Darian leaned closer, sensing the moment was right, but she drew back with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Have you?’ she asked. ‘Have you been with anyone?’
He looked at her steadily, letting her feel how earnest he was. ‘No,’ he lied, firmly and with authority.
Amalicia sighed, and then kissed him hard, clutching at him with unpractised, youthful fury. She tore at his clothes, frantic. He struggled free of his sooty greatcoat as she fumbled at the laces of his shirt before finally tugging it off and throwing it away. He pulled her nightshirt up and over her head, and then swept her up and kissed her, gratified to realise that at least part of his fantasy about sex-starved young women in a hermitage was about to come true.
Afterwards, they lay together naked on Frey’s coat, his skin prickling deliciously in the chilly night. He ran a finger along the line of her body while she stared at him adoringly. There was a dazed look in her eye, as if she was unable to quite believe that he was here with her again.
‘I saw some Imperators on the way here,’ he said.
She gasped. ‘You didn’t!’
‘Right outside. A bunch of Sentinels carried a chest out to them, and they put it on their craft and took off. One of them looked right at me.’
‘How frightening.’
‘They were guarding that chest very closely.’
‘Are you asking me if I have any idea what might have been inside?’
‘In a roundabout way, yes.’
‘I don’t know, Darian. Some stuffy old scrolls, no doubt. Perhaps it was an original copy of the Cryptonomicon. They’re terribly careful with those things.’
‘Remind me what that is again?’
‘The book of teachings. They wrote down all the insane little mutterings of King Andreal the Demented, and put them in that book.’
‘Oh,’ said Frey, losing interest immediately.
‘We have to leave together,’ she said. ‘Tonight.’
‘We can’t.’
‘It’s the only way, Darian! The only way we can be together!’
‘I want that, more than anything in the world. But there’s something I haven’t told you. Your father . . .’
‘What did he do?’ she snapped, jumping immediately to Frey’s defence.
‘You might not want to hear this.’
‘Tell me!’
‘Your father . . . well, he’s . . . Something terrible happened. An aircraft blew up, and people died. Nobody knows who did it, but your father has pinned it on me. Me and my crew. If you were caught with me, they’d hang you. It’s too dangerous. You’re safer here.’
Amalicia looked at him suspiciously.
‘I’m a lot of things, but I’m no cold-blooded killer!’ he protested. ‘The Archduke’s son was on that craft,
