"In all of history there has never been a case like this." Izabella was examining the bond between Jean and Sophie with open curiosity. "How is it possible?"
"Since when do you take an interest in history, Mama?" Sophie parried.
Aliya finished first, flawless, never once grazing the skin under the knife. But instead of simply presenting the chopsticks, she took them between her teeth and sank to her knees before Sophie, offering the food the way a dog offers a fetched stick.
How delicious she is. How obedient, Kali purred into their shared thoughts.
Shut up. She's my friend, Sophie snapped back.
She looks more like a puppy to me.
Sophie stroked the crown of Aliya's head before she knew she had done it.
"Good girl."
Aliya let her eyes fall shut and swayed her hips. Sophie snatched her hand back as if scalded.
She is not a puppy.
As you say.
"We can't tell you yet," Jean cut in. "The case is unique. I'm preparing a report for the Capitulum as we speak, and we will get to the bottom of it ourselves."
"Devil take you, Dantes. Because of you my daughter will be some specimen for the Capitulum and the academy to poke at. I won't allow it."
"And what will you do, Father? Buy the Capitulum? Lock me in the cellar? What will you do against a thing you can't even understand?"
"Understand?" Felix's smile came out crooked. "Dantes has studied pacts all his life, and I don't see him understanding much more than I do. If a thing can be made to obey, there's no need to understand it. True power comes from practice. Do you know how to make them obey, Dantes?"
Hilda ground the wasabi and leaned in close as she served it. Clean female sweat and rose-water, the same as the plates wore.
"Careful, Master Dantes," she cooed. "The wasabi is very hot. I do hope you have the restraint for it..."
Before the thought could form, Jean had her hair gathered into his fist and pulled back, tipping her head toward the ceiling. Hilda moaned, eyes rolling, and hung her whole weight slack in his grip. She arched her white throat, the pulse hammering under the skin.
"You will serve me every piece with your lips, so that I don't burn myself."
"Yes, master."
He opened his fingers one at a time. Hilda straightened. Four heartbeats on the inhale, four on the exhale. Breathing by the count did less than his teachers had promised. The hot coal in the pit of his stomach sat where it was and had no plans to leave.
Felix watched it all through a satisfied squint, stroking Olga's thigh.
Hilda kept her word. She would pinch a slice of fish between her lips and bend to his mouth. Cold sashimi, warm lips, burning wasabi.
Aiko meanwhile knelt at her mistress's armrest and presented the chopsticks, raised above her bowed head in both hands.
"Such a diligent girl." Izabella drew a finger along Aiko's chin. "Perhaps I should take you away from Papa?"
"As you command, mistress."
"Daughter, how could you?" Felix wagged a finger. "You know what Papa does with traitors. Tonight we'll have a talk at the kennels."
Aiko swallowed without raising her head.
"Oh, how petty you are," Izabella said.
"My dear, why use her so?"
"She earned Papa his points. Let her learn not to disappoint Mama."
Olga laid the last slice on the ice after the others had already stepped back from the table. She lowered the knife and let her shoulders drop, knowing the verdict in advance.
"And you, our little Olga, have my thanks," Izabella went on. "This round is mine, and I owe it to you."
"Daughters, you have upset your Papa badly," Felix said. "Those skirts make you so slow. Take them off. Perhaps that will quicken you."
Olga and Aiko unfastened their skirts and stepped out of the fallen cloth. Only the starched aprons remained, white bibs over bare skin.
"Well then, daughters. The final round." Izabella looked over the subdued girls.
"I dread to think what you've devised." Felix narrowed his eyes. "Going to set them alight?"
"Darling, what do you take me for?"
"Benjamin Rosen's heiress."
"Fair." Izabella's mouth curved. "But no. Tonight I only want a drink and a little rest among family. Surely our daughters can serve us two cups of cherry cordial apiece. Pour to the brim. Stand with the tray and your head bowed, as befits the well-raised, respectful daughters of a house. Spill one drop and you're out."
"Oh, now this I like." Felix brightened. "Are you playing into my hand?"
"You wish."
"They could be standing a very long time, though," Jean observed.
"I'm sure we'll think of a way to hurry things along," Felix replied.
The servants filled dark cherry cordial to the very rims of the chocolate-shell cups, and the four girls bent into a half-bow, trays held out before them. The room smelled of cherry and bitter stone.
All four players took a cup. Izabella drank from hers, then moved the crystal decanter from the table onto Aiko's tray. The girl trembled under the weight from wrists to shoulders and came within a hair of spilling.
"Jean..." All the salon bronze went out of Izabella's voice. "I know there is a great deal unsaid between us. But Sophie is my daughter. You understand? You're taking her. From me. From the house. From everything I built for her."
"Mama, no one is taking me. I'm right here."
"You don't understand what you're losing. All of this could have been yours."
"You have nothing that I need."
Izabella turned away, took the decanter from Aiko's tray without a word, and set it back on the table.
Aliya stood before Sophie in a flawless half-bow, tray on her extended right arm. Sophie studied her over the rim of her cup, lips together, and that silence shook Aliya harder than the decanter had shaken Aiko.
The silence was what broke her. With her free hand Aliya drew out her own nipple, twisted, and let go. A red stain bloomed on the pale breast. The cordial swayed to the very edge of the cup and did not spill a single drop. She whimpered, looking up at Sophie with wet eyes.
"Forgive my weakness, mistress... I am not worthy even of your gaze..."
Before she could catch herself, Sophie had leaned forward and taken the servant's chin between two fingers.
"Not worthy?" She tipped her friend's face up by the chin. "Who gave you leave to punish yourself, Aliya? Your pain belongs to me."
Why does she have to be so delicious?
Felix snapped his fingers and sat Olga on his lap, facing the table. With a proprietor's ease the Baron unfastened her apron, palmed her belly, and slid his fingers between her legs. Olga was breathing through her mouth now, but she bit back every sound. Her skin gave her away. Heat flooded down her neck to her chest, and her ears went scarlet. Staring straight ahead, she held the tray, not daring to stir, and only the cup answered the master's movements in fine cherry ripples.
"A duel, Dantes." Felix worked his fingers evenly, a banker counting coins. "Let's test your practice. If you win, I acknowledge you as an equal. I recognise Sophie's right to choose. I never interfere again. And if you lose, you admit the pact was a mistake. She comes home and marries the one we choose."
Olga arched. A moan tore through her bitten lip, her hips beat in short spasms, wet gleamed on the inner thigh. She came in silence, and never spilled a drop.
"See?" Felix raised his wet fingers. "True power."
Hilda sighed with boredom, considering Jean over her tray.
"My lord. And here I had taken you for a true nobleman. One who knows how to command."
The bond coated his mind like a swallow of ginjinha on an empty stomach.
Jean rose and took her by the throat, tightening until her moan broke into a rasp. With his free hand he dealt her a ringing slap. Then another. And another. The tray listed, cordial licking at the rim of the cup, her buttocks ripening raspberry-red under his palm, and Hilda no longer held her moans back but filled the whole room with them.
"Yes, my lord!"
Sophie released Aliya, came up behind Jean, and wound her arms around him, pulling him out of the drunkenness. Soft arms crossed over his chest. A familiar body pressed against his back, breath warming his ear. He went still, hand raised for the next slap, and never brought it down.
Sophie reached past him, took the second cup from Hilda's tray and drained it at a swallow, putting the servant out of the game in one stroke.
"Play with me instead," she whispered at his ear. "Let's make them fume."
She sat him back down on his chair and settled onto his lap, the way Olga sat on her father.
"Sophia!" Izabella breathed.
Sophie turned halfway, and their eyes met. Jean lifted a peach from the collarbone of the nearest plate-girl and brought it to Sophie's lips, his fingers grazing the lower one.
"Bite."
She obeyed. Juice burst and ran down her chin, down her throat, into the hollow between her breasts. She gathered it on her fingers and licked them clean, looking straight at her father.
"What are you..." Felix began.
"What am I doing? I can play too." She tipped the back of her head onto Jean's shoulder. "And I chose who to play with." Sophie laughed. "Mama was just tormenting Aiko. You're sitting with your hand inside Olga. And I? I haven't even started."
You could hear the ice melting on the living porcelain.
"I am playing the same game, Papa. I just picked the other side."
Felix wrenched the trembling, wet, flushed Olga off his lap and stood.
Astarte, behind him, had shrunk into a knot, pressing himself into the strip of wall between the windows. Kali gave him a lazy flash of teeth, and the demon screwed his eyes shut and drew his head into his shoulders.
"Enough!" The Baron had gone hoarse. "A duel!"
A purr rolled through Jean's and Sophie's heads:
So proud. Such an important little boy.
Sophie squeezed Jean's hand. He felt the tremor in it and pulled her closer.
"You're a wonder," he whispered in her ear. "My turn now."
She nodded.
"Rules!" Felix squared his shoulders. "The serving girls pleasure us with their mouths. The familiars fight. First one to finish loses!"
Astarte stepped forward with the confidence of a veteran. Gold rang against gold. He drew taut as a bowstring and dropped into a fighting stance.
Kali rose from the table with the unhurried air of a grown cat invited to chase a ball of string.
"I threw down the challenge," Felix declared, "so you choose which of the girls shall caress me."
"Darling, you pick." Jean addressed Sophie, needling Felix. "After all, it's our first time in public."
"Olga, Aliya, step forward," Sophie played along. She picked her father's favourites.
"My dear, do me the honour as well," Felix refused to be outdone.
"Hilda and Aiko, then." Izabella gave in, swept up in the collective fever.