No words have power over Martin in Caesar’s presence save Caesar’s own. “No, Madame, it’s not.”

Her wrath would not fade easily. “Even Dominic was some use. I hear he pursued the assassin. Was he victorious?”

“Best leave that issue to me, Madame,” Papa interceded. “The less you say about revenge, the less likely Dominic here is to wake up to charges of unauthorized use of lethal force.” Papadelias had already closed the body bag again and drawn a curtain to hide it, but the bandage cocoon that held the wreck of Dominic lay bare.

“Oh! Dominic!” Madame cried, drawing Faust and Caesar close across her like doors, as if she feared the gore might leap out and contaminate her. «My poor pup!»

“The doctors have done all they can.” MASON pried her off, and closed the door. “I have a question for you, Madame.”

She frowned at his tone, a different kind of serious. “What is it, Cornel?”

“I know there is nothing to keep you from lying to me, but I must ask, and if our long friendship is not enough to entitle me to the truth, I hope you understand that I am much better able to tolerate wrongs honestly revealed than lies uncovered later.”

She blinked prettily. “What lies? What has you so concerned?”

“Did you plan this?”

“Of course I didn’t plan it!” she shrieked, seizing his arm again. “You think I’d try to kill our Son?”

MASON tried, but failed, to pull his hand away. “Not that, the rest. You knew Casimir Perry was Merion Kraye. Did you know the rest? The Seven-Ten list theft, DeLupa betraying the Anonymous, the exposure of O.S. Did you plan it? Did you know?”

With only a brief frown at MASON’s coldness, Madame shifted onto her brother’s arm. “No, but it is my doing nonetheless.”

“Explain,” Caesar demanded.

“I shall be honest,” she announced, her voice light with surprise, as if she had expected herself to decide the contrary. “You’re right, I do owe it to you, Cornel, for our long friendship, which I hope will not end here,”—her smile beamed frankness—“and I know you will deal more kindly with me if I am frank with you. Besides,”—she glanced at Papa—“I have done nothing prosecutable, or even malicious. But nonetheless, I take responsibility. I did not plan this.” Her voice was lovely, giddy, as if elated by the catharsis of confession. “I simply resurrected the weapons with which it was done. I made Danaë the sort of woman a man would burn the world for. I made Merion Kraye and Andō and my Ganymede the sort of men who would betray each other, and nurse vengeance for decades, and not just them. Ancelet, and Spain, and even you had jealous days in your youth, remember, Cornel? And you in the inner circle are hardly my only clients. I have dozens of girls and boys, each with dozens of suitors who have been seducing, betraying, dueling, and stalking each other for fifty years. The losers are banished from my house and, finding they can no longer take satisfaction elsewhere, they channel their appetites into grudges against the victors who still enjoy my favor, and high offices. There are many hundreds of talented young things like Kraye out there who, thanks to my children, have no goal in this world beyond revenge on some rival I exalted over them.”