On Giedi Prime, a captured Paul considers his enemies and his allies.
His secrets were collateral. They were a contract, a promise that he would not go back on his word. Her flesh, his soul: when she knew things that not even the King knew, things that could ruin him, they became equal.
No inch of his bared skin is a revelation to Tang Fan, but stripping before him still feels like an unveiling, marital. A deification of the profane.
Young Feyd is accustomed to being wanted. Piter is profoundly uninterested.
He knows Napoleon is watching Gaby, just as he knows Gaby's looking right back. What he doesn't realize is that they're both looking at him.
All too late / all too late.
Diarmuid and the mute make a bed in the wilderness.
They haven't really talked about what's going on between them, except this morning while Jiang Cheng was eating breakfast and Wei Wuxian was lying on the sofa with his arm over his eyes, Wei Wuxian said, "Are you going to be weird about it if I hold your hand in front of our friends?"
Jiang Cheng chewed his youtiao.
"Just let me know," Wei Wuxian said. "It's chill."
Oh, Jiang Cheng knew very well that it was not chill. But he wasn't like Wei Wuxian; he couldn't just do<…
They haven't really talked about what's going on between them, except this morning while Jiang Cheng was eating breakfast and Wei Wuxian was lying on the sofa with his arm over his eyes, Wei Wuxian said, "Are you going to be weird about it if I hold your hand in front of our friends?"
Jiang Cheng chewed his youtiao.
"Just let me know," Wei Wuxian said. "It's chill."
Oh, Jiang Cheng knew very well that it was not chill. But he wasn't like Wei Wuxian; he couldn't just do things like that, like it was nothing. Wei Wuxian could name his sword—gleaming now on the rack above his head—Suibian, he could do whatever he wanted. He got all the curses and the blessings of being always inside and outside the Jiangs, and Jiang Cheng got everything else.
"You can hold my hand," Jiang Cheng said after he swallowed, feeling like he'd just walked over a bed of hot coals.
Spóglia: a spoiling, a robbing, a stripping. Also a raiment, a clothing or weede. Also a mans mortall vaile or bodie. Also the skinne that any Serpent or Snake leaues off. Also a coffin of paste made for a Pie, a Tarte, or a Custard. Also any pillage, praie, bootie, prize, reprisall or spoile taken from an enemie. Also the outward skinne of any thing.
The good news is that it provides some much-needed confirmation, alongside further clarity: they now know the trick and the twist as to how their current suspect is orchestrating a rather elaborate extortion scheme. The bad news is that Sui Zhou is poisoned.