He was silent for several moments, sipping tea and studying her. “That was a lie.”
“Was it? Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve only lied once, just now. Or maybe I’ve lied several times. Or I might have spoken the truth, but as the elves do, misdirecting you. Or I might still be suffering from enough anxiety about the pain ants that you can’t be sure when I’m telling the truth, because my heart rate shoots up every time I think you might use them on me again.” That much was true, and Kongqi couldn’t smell a lie the way Rule did. He had to be relying on things like heart rate.
Another long pause. “I am considering offering you an exchange of information. Alice has found that to be a relatively simple way to learn what she wishes from your compatriot. She can easily determine if she receives fair value, however. Either a spell works or it does not. I cannot subject what you tell me to such a ready test, and humans do not hold their pledges sacred.”
Was that why they’d started by talking about integrity? To give him some idea of whether she’d honor a deal? “I am human. I’m also xi qi and a member of the Nokolai Clan of lupi. Lupi consider their pledged word inviolable.”
“You are not lupi.”
“And yet I am a member of a lupi clan.”
“Are you saying you consider your pledged word inviolable?”
“My saying so would not prove it was true, would it?” Her tea was cold. She drank some anyway and thought. “If we did make a deal, we’d have to agree to limits on what I’m obliged to tell you. There are things that I cannot, in honor, reveal. What do you propose to offer me in return for information about dragons?”
“First you must give me your word you will not reveal my proposed deal to anyone.”
She didn’t have to think long before shaking her head. “That won’t work for me. Too all-encompassing.”
He shrugged. “Then we cannot make a deal. I do not wish my brothers to know I am considering revealing this information to you.”
“I could promise not to reveal it to anyone who was born in this realm.”
He considered that. “That will work, with the proper wording, as long as you exact a similar promise from any to whom you reveal this information.”
He went on to suggest specific wording. Lily considered it, decided it said exactly what it seemed to, and used it. “You have my word that I will not reveal to anyone born in this realm the terms or existence of the deal you are about to propose. Before I reveal anything regarding this deal to someone not born in this realm, that person must give me the same promise.”
“Very well. In exchange for learning all you can tell me about the sentient dragons, I will tell you why the lupi children were taken.”
Lily’s breath caught and held. After a second she exhaled. No point in pretending he didn’t have her full attention. “Let us discuss this further.”
THIRTEEN
BY the time Lily stepped back outside the Home of the Seven, her arm had gone from bad sunburn to mad itching to an aggrieved tenderness, a neural shout of “Don’t touch me.” The day had turned to dusk, a dimming due to weather as well as the hour. The sky was a furrowed mat of gunmetal clouds.
She and Kongqi had discussed the hell out of their deal. There’d been plenty to hammer out, but the hardest part turned out to hinge on the definition of the word “captive.”
They had, with difficulty, agreed on the basic terms before hitting that hitch. She didn’t have to reveal everything she knew about dragons, but she would answer his questions honestly and as fully as honor allowed. As far as Lily was concerned, honor required her to hide all kinds of shit from an enemy. She did not mention this. In return, he would tell her why the children had been taken—and it had to be real information, not just “because the Great Bitch ordered it.” To guarantee that, he would go first. Today and every time she was brought to him for questions, he would go first, answering a single question from her.
It was a badly lopsided deal—one question for her, multiple questions for him—but the best she could get. She’d agreed in principle, then told him they needed a clause that vacated their deal if she freed herself. She wasn’t going to consider herself honor-bound to remain his prisoner so she could fulfill their deal.
At first he was amused, then annoyed when she insisted. She’d pointed out that if he handed her over to the Great Bitch like he planned, she’d no longer be able to fulfill their deal. Death, he said, voided all deals. And yet, she’d said, neither of them knew how long she might be the Great Bitch’s prisoner before her Enemy got around to brain-wiping her. He’d drummed his fingers, an oddly human action. Very well, he said. The deal would cover only the time period in which she was his captive.
That’s when they started trying to define “captive.”
The meaning seemed obvious. Captives were people who’d been captured. But a few seconds’ thought told her she couldn’t use that definition or she’d be a captive forever. She’d been captured; she couldn’t go back in time and uncapture herself. She’d suggested it meant that he controlled her movements. He rejected that on the grounds that it would allow her to declare their deal void if he failed to direct her every movement. It was simple enough, he’d said, looking bored. Being his captive meant she was under his control. She’d snorted. If he controlled her, why did he have to negotiate a deal to get what he wanted?
That had pissed him off. She’d thought he was about to forget about not damaging her. Instead he’d told her coldly that he wished to eat, and he’d summoned Fang.
The Fist Second had tied Lily’s hands and escorted her to the waiting room where she’d been taken before. The spawn, he told her, did not dine with others, but he would see that lunch was brought to her. This time the small room hadn’t been empty. An old couple, very finely dressed, sat on one of the benches. They were accompanied by a young woman whose clothing suggested she was a servant rather than a daughter or granddaughter. All three had looked dismayed by her.
A servant had brought her meal on a small, lacquered tray, complete with more tea, chopsticks, and a damp napkin. This time she’d gotten a version of fried rice with fresh vegetables, not pickled, and meat—a small roasted bird of some sort, sticky with a sweet glaze. Pigeon, maybe, or some kind of fowl that didn’t exist on Earth. Fang had untied her hands long enough for her to eat. The food was a lot better than what she’d gotten at the Court of Heavenly Justice, and when Fang took her back to Kongqi’s lab—which he called a workroom—the spawn had gotten over his snit. He’d proposed a definition she could accept. Lily could consider herself no longer his captive when it was clear to any reasonable person that he could neither have her confined nor order her freed. With that settled, they’d formally agreed to the terms.