you sit down here, with the beggars and the embarrassments.”

Like she knew his own thoughts. His fury flickered up again and he tried to steer the talk away from it. “What brings you here?”

“After the carnage in Sipani I had no other choices. Duke Orso is doubtless offering a pretty price for my head. I’ve spent the last three months expecting every person I passed to stab me, poison me, throttle me, or worse.”

“Huh. I know that feeling.”

“Then you have my sympathy.”

“The dead know I could do with some.”

“You can have all mine, for what that’s worth. You’re just as much a piece in this sordid little game as I am, no? And you’ve lost even more than I. Your eye. Your face.”

She didn’t seem to move, but she seemed to keep getting closer. Shivers hunched his shoulders. “I reckon.”

“Duke Rogont is an old acquaintance. A somewhat unreliable man, though undoubtedly a handsome one.”

“I reckon,” he managed to grate out.

“I was forced to throw myself upon his mercy. A hard landing, but some succour, for a while. Though it seems he has found a new diversion now.”

“Monza?” The fact he’d been thinking it himself all night didn’t help any. “She ain’t like that.”

Carlot dan Eider gave a disbelieving snort. “Really? Not a treacherous, murdering liar who’ll use anyone and anything to get her way? She betrayed Nicomo Cosca, no, and stole his chair? Why do you think Duke Orso tried to kill her? Because it was his chair she was planning to steal next.” The drink had made him half-stupid, he couldn’t think of a thing to say to it. “Why not use Rogont to get her way? Or is she in love with someone else?”

“No,” he growled. “Well… how would I know—fucking no! You’ve got it twisted!”

She touched one hand to her pale chest. “I have it twisted? There’s a reason why they call her the Snake of Talins! A snake loves nothing but itself!”