Before Leo, she had not been loyal enough. She had been unable to shake the scruples she’d brought from her old life. Miri had stolen her from herself. But because she was not a volunteer but a captive, something else was also true. Miri was responsible for her. Miri, also, belonged to her. She had rights in this relationship. She had her place, and did not intend to be disloged.

She went down to the office and stood at the one-way mirror, where she could see the dance floor. Everybody was eating, gobbling away at the braces of honey-dipped sparrows and other exotic foods that Vincent had prepared at Miriam’s instruction. Miriam had little interest in human food, but it wasn’t as if she didn’t know about it. Her recipes spanned three thousand years. Honey-dipped sparrows had been the hot dogs of Elizabethan England.

Sarah watched the man. He was, in a way, beautiful—huge, muscular, his eyes extremely intelligent. She’d gone out on the floor and sucked him for a little while. She imagined that his ample organ would feel really nice inside her.

“You’re drooling,” Miri said as she came in. “And get your clothes on, you’re the only one still naked except for that big slab of ham you’re drooling over. Want to eat him?”

“What’s the deal with him?”

Miriam sat down behind her desk. She tossed a small suitcase on it, clapped her hands. “Chop chop.”

“The count, already? It’s only two, Miri.”

“Rudi’s bag got too full. You’ll have two counts tonight.”

“I thought it was gonna be good.”

“You want to know what the deal is with him?”

“Yeah.” Sarah was sorting, preparing the pile for the count. It was over a hundred grand, though; she could already tell that. Money came to Miriam like metal shavings to a magnet. Ancient Keeper magic, Sarah thought. “So, what is it?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“Please trust me, Miri. It’s agony for me when you don’t.”

“It’s agony for me when you forget your place, child.”

Sarah sorted bills into neat stacks of fifties, hundreds, a few twenties.

“I’ve been thinking about that. I want to ask your forgiveness. I want you to know that you’ve got my absolute loyalty.”

“Now that there’s a replacement threatening, yes. I wish you’d come to me before I blooded her.”

“Why did you? We’ve got to endure her now forever and ever! And she’s—oh, Miri, she’s tacky and she’s quite stupid.”

Miriam shrugged. “You want to do pipe later, child?”

“I thought you were mad at me.”

“I’m not mad now. In fact, I’m going to do celebration pipe. The two-hundred-year-old opium.”

“What possible occasion could there be now?”