“Oh, what has possessedme, asks the man who’s spent the evening in the hands of the enchanting harlot who has you calling himya majid,ya habibi—ya sahir, even, with a cat’s charm and an alley tom’s sex drive?—”
“Kamil, that is more than enough!You shame us both!”
“Please,” Ashar said, a little wretchedly. “We began this dance on badly unbalanced footing. Please, let’s all sit down, have a cup of chai, smooth out the bristling?”
Kamil ignored Ashar as thoroughly as he’d ignored Rahat earlier. He was very much of the catfolk. “I’ll admit his courage in facing down something like me for your sake, if you’ll admit what a ridiculously terrible idea it was to run off into the arms of a harlot in some perfumed brothel without so much as a word.”
“You callya majida harlot one more time and?—”
“Ya rahati, he’s not entirely wrong,” Ashar told him with a rueful smile. “I am a man of several trades. One of which is meant to be chai and soothing conversation. Emphasis very much on thesoothing.”
He knelt beside the chai pot to rewarm it with his heart’s fire, then poured two cups to offer with hopeful eyes. It was his own masala-chai blend, redolent of cardamom and ginger and scented with rosewater to complement therahat al-hulqum, and Ashar often thought it nearly as effective at charming patrons as his own enchantments.
Rahat accepted his cup with pointed grace, settling into the pillow-nest and sipping at his chai.
Kamil enclosed Ashar’s entire hand in a massive claw-tipped grasp, prickling firmly enough to make it clear that he could have removed the hand any time he pleased, before taking the cup and lapping at it. He raised his brows at the cream-rich taste.
“I am somewhat familiar with the tastes of catfolk,” Ashar admitted. He poured himself a cup taken from a mismatched set, but he wasn’t about to turn his back on the God-Emperor’s third brother in order to search for another set.
Rahat gave Kamil a glare that might have been more effective if he hadn’t had the sweet soft eyes of a gazelle, and if Kamil hadn’t plainly learned immunity to his master’s looks long ago. Still, with the air of a great lion indulging a cub’s scampering whims, Kamil folded himself onto the next pillow and tucked his tail neatly around his feet, lapping at the cream-rich chai.
“Apologize,” Rahat said.
“You somehow fail to grasp that I am doing my job, ‘ya rahati.’”
“You didn’t need to kill his familiar!”
“I might haveknownthat if you’d told me where you were going!”
“It is not my faultyou chose?—”
“It isentirelyyour fault,” Kamil said sharply. “I am only here because you came here without telling me where you went. If you’d brought me at your side and introduced me like a civilized being, I would never have needed to hunt your scent through a filthy—your pardon,ya rafiq— through afragrantmaze of alleys, to a ‘bath-house’ with mage-wards on barred windows, whereI thought you were imprisoned under duress.”
Rahat buried his face in both hands, muttering a muffled prayer or curse behind their shelter, and then glanced anxiously at Ashar. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to suffer for your kindness to me.”
“Nehal will sulk for a bit, but he’ll forgive me eventually,” Ashar said. “The sooner I can call him back, the less he’ll grumble.”
“Then please, call him now,” Rahat said, touching Ashar’s hand.
“We can just go, and leave the bath-whore to his business?—”
“Kamil,” Rahat snapped. “You’ve wounded this man and the protections upon his home, and you slander him at every turn, even seeing the lengths to which he would go in my defense. No.”
“‘Whore’ isn’t slander if it’s a statement of fact,” Kamil said, whiskers twitching.
“You can speak of him with respect! Admit that you were taken off guard by a gentleman of the evening, and apologize.”
With a mocking bow of the head, Kamil rumbled, “I apologize that my master considers your whoring an insult to call by its name,ya rafiq.”
“Kamil!”Running both hands over his face, Rahat said, “And you wonder why I didn’t want to bring you in the first place!Ya majid, I am so deeply sorry.”
“What do you want?” Ashar asked softly.
“I want him to?—”
Ashar touched a finger to Rahat’s lip, shaking his head. “Ya rahati, what do you want foryourself?”
Rahat shut his eyes tight and said in a very small voice, “I don’t want the night to be over. Not just yet. You… you said I could stay, if I wished, and…”
