Chapter 7: Rule Three

"Is this normal?" Idris asked the roof of the car.

Nobody had a good answer.

His skin burned.

His clothes were unbearable.

Every breath he took came out smelling of honey.

The Marshal's body, on the seat beside him, had taken hold of the door handle so hard the metal groaned.

The shade had appeared in the facing seat and sat very straight, his hands flat on his knees.

"I've never seen one before," the shade said, and his voice shook. "A heat. I was at war my whole adult life."

"I'm twenty," Idris said. "I've been a cultivator and a Beta. I've never done this."

"Done what?"

"Any of it. I'm a virgin in two lives."

He pressed the back of his wrist to his forehead, and the wrist was hot.

"It's a very clean record, and I'm furious about it."

The shade made a small strangled sound.

"So am I," he said. "I'm twenty-nine. I'm also a virgin. Say nothing."

"I wasn't going to."

"Your face was."

The car turned in at the Marshal's town house on the hill above the river.

Idris was out of it before the wheels stopped, and halfway up the steps before his knees went.

A hand caught him.

It was cold and enormous and steady, and it belonged to the body.

The body picked him up.

Idris yelped and grabbed the black collar with both fists.

"I can walk," he said.

"No," said the body.

It carried him up the stairs and through a dark hall into a room with a tall bed and a lamp.

It set him down on the edge of the mattress with care.

Then it stood back, hands shaking, jaw tight.

The shade stood beside it.

For the first time Idris saw the two of them side by side, the full body and the pale thin outline.

They trembled the same way.

"Leave," said the shade. "I'll go. I'll stand in the hall. This is not a thing a man does to a man who hasn't asked."

"I'm asking," Idris said.

Both Dains went completely still.

"That wasn't very clear," Idris added.

His teeth were starting to chatter.

"I'm asking you to stay. Both of you, one of you, I'm not choosy. I can't think. Come here."

He held out his hand.

The body crossed the floor in two strides and took it.

As the cold palm closed on his hot one, the shade stepped forward too and put a hand over theirs.

Light ran up Idris's arm.

It was gold, and it came from under his navel.

It ran through his wrist and into the hand he held and went on, up the Marshal's arm and into his chest.

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