Sasha gave a final glance at Jeanne before she hurried toward the door. “Take care of her,” she muttered again to Natasia. “I don’t know how much she understood of what he said. He might have scared her again.”

Then she was ducking out the tent door to face Masenak. “I’m here,” she said curtly. “And if you wanted the tent not to stink, you should tell the guards to clean it and let the girls bathe. I’d be glad to help them.”

“Maybe. Though I have the guards make sure the girls they bring to me are clean. That’s all that matters.” He smiled. “The one last night was very clean…and fresh. I enjoyed her. She screamed with joy. Did you hear her?”

“No, I went right to sleep after you left me.”

“I believe you’re lying.” He tilted his head. “You do it well, but I’ve discovered you lie to me even more than I first thought. After I finished with that little slut last night, I was still restless, so I decided to call my head trainer, Simon Davidow, and have him go through those files I sent him when I shipped the horses we took from St. Eldon’s.”

She tried to keep her face expressionless. “Why? You said you were stuck here. It’s not as if there’s any urgency. You’re still negotiating for those students.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not curious. My horses are everything to me, and I suddenly acquired several new wonderful ones thanks to St. Eldon’s.” He added softly, “Or perhaps thanks to Sasha Lawrence. Those files were very interesting.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean that you’ve been playing the poor orphan telling me how you had to intern in the stables so that you could afford to go to that very expensive school. But then I asked myself: What if that was bullshit? What if I was right about your parents sending you to St. Eldon’s to keep you safe from their enemies? What if there was another reason why you worked in those stables? So I thought I’d ask Davidow to go over those files and check out all those horses’ pedigrees and see what clues he could find.”

“Really?” she asked warily. “And what did he find?”

“Nothing.” He smiled. “That was what was so interesting. I sent twelve horses to Davidow and seven of them were properly marked and documented. But there were five that had no documentation in the file. Just a photo and a name, nothing else.” He held out his hand and counted them off. “Zeus, Diana, Apollo, Vulcan.” He lifted his index finger. “Chaos. All very fine specimens, obviously high-end examples, and very well trained except for Chaos. Undoubtedly the best of the twelve horses I took from St. Eldon’s. So why no documentation?”