Without thinking, Kit stepped from her concealment and glided across the room, dodging past dancing couples without seeing them. He would wait a moment more, plot his route across the room, she had a minute, maybe two … Once he was set in motion, there would be no deterring him. He would dart across the floor so swiftly no one would see him move …

Her hand on his arm made him start so suddenly she thought he would bury the dagger in her throat. The blazing gold eyes fixed on her almost unseeingly; it took him thirty seconds to cool his rage enough to take in anyone, anything, except Aliria Carvon.

“Don’t,” she said in a low voice. “If you kill her, they will kill you. For absolute certain.”

He was still seething, but he had calmed just enough to take in fresh details. The shape of her face, for instance, which so many guldmen knew; the fact that she was speaking in gold-tongue. “Anton Solvano’s daughter,” he said, and she nodded. Every indigo identified her by her mother’s bloodline, every gulden by her father’s name. He added, “And that might be a surprising thing, that the child of such a man would care about the fate of such a woman.”

Ah, he was using the elliptical, impenetrable dialect; he planned to be difficult. “More surprising that I care about the fate of a guldman fool enough to allow himself to be tricked into such a situation,” she retorted, for the direct attack was all that would catch his attention at this stage of his fury. “How could you allow yourself to be brought here? Couldn’t you guess what reception awaited you?”

“A man with honor expects honor,” he said. “A man who does not receive honor expresses his displeasure.”

“Of course you cannot just walk out of here,” she said, thinking rapidly. “I understand that. That would shame you.”

“There is no shame in a quick death,” he said.

“It is stupid to die for a blueshi whim,” she said starkly, and that caught his full attention. “There is shame in being stupid.”

“It would be interesting,” he said in an idle voice, “to know what such a woman values.”

“She values her place in her society. She values her reputation,” Kit said. She could not come straight out and make the suggestion; he would never do what a woman told him. But at least he was listening. He would let her words spark his own imagination. “She would not want to stand naked before her friends and live to remember her mortification.”

“A guldman is proud of his body and not afraid to show it to the world,” he said now.

“Well, a blueskin woman is not. She hides that more faithfully than you would hide your father’s secrets.”