With exaggerated courtesy, two of the men held their arms to her. Purity realized that she had little choice now. “I’ll walk of myself, please, and I’ll hold my tongue.”

Peaseman shook his head. “That was what I asked many minutes and several long speeches ago. Now I ask you to take their arms and argue no further, or the next step will not be so liberal.”

She hooked her hands through the crooks of their elbows and miserably walked along in silence, while Alvin talked cheerily about the weather, walking freely ahead of her on the path. The men laughed several times at his wit and his stories, and with every step she tasted the bitterness of gall. Am I the only one who knows the devil wears a friendly face? Am I the only one who sees through this witch?

8

Basket of Souls

“What is it that you think you’re looking for?” asked Honoré. They had spent the heat of the day on the docks and were dripping with sweat. It was getting on toward evening without a sign of relief from the heat.

“Souls,” said Calvin. “In particular, the theft of souls.”

They stood in the scant shade of a stack of empty crates, watching as a newly arrived ship was moored to the dock. Honoré sounded testy. “If the transaction I saw on the docks has something to do with missing heartfires—which are not souls as the priests describe them—then it was not theft at all. The dolls were freely given.”

“Sometimes theft doesn’t look like theft. What if they think they’re lending them, but they can’t get them back? What about that?”

“And what if you are getting us in the path of something dangerous? Did you think of that?”

Calvin grinned. “We can’t get hurt.”

“That statement is so obviously false that it is not worth answering,” said Honoré.

“I don’t think you understand what I can do,” said Calvin.

A gangplank was run up from the dock to a gap in the ship’s gunwale.

“These are a filthy-looking crew, don’t you think? Portuguese, perhaps?”

“If I decide you and I aren’t going to get hurt, we won’t,” said Calvin.

“Oh, so you can read minds like your sister-in-law?”

“Don’t have to read minds when you can melt the knife right out of a man’s hand.”

“But Monsieur le Genius, not all knives are seen in advance.”

“I see ’em.”

“Nothing ever surprises you?”

Before Calvin could get farther than the first sound of the word nothing, Honoré slapped him on the back of the head. Calvin staggered forward and whirled around, holding his neck. “What the hell do you think that proved!”

“It proved that you can be harmed.”

“No, it proved you can’t be trusted.”

“You see my point?” said Honoré. “It is when you feel safe that you are most vulnerable. And since you are stupid enough to feel safe all the time, then you are vulnerable all the time.”