God's Teeth,' he says. 'I was only trying to wake you. You were crying out in your sleep.' 'I was not,' I say, then look from his neck to my knife. 'When I tried to wake you, you stabbed me.' He sounds sore put out. and I cannot blame him.

The maids in my village talked of falling in love with a man at first sight. That has always seemed naught but foolishness to me. Until I enter Sister Serafina's workshop. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, full of strange sights and smells, and I tumble headlong into love.

I am sorry,' he whispers. 'I am sorry I treated you so ill. I thought only to protect Duval.' 'It was not I who was poisoning him,' I say. 'No, but you had stolen his heart and I was afraid you would rip it from his chest when you left.

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.

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

It is all we have left to us. And while it is more than I ever dared dream, it is nowhere near enough.

I am beginning to think that love itself is never wrong. It is what love can drive people to do that is the problem.