Dangerous Gifts Read Online Free

thing, but apparently I was wrong.”
    “Babylon . We have to do things properly, or what’s the point?”
    “The point is spending money faster than we make it. Look what happened the last time. How many clients do you think we can take on?”
    The knocker boomed. “Speaking of clients...” I said, and went to open the door.
    The doorway was full of furry muscles. I looked up; masses of shaggy hair, moustaches as long as my arm, eyebrows you could lose a dog in.
    “ Flossy! ” Laney sped past me, and caught our visitor by the hand.
    “That is a very disrespectful name,” he complained, as she tugged him into the hall. Well, she pretended to, and he allowed it, despite the complaints.
    “But you’re my own dear Flossy,” Laney said. “Stay and talk to Babylon, darling, I won’t be a moment. I must change.” She sped away up the stairs.
    “Why must she change?” Flosgrim said, frowning. He was wearing embroidered linen trousers with a hole for his tail, and his own tawny fur. That’s practically overdressed, for a Nederan not actually on the battlefield.
    “Beats me,” I said. Laney was, as usual, wearing about two hints and a shimmer; I always had a problem telling the difference between her bedroom clothes and her casual-lounging-around clothes. “Come into the parlour a moment, she won’t be long.”
    Flower was putting out some fresh pastries on the sideboard. “Afternoon,” he said. Flosgrim nodded, a little stiffly. Flower is even bigger than a Nederan, has four-inch tusks, muscles in competition with his other muscles, and some serious battle-scars lacing his smooth green hide – all things a Nederan can respect. But he also wears an apron, and cooks. Very well, as it happens.
    “Anything for you?” I said.
    Flosgrim swallowed and looked away. “No.” I could swear, the bits of his face that weren’t covered in hair were actually blushing. It was almost sweet. I picked up one of the pastries, like a little gold cloud laced with honey, and took a bite just as Laney reappeared. She shook her head at me and led her prize away to her room.
    Flower growled. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”
    “You haven’t been to Nederan, have you?” I said. “Know much about it?”
    “I know they like fighting and very long poems.”
    “Well, you know how the Vessels of Purity regard sex?”
    “Yes?”
    “The Nederans are kind of that way about food. Decent food, anyway.”
    Flower looked at me with horror all over his big tusky face. “What?”
    “Anything that’s too much pleasure to eat is a bit dodgy. Corrupting. They take their food as plain and indigestible as they can get it.”
    “That’s...” Flower shook his head. “No wonder they fight all the time.”
     
     
    I HAD TWO clients that afternoon; one a rollicking wine-merchant of generous dimensions and roaring laugh who was hairy enough to be a were in change and as enthusiastic and easily pleased as a puppy; the other a rather stately and subtle lady from Third Turning, whose profession I hadn’t yet discovered but whose shimmering skin, graceful snakelike appendages and liking for taking things extremely slowly made for a pleasing contrast. They managed to keep my mind mostly off the morning’s events, until it was time to bathe and get ready for my last client of the day.
    An hour later I was perfumed, silk-clad from the skin out and leaning against one of the exquisitely gilded columns in the main ballroom of the Roundhouse Tower, Scalentine’s most expensive place to throw a party. The wine, I’d bet a fair sum, had cost more than its taste would suggest, and the crowd had the heft and sheen of the elite. An orchestra played something fashionably forgettable, just loud enough so as not to drown out the light chatter. Talk of styles and scandals, deal-making that could reshape countries and more rivalries than a deer-wood in rutting season. There were a handful of children, too; some racing about, shrieking with laughter,