If he is smart, he will run. He is not.

A kiss for luck, demoiselle?" It is a magnificent, lusty kiss and I feel nothing but deep regret that it may be his last. Just before he pulls away, he whispers in my ear. "Duval said to give you that should I get a chance. It is from him.

When one consorts with assassins, one must expect to dance along the edge of a knife once or twice.

It is this kindness of his that unsettles me most. I can dodge a blow or block a knife. I am impervious to poison and know a dozen ways to escape a chokehold or garrote wire. But kindness? I do not know how to defend against that.

And so it is with us; we serve as handmaidens to Death. When we are guided by His will, killing is a sacrament.

Perhaps that is because you mistake death for justice, and they are not the same thing at all.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that if Duval ever feels smothered by me, it will be because I am holding a pillow over his face.