“Love from afar then,” she told him. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

His expression was all hurt bafflement. “But… love…”

“If that worked as a magic word to unlock every woman’s legs, don’t you think Penthos would have got lucky by now?” she said sourly. “Enough, Harathes. Just sit down and we’ll forget this. We’ll just say it was a bit of evil in the beer.”

And she would happily have forgotten it, but it was plain Harathes could not see past all the words he had said, and after staring and stammering at her for a while he stormed off.

“Awkward,” muttered Lief, shaking his head. “At the end there his groin was running the show so much I thought he’d turn it on me in sheer disappointment. I mean, we all know I’m the pretty one. What?” because Cyrene was staring at him.

She felt a grin come to her face spontaneously. She had not realized how Harathes, with his patently obvious intentions, had been oppressing her, or how free she felt with him gone. “I’m glad you’re still with us, little man.”

He raised his eyebrows at that. “Seriously?”

“Very. And I’m not the only one.”

“Don’t think the Groinlord would notice either way,” the thief muttered, nodding after Harathes.

“Enth was asking.”

Lief’s attention skidded over to the man-spider, who was lapping at his beer. The round, black eyes came up, glinting.

“Seriously?”

“When we were lying low, he wanted to know what had happened to you. He was worried.”

“That so? You’ve been rumbled have you?” Lief asked the creature wryly. “Lost your evil credentials somewhere?”

Enth did not speak, but his lips parted a couple of times, flashing his sharp teeth. For once it was not his normal sullen silence, but the silence of anyone who simply could not find the words.

“He likes you,” Cyrene told the thief.

Lief’s look was embarrassed. “Feed a stray dog and it’ll follow you home. Doesn’t mean much.”

“And you like him, don’t you?”

“Feel sorry for the poor bastard, certainly. And you?”