“Deny it all you like, but those two have already proven their value,” Reina said. “What have you contributed so far?”
“What have you?” Parisa snapped. “You’re an academic. You can be an academic with or without the Society.”
Whereas Parisa was the oldest type of working woman in the book.
“Oh, very nice,” Parisa said, hearing Reina’s not-so-carefully concealed distaste. “You think that’s what this is? I’m some sort of gold-digging succubus and now you’re going to drag me before the magistrates?”
“‘Succubus’ is more flattering than the word I had in mind,” said Reina.
Parisa rolled her eyes.
“Look, I can see—even if you can’t—that you think you ought to feel sorry for me. It’s nice of you. And totally unnecessary.” Parisa’s mouth tightened. “Callum is not punishing me. He’s trying to beat me, but he won’t. And you might wonder who you should choose between us, but I can tell you right now: if you knew what I know, you’d choose me over him every time.”
“Then why not tell us what you know?” Reina demanded, only half-believing her. “If you hate him so much.”
“I don’t hate him. I feel nothing toward him. And if you knew what was good for you, so would you,” Parisa warned, as the potted Calathea in the corner shivered prophetically. “Now, are we done here?”
Yes. No. In a way, Reina had gotten exactly what she’d come for. Parisa was pursuing Dalton; confirmed. Parisa had something against Callum; confirmed. The ‘why’ of it all remained a bit distressing.
Unfortunately, Parisa could see as much.
“You know why you don’t understand me?” Parisa answered Reina’s thoughts, stepping closer to lower her voice. “Because you think you’ve figured me out. You think you’ve met me before, other versions of women like me, but you have no idea what I am. You think my looks are what make me? My ambitions? You can’t begin to know the sum of my parts, and you can stare all you like, but you won’t see a damn thing until I show you.”
It would be too easy to argue. It would be precisely what she wanted.
Not that silence was any different; Parisa looked unduly satisfied.
“Don’t envy me, Reina,” she advised softly, turning to say it in Reina’s ear. “Fear me.”
Then she made her way down the corridor, disappearing from sight.
PARISA
SHE COULD ALWAYS TELL where he was in the house. For one thing, there were huge amounts of magic around him; knots of it, tangled, and they seemed to arise in bursts, like flames. For another, his thoughts were less guarded when he was working, owing to the fact that he typically worked alone. He was very often alone, unless he was walking the grounds with Atlas or instructing the six of them in some way, or if he were working with Society members who came in for special projects.
At night he slept very little; she could hear his thoughts buzzing, localizing around something she couldn’t identify from far away, until she recognized the sound of something unmistakable.
Parisa.
Why sex? Because it was so easily emotionless, uncomplicated, primal. A straightforward return on baser urges. Because thoughts, however malformed or misshapen they might become in the heat of the act, could not be so readily protected during something so chemical, and they certainly did not disappear. Good sex was never mindless; it merely meant concentration was elsewhere, not gone. Parisa knew her craft well enough to know that, and thus, she knew she’d succeeded the first time she kissed him, slipping something in the latch of his thoughts so she’d always be invited in.
She’d kept her distance afterwards, but the summer had been long enough for him to wonder. He was thinking increasingly about her, and she’d already visualized him enough in private to know which places she wanted to touch first; where she planned to put her lips, her hands, her teeth. She had given him the thrill of her presence; leaning over when he gestured to something, filling his atmosphere with her perfume.
He knew the contents of her file, just like he knew the others. He knew her skill set, her history. Which meant that he knew the touch of her hand, brushing his when she passed him on the stairs or in the hall, was only the surface of an unimaginable depth. Once, she poured herself a glass and sat in his presence across the room, unmoving. Saying nothing. Bringing some champagne to her lips, letting it settle across the bed of her tongue. She had felt the vibration of his thoughts, the tension between them, which kept him from concentration. He read the same sentence eighteen times.