She crooked a finger, beckoning him close again. "Your Riddler wants me to seize control of your PFLS. He thinks I can shape it into an adequate defense force to replace his Stepsons and the 3rd Commando when he leads them out of Sanctuary."

A hint of red colored Zip's cheeks. He straightened, took a step away from her. "You play dangerous games, Rankan." His eyes glinted. "So you'll just take over? You think it's that easy?" He chuckled at her.

She threw a fist at his face. Zip raised an arm to block it. But her move was only a feint. Chenaya caught his rising arm at the elbow, tugged, and kicked his foot when he tried to catch his balance. Zip fell heavily, stunned. She straddled him, sat on his chest, and brought one of her boot daggers to rest at his throat.

Then, she smiled at Zip, and suddenly her lips crushed down on his. There was power in her kiss; it didn't surprise her at all when he began to return it. She sat up, wiped her mouth, grinning.

"Just that easy. Zip, my love," she told him. "And Tempus knows it. That's why he approached me." She tangled her hand through his hair and kissed him again.

When she sat up, the point of her blade flashed downward to bite deeply into the boards near Zip's ear. She left it quivering there while she loosened the laces at the neck of his dirty tunic. "But I'm not interested in running your little social club," she whispered, "and what Tempus wants is unimportant." She dragged her nails teasingly over the exposed portion of his chest. "However, I have some proposals of my own. Would you like to hear them?"

His eyes reflected so much: uncertainty, defiance, curiosity, lust-all half hidden behind a facade of nonchalance. Zip drew a breath. "Get the frog off of me." The knife was still there by his ear. He could have gone for it-his eyes slid that way-but he didn't.

She patted his cheek. "Soon, lover, when we have an agreement. But right now. Mama Becho is going to bring us a couple more drinks, right. Mama?"

The old proprietor said nothing, but waddled over with two mugs of bad wine. It was too far for her to bend over and place them on the floor, so Chenaya reached up to accept them. Mama Becho grumbled incoherently and backed away.

"I'm supposed to drink from here?" Zip asked caustically.

Chenaya moved one of the mugs near to his head, dipped a finger in it, and held it to his lips. After a moment's hesitation, Zip's tongue poked out and licked away the red droplets, their gazes remaining locked all the while.

"I know the funds from your Nisi supporters have dried up lately." Chenaya dipped her finger again and held it for him to suck. "The PFLS needs money, like any group, and I've got plenty of that. We've also got mutual enemies, so it's only natural that we should join our efforts." She paused long enough to swallow a draught from her own cup. "You want to free Sanctuary from the Rankans and Beysibs." She tapped his chest. "I want to drive out the Beysibs, too. But it looks like I've got to get rid of a Rankan to do that."

One of Zip's men slipped through the door and made a move toward his leader. A throwing star flashed briefly through a random sunbeam that spilled through a crack in the ceiling and thunked into the wall. The man leaped back. Chenaya clucked her tongue and wagged her finger, and he leaned uncomfortably against the doorjamb.

"Kadakithis?" Zip guessed. "But isn't he your cousin?"

She spat. "He's going to marry that fish-eyed slut, Shupan-sea, in defiance of Rankan law. Bad enough that he allowed them to land here without a fight. Bad enough that he beds the silly carp. But to marry one? To make her part of the royal family, a princess of Ranke?" She spat again. "Blood is only so thick, lover."

"I'd 'preciate it if ye'd stop that," Mama Becho snapped. "Someone's gotter mop up when yer gone now."

Zip shifted beneath her, locking his hands together behind his head, an arm cocked around her dagger. He tried to look innocent and almost achieved it. But his face was full of suspicion. "All right, lover," he mocked her. "What you got in mind?"

She pulled the dagger from the floorboards and returned it to her boot, rose, and extended a hand to help Zip to his feet. Unsurprisingly, he declined her offer and got up on his own. He made a show of brushing Mama Becho's dust from his clothing.

"Tomorrow night," she told him, "meet me with as many of your men as you have the entire PFLS-at the old stables near the granaries."

Zip frowned, bent down, and picked up the mug of wine that yet remained on the floor. He turned it in his hands without drinking. "That's right across from the dungeons."

Chenaya taunted him with a nasty grin. "Don't get nervous, Zip. I heard you were a man of action. Well, action is what I'm going to give you." Let him interpret that as he wished, she thought wickedly. "I happen to own the guard who works the Gate of the Gods tomorrow night-he has a very expensive krrf habit-and a word from me will open that passage. It's a very brief run from there to a side entrance into the palace itself." She pushed back her hair with one hand, raised herself from the floor with the other, and poured the last of her own bitter wine down her throat. Her hand opened then, and the earthen mug shattered at her feet.

"Now," she challenged, "you and your playmates can go on butchering helpless shopkeepers and limp-wristed nobles and getting nowhere with your so-called revolution..." She took the cup he'd been fidgeting with, raised it in a silent toast to him, and drained it, too, regarding him over the rim. An instant later it joined the first one in pieces on the floor. "... or the PFLS can at last strike a meaningful blow. What do you say?"

Zip looked thoughtful. "With Kadakithis dead we'd still need some kind of defense for when Theron returns." He scratched his chin, frowning.

"Theron will probably thank you," she pointed out. It was safe to gamble that Zip had never met the usurper, knew nothing of the subtle workings of the old general's mind. Theron wanted Sanctuary for a bastion on Ranke's southern border. Nothing would convince him to release the city from the Empire's iron grip. Not even the execution of the legitimate claimant to the very crown he had stolen.

But Zip wouldn't understand that. He was a fighter, no politician.

"No need for all my men," Zip argued. "A small force- two or three-just enough to sneak in and do the job."

Chenaya stepped closer. She was almost as tall as Zip, almost as broad through the shoulders. Again, she inhaled the smell of him and bit her lip. "A small force for the prince and his fish-faced consort," she agreed, nodded her head as a patient teacher might with a dim-witted but struggling pupil. "The rest will take care of every other Beysib in the palace- and anyone else who gets in the way."

Plainly, Zip's thoughts were churning. He glanced at his man by the door. He'd heard every word; eagerness gleamed in his face, though he kept his silence. Zip began to pace back and forth, crushing pottery under his tread. "And the garrison?" he asked. "What about a way out? Armed resistance inside?"

Chenaya scoffed at his endless questions. "Tempus told me you were a man who knew when to act, yet you sound like Molin Torchholder with your endless queries."

Zip shut up, but continued to pace.

"Would you do it with Tempus to lead you?"

He stopped in mid-stride, regarded her through narrowed eyes. Still he said nothing, but questions hung on his lips.

She spat again, but this time for Mama Becho's sake the wad landed squarely on Zip's boot. "I'm everything that Tempus is, lover," she said, grim-voiced, mocking his trepidation. "And more. You don't believe that yet, but you will." She turned her back to him, went to the serving board. To Mama she said, "Got a pair of dice?"