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is why I need you here. I'm sure you understand, now that I've made it perfectly clear.”
    Julia flicked her brass tongue. Her scales seemed to quiver, though the air was perfectly still.
    “What I see,” she said, “is what you'd have me believe. What I'm thinking, is that while I am truly invaluable and superior to fleshly creatures in every way, Letitia is intelligent, resourceful, and completely capable of taking care of herself. You have left her alone before, and never mentioned any great concern. What greater threat do you feel is lurking about Ulster-East now?”
    “You weren't there, or you wouldn't ask.”
    “Wouldn't ask what?”
    “The Prince. Aghen Aghenfleck. His eyes drank her in, Julia. Tasted her with his filthy gaze, as if she were some fine exotic wine brought to court for his pleasure. ‘I will speak to you more, my dear, at a later time,’ he tells her. ‘You could help me learn much of the Mycer folk,’ he said.”
    “Surely a creature like the Prince befouls every female he looks upon,” Julia said.
    In spite of a warming breeze, Finn felt a sudden chill. “Surely indeed. And many get more than a glance, and have no wits about them when the Prince has filled his needs. That will not happen to Letitia Louise. And, if I'mnot thinking better on this on the morrow, I'll not take this damned mission at all. I will take you and Letitia and leave behind everything I've worked for here, and flee to some other land.”
    “And where would that be?” asked Julia Jessica Slagg. “Where are the kings and princes wise? Where are the nobles truly noble, Finn?”
    Finn, gazing off into the darkness of the night, had no ready answer for that. …

 

NINE
     
    I NDEED, AS JULIA HAD SAID, LETITIA WAS DEEP IN peaceful sleep when Finn finally cast his thoughts aside and quietly joined her in the small bedchamber above The Lizard Shoppe.
    Slipping out of his clothes, he snuffed the single candle and slipped in beside her in the dark.
    As ever, Finn was awed by the touch, by the presence, by the magic of this lovely creature who shared his bed and brought joy to his life.
Fate
, he thought, not for the first time,
bestows its wonders in ways no mortal can comprehend.
Less than a year had passed since Letitia had come into his home as housekeeper and cook, someone to do those tasks that needed doing while he spent long hours pursuing his craft.
    It was clear, when he hired her, that she was a most attractive Newlie, a charming Mycer girl with dark, iridescent eyes, small, but pouty lips, and a rather pointy nose that turned up nicely at the tip. Her ears rose to delicate points beneath her ashen hair, and her skin had the soft, downy texture of her kind.
    All these qualities he noticed, but cast them in a corner of his mind for the time, most of his head being crammed, jammed with thoughts of silver wheels that whined and hummed, golden wires thin as gnat whiskers, tiny cogs and gears, and gems no bigger than poppy seeds.
    Then, on a day much like the one before that, when a lizard that peeled potatoes didn't seem to work at all, he suddenly looked up and saw her standing there, holding a cup of clover tea.
    Finn was struck dumb at the sight, dazzled by her opalescent eyes, eyes that seemed immersed in dark and fragrant oil. Stunned by the way every beam of sunlight shimmered in her hair.
    That moment of wonder passed; nothing was said or done, nothing for a time. Letitia, though, felt a flush at Finn's glance that began at her toes and nearly exploded through the top of her head. For she had fallen for him the instant she walked into his house—and, until that moment, was sure he'd seldom looked at her twice.
    Misadventure and dread, fearsome times kept further declarations at bay. But, as fortune would have it, these dire events seemed to bring them closer still, and, finally, toss them into one another's arms, and they had seldom been far from one another since
    H OW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?” FINN