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“My heartsickness will be absolute if I am not invited to the pre-sale, my lying, squirming, toad-like little brother,” the other added, softer. “You had not thought to cut me out of this one, had you, my slippery, greasy, and small-cocked friend? To keep some of your shiny new toys for yourself? Or perhaps to bump them off the roster altogether, so you might sell them at inflated prices to private traders outside our sun-kissed and sand-covered paradise?”

The robed seer smiled through the virtual transmission, his smile twitching only slightly as he felt the darting angles of the other male’s light.

“I looked for the names you gave me, brother,” Efrail said, smiling wider, so it hurt his face. “I lookedverycarefully, my venerated and most clever of brothers. I promise you, I saw none of those for whom you expressed an interest. So I did not think there would be any inventory at this time that would interest you. I did not wish to waste your time, given how dull and monotonous such trading can be, not without?”

“Yet you are having a pre-sale, are you not?” the seer said.

That time, the smile did not touch his full lips, even in avatar form.

Feeling the warning there, Efrail swallowed, his saliva catching on some denser area in his throat. He nodded, his head jerking as if on puppet’s strings.

“I am. There was another item. I did not think it would interest you, my brother?”

“I will send my buyer,” the seer said over the line.

“Are you certain, sir? It is more of a… well, a recreational purchase, my friend. Likely mundane in your eyes, given what you normally have access to, in your line of work. No infiltration skills at all. She is purely a bauble, if a pretty one.”

The other scarcely seemed to hear him.

“Do not begin the bidding before my man arrives. I will be most displeased with you, brother Efrail, if you do.”

The trader opened his mouth to answer, still fighting to find words?

But the line had already gone dead.

The presence of Dalcius Dontan dissipated like smoke.

Efrail’s hand trembled violently as he removed his earpiece, setting it on a glass table.

He gazed out through his balcony doors, the gold walls and furniture of his enclosed porch awash in morning sun. Despite the serenity of the view, he couldn’t help thinking he should leave this place soon?before he ended up as clothing for Dalcius Dontan, as well.

* * *

Revik stood in a cavernous,dimly-lit room. It felt like a converted livestock barn, but lived underground, with low ceilings and black-painted walls.

The space appeared to stretch for half an acre underground, and smelled of smoke, sweat and stale alcohol, along with a faint breath of urine and stale food.

He folded his arms, gazing over a sea of heads, most of their owners facing the opposite direction. Given where he was, that meant a few hundred head-coverings, significantly fewer bared heads and a lot fewer visible faces.

He knew his light was growing increasingly erratic. He concentrated at least half of his awareness on keeping hisaleimiunder control, to keep it from being conspicuous inside the construct. He’d be no good to her at all if he let himself get picked up.

“We’ve been here too long,” Stanley said.

The other male stood at his right, holding his hands together in a nervous clench in front of his lean body. His dark eyes shifted from the stage, looking out over at the same sea of heads Revik had just been surveying.

He gave Revik an anxious look, his gaze shifting away a bare second later, as though he felt something on Revik’s light when he looked at him.

“We have been here too long,” he muttered, softer.

Revik agreed.

He stood slightly behind the rest of them, using the bare fact of their physicality to keep his light separate from the rest of the room. He knew there was a risk he could lose control for real. He felt torn between hoping no one would be stupid enough to get in his way if that happened, and hoping they would find some way to stop him if it did.

If he got picked up, he would be useless to her.

The thought repeated, keeping him strangely calm.

He would be useless to her. He would be useless to Lily. Worse, Allie would come after him. She’d probably get herself killed coming after him, and then all three of them would be dead. She might be perfectly safe, wherever she was. His wife was a good operative, one of the best they had. He needed to trust her.