“It’s a tincture of ariamu root and jacinth spoor,” Kylar said. “The agony’s coming.”

“A slow poison. So you decided to give me time. What for, Kylar? To apologize? To cry? To beg?”

“To think. To remember. To regret.”

“So this is retribution. There’s a new young killer on the streets doling out what old whores deserve.”

“Yes, and you deserve to lose the very thing that made you betray Durzo.”

“And what’s that, oh wise one?” She smiled a serpent’s smile.

“Control.” Kylar’s tone was flat, apathetic. “And don’t reach for the bell rope. I’ve got a hand crossbow, but it’s not accurate. I might hit your hand rather than the rope.”

“Control, is that what you call it,” Momma K said, her back ramrod straight, not making it a question. “Do you know that rapes aren’t spread out evenly, even among working girls? Some girls get raped again and again. Others never do. The ones who get raped are the victims. The rapist bastards can somehow tell. It’s not ‘control,’ Kylar. It’s dignity. Do you know how much dignity a fourteen-year-old has when her pimp won’t protect her?

“When I was fourteen, I was taken to a noble’s house and enjoyed for fifteen hours by him and his ten closest friends. I had to make a choice after that, Kylar, and I chose dignity. So if you think giving me a poison that makes me shit myself to death is going to make me beg, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Kylar was unmoved. “Why did you betray us?”

Momma K’s defiance slowly faded as Kylar sat there with a wetboy’s patience. She didn’t answer him for a minute, five minutes. He sat with all the patience of Death. By now, he knew, she had to be feeling queasy.

“I loved Durzo,” she said.

Kylar blinked. “You what?”

“I’ve slept with hundreds of married men in my life, Kylar, so I never saw the most flattering portrait of marriage. But if he’d asked me, I would have married Durzo Blint. Durzo is—was, I suppose you killed him? Yes, I thought so. Durzo was a good man in his way. An honest man.” Her lips twitched. “I couldn’t handle honesty. He told me too many unlovely truths about myself, and that hard, dark thing that lives in me couldn’t bear the light.”

She laughed. It was a bitter, ugly sound. “Besides, he never stopped loving Vonda, a woman utterly unworthy of him.”

Kylar shook his head. “So you thought you’d kill him? What if he’d killed me?”