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present.”
    “Probably wise. Where is Isolde now?”
    “Canteshrike Grotto. Shall I beckon her?”
    Enervata shook his head. “Another orgy in the ice cave, is it? No, let her feed her lust. But if our bond-recherché has developed this newfound ability, you must proceed with extreme caution.” He stretched his claw toward Rafe. “You tell Isolde as much. Keep yourselves hidden in the course of your surveillance. No more such glimpses. Am I understood?”
    “Of course. Might I make another suggestion?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “I overheard your previous discussion and I think it might be prudent to send Sileny after the pair-normale instead of the brothers.”
    “The would-be bakers? Why Sileny?”
    “It has been some time since she has been allowed to take such actions. Because you have taken her mouth, this is the only way she might feed, and she requires sustenance in order to work effectively. The brothers obviously have no deficit of sustenance.”
    “Rafe, you bloody canteshrike bastard!” Glueg said with a derisive, drunken snigger. “Sileny needs a morsel, eh? I’ll give that slattern something to feast upon!”
    Hedon leered. “That’ll do you no good, you stupid sop. She ain’t got a mouth for that, neither!”

    The brothers waved glistening lamb-smeared hands and howled with delight.
    “Enough,” Enervata said sharply, unwilling to suffer the petty annoyances he normally permitted. The ruckus settled immediately. “This is the last time, do you understand? I cannot be bothered with these trivialities. After this, the undoing of the bond-recherché becomes our sole focus.”
    Enervata turned to Sileny, his patience waning. “So be it; you shall have your way with this pair-normale. Send a former lover to the accountant’s home while the cook is away. Let there be flowing wine and music, the ideal recipe for lust. Make certain that the cook returns home in the midst of it. And so you may have your meal of broken pair-normale, let there be a weapon nearby, a firearm of some sort that the cook may find handy when she discovers her man in bed with another.”
    He turned his back to them, dismissing the lot. “There now; that should fatten you enough to maintain strength for the coming weeks.” He thought of everything Rafe had just told him. “Each of you must excel this time.”

4
    NEW YORK
    JAMIE CLEARLY DID NOT BELONG HERE. She’d always been a jeans girl and felt like an alien every time she attempted to wear a dress. The one she was wearing tonight had become her emergency standby: loose pink cotton and rayon blend, decent enough. But it pinched at the neck and she found herself checking her knees every five minutes, unaccustomed to seeing them sticking out from under a dress. Something else was off in the outfit, but she couldn’t figure out what.
    She scanned the room. Other women seemed more flowing. Gloria’s dress fit her perfectly, not loose, but not tight. Jamie tugged her cardigan closer around her shoulders. She eyed Gloria again and realized she didn’t have on a cardigan; she wore a wrap with her dress. And upon further appraisal, Jamie saw that other women wore wraps as well.
    Note to self: get a wrap.
    No—scratch that. She only forced herself to dress up once in a blue moon. A cardigan would do fine.
    “Why do you keep tugging at your clothes?” Candace asked.
    Jamie shrugged. “I just feel so out of place.”
    Candace’s gaze darted from side to side, a gesture exaggerated by the thick, Triscuit-sized lenses of her glasses. The square frames matched the square of her jawline and figure, and her hair swung in a simple brown bob. She wore a sensible aquamarine dress. And a wrap.

    “I know,” Candace said. “I get real uncomfortable in these places, too. Crowds make me nervous.”
    Jamie shrugged. “It’s not so much the crowds as the clothes.”
    “Well maybe you should take off that sweater. Looks itchy.”
    The two had only known each other since the fiesta a