The next day, Ruben returned to the Spire.

Milord was standing beneath his window again. His clothes were, perhaps, a little more rumpled than Ruben remembered. There were streaks of dirt upon his hands, a smudge that might have been a bruise upon his cheek, but his beauty shone like the edge of a knife in that dank little cell.

Ruben wanted to twist his hands in all those ash-pale curls. Run his tongue over that gleaming scar.

Make the man writhe, pant, and yield.

If Ruben’s reappearance reminded Milord of their last encounter—struggling together on the floor, not quite like enemies, not quite like lovers—he gave no sign of it.

“I had hoped,” he said, “the authorities would tire of sending me priests.”

“What have you got against priests?”

“I dislike being bored.”

“Is that why you murdered the last one?”

Milord yawned, more than a little theatrically. “It seemed the most efficient way to dissuade his ilk from troubling me.”

This was a man’s life they were discussing, but it seemed abstract somehow, distant. Unimportant even in this strange otherworld of chains and prisons and fallen angels with ice-chip eyes. Ruben wondered briefly if this was what evil was, this unchecked fascination.

“It seems,” said Ruben finally, “you might have miscalculated.”

“Perhaps.” Silence slipped between them. Ruben had Milord’s full attention now, but his face was its own mask. Some restless, unintended movement made his manacles clank. Perhaps he was not as calm as he pretended to be. “Why did you come back?”

“I brought you something.”

Milord tilted his head, wary as a wolf.

“I’m afraid it’s not a file or a rope ladder.”

“At this height a rope ladder would be inadvisable. I could, however, make use of a file.” He paused thoughtfully, then added with a faint sneer, “Ah. You jest.”

That Milord had no sense of humour should not have humanised him. But somehow, for Ruben, it did. It reminded him that this was a man who the world had shown nothing to teach him joy. “You disapprove?”

“Not particularly, but I do not see the value in frivolity.”

God, thought Ruben helplessly. God.

Nell had been mistaken when she had called him a hypocrite. He did want to save Milord’s soul. But not with parables and prayers, sermons and psalms. He wanted to make him laugh. Subdue him with ecstasy. Cover him with good things until his own goodness—or lack of it—didn’t matter.

Of course, it wasn’t biblical.

But it was the only redemption Ruben knew how to give in such a place. To such a man.

“Well?” There was a touch of impatience in Milord’s voice. “What have you brought me if not something useful?”

“Rosary beads.”

His cold eyes turned, if anything, even colder. “You are fortunate I am currently ill placed and ill equipped to kill you.”

“I was wondering if we might arrange some kind of moratorium on your desire to kill me.”

“If we could arrange some kind of corresponding moratorium on your desire to save me.”

“As you wish,” said Ruben mildly, lying.

“Do we shake on it?” Another rattle of chains.

“So I come close enough that you may try again to strike me with my own sword?”

Milord’s lips twisted into their uneven, mirthless smile. “Why make a bargain with me, Lord Iron, if you do not trust me to keep it? Unless you have no intention of honouring your side?”

This was probably a terrible mistake. Another one.

But Ruben crossed the cell as cautiously as Daniel in the lion’s den. Milord did not lunge for him. Only watched with his predator’s eyes.

At last Ruben was close enough.

Then a little bit closer still. Close enough to feel the faintest of tremors running through the other man’s body. Close enough to get well and truly stabbed.

Milord was not a short man, but he was not a tall one either, and he had to lift his head a little to meet Ruben’s gaze.

And Ruben found himself staring helplessly at that unprotected, unoffered mouth as he held out his hand to be shaken.

“In the Stews,” whispered Milord, “we would spit first.”

“On each other? That does not seem conducive to diplomacy.”

“On our hands. It is how dirty deeds are sealed. But as I have only the handkerchief you gave me on your last visit, I suggest we dispense with that custom.”

“Will it still count if we don’t?”

“Shall we see?”

And Milord slipped his hand into Ruben’s. Ice-cold, and clumsy from the metal weight at his wrists, but as smooth and well kept as any gentleman’s. Enough to shame Ruben, for his own was rough and ragged and knobbly with untended calluses from boxing and fencing.

And what next? A vigorous shaking to solemnise this devil’s bargain? It would have felt wrong somehow. So he just clasped Milord’s hand gently. Communion, not transaction.

But the man was too still. His face too empty.

“You’re thinking—” Ruben tightened his grip “—of trying for my sword, aren’t you?”

Milord closed his eyes and nodded.

“You won’t win.”

The tip of his tongue flicked across his lips. “No, I think . . . I think you would overpower me again.”

“Yes.”

“Pin me with your body.”

“Yes.”

“Render me helpless.”

“Yes.”

“Force my—”

“Yes.”

Milord pulled his hand away abruptly, and stumbled as far from Ruben as the limits of his prison would allow.

His chains clattered wildly, too harsh, too loud.

And Ruben . . . Ruben burned like a sinner in torment, though it was not torment he felt. He was glad of his coat, for there were some secrets he could not have kept.

Milord had half turned away. Keeping his own.

The cell seemed at once too vast and too tiny to contain them.

“I brought you some tea,” said Ruben.

Milord’s expression pinwheeled rapidly through incomprehension, confusion, and incredulity, before settling into simple mistrust. “I beg your pardon?”

“When I said I brought you something . . . it’s tea, I brought you tea.”

“Not rosary beads?” One of his tight, annoyed little pauses. “Another joke.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Must you do that?”

“Joke?” Ruben considered the matter gravely. “I think I must.”

An odd light flickered for a moment in Milord’s eyes. “You mock me.” He sounded almost . . . confused. His lips pressed into something that, on a lesser man, might have been a pout. “If I were not ill, imprisoned, and chained to a wall, you would not mock me.”

In truth, Ruben had meant only to tease a little. He had been laughing mainly at himself. But he did not think he could easily explain that to Milord. Who, Ruben reminded himself, was the worst sort of criminal. Not someone whose odd responses he should care about. But he seemed so bewildered, and so put out about it. And the touch of vulnerability, if it was indeed vulnerability, had its own peculiar charm.

Was this what Nell had meant when she said he had his ways? Was this what he’d done to Black Jack Callaghan?

“I would,” he said. “I would just do it from farther away.”

“Ah!” Milord’s eyes widened.

And now he looked so genuinely outraged that Ruben might have laughed had he not developed something of a misplaced concern for the man’s pride. He wanted him like that. Proud and on his knees, free and wild and safe. He wondered how to explain that he spoke in gentleness, not in cruelty, but he was not sure Milord would believe him. If he possessed the necessary mechanism to make such a distinction.

So, instead, he simply apologised, and was rewarded by a rather imperious nod from Milord. Who then asked, a touch wistfully, “Was the tea also a jest?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.” Ruben reached hastily into the pocket of his duster, and dragged out his silvered vacuum flask.

Milord tilted his head, wary again, but curious. His eyes glittered. “That is tea?”

“Well, it contains the tea. I’m afraid it may be a little overbrewed by now.”

“And surely lukewarm.”

“Ah, now, that will not be a problem.” Ruben unscrewed the lid, turned it upside down, and poured some of the liquid into it. Steam curled lazily upwards, along with the rich, slightly acrid scent of Milord’s preferred tea. “Take it. I brought it for you.”

Milord stared for a long moment at Ruben’s outstretched hand and the tarnished holder cradled in his palm.

“Is something the matter?”

“I . . .” Milord stirred in his chains. “What is it you want?”

“In general?” Ruben looked confusedly down at the flask. “For the tea?”

“Let us begin with the tea. It is true I have . . .” Ruben was not used to hearing Milord hesitate. And this was twice now. All over a cup of tea? “It is true I have something of a fondness for the drink, but you will not win my soul with tea.”

And Ruben laughed. He could not help himself.

Milord glared. “Now what is the cause of your mirth?”

“I just . . . I have never been cast in the role of tempter before. I’m not sure I’m suited to it. Will you tell me that man shall not live by tea alone?”

“You underestimate yourself,” returned Milord sourly. “And I do not want your tea.”

Don’t be hurt, Ruben. He’s an amoral crime lord, and it’s just tea. “But why? I thought you would like it.”

“That does not affect whether I want it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Wanting is weakness, Ruben.” So easily did it seem to issue from between Milord’s lips that it was only later Ruben would remember the use of his given name. “The greatest weakness of the human heart. It shackles you far more surely than these chains of mine.” An odd, almost dreamy softness crept into his voice, brought light to his eyes. “I have built my life on the wantings of others. It has given me such power.”

“That sounds like a contradiction—to claim you want nothing, and yet to seek to control others.”

“It is simply a choice I have made. A preference, perhaps, no different to my preference for smoky tea.”

“You know, it’s getting cold while you pontificate.”

“What is?”

“The tea.”

The gentleman slipped, just for a moment, leaving only the man, in all his frailty and savagery. “I don’t want your fucking tea.”

“I think,” murmured Ruben, “if you didn’t want my fucking tea, you wouldn’t be making such a fuss about it.”

Colour streaked across the stark angles of Milord’s cheekbones. Now he just looked confused again, shockingly young for a man who would die in less than a week and, in some ways, had not lived at all. The world would rejoice and call it justice. And maybe it was justice. But to Ruben, just then, it simply felt like waste.

“If I wanted to buy you or compromise you or place you in my debt, do you not think I could have done slightly better than dried leaves in hot water?”

Milord stared miserably at a spot on the floor. “The worth of a thing is not its value, especially in prison.” His voice had slipped into a scratchy, anguished whisper. “And it is my most particular favourite type of dried leaves in hot water.”

Ruben’s heart couldn’t bear it. “For the love of God,” he cried. “Please, just have the tea. I beg you. I want nothing more than for you to have something you wa—something you prefer.”

There it came again: that uncomprehending tilt of the head. “You are very strange.”

Which stuck Ruben as a rather unwarranted observation from a man who saw no value in beauty, laughter, or kindness. Whose main activity was violence. And whose only pleasure tea.

The chains stirred as Milord held out a hand. Bloodied, crumpled, prison stained, it should not have been possible for him to be haughty, but somehow he was.

Ruben hid a smile as he passed him the makeshift cup.

“Oh,” said Milord blissfully. “Oh. It is warm.”

“It’s the flask. It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.”

But he didn’t think the man was even listening. Milord’s eyes were half-closed, and he seemed to be simply . . . simply what? Inhaling? Anticipating? Ruben thought it was the most appallingly sensuous thing he had ever seen: the naked pleasure on Milord’s face.

“I hope—” his eyes snapped open “—you do not expect my gratitude?”

“No.” To bring Milord a flask of the tea he favoured had been nothing more than the shallowest of impulses. A means, perhaps, to reach the man in some small way. And, in truth, watching him like this was more than thanks enough. Ruben wondered if Milord realised. If he was as manipulative as Nell had said, surely he must. But he had always been so intensely guarded that Ruben was inclined to doubt it.

Or maybe that was the trick. The double, triple, quadruple bluff. Ruben didn’t know any more. He was starting to wonder if he cared.

With a jangling and a tangling of chains, Milord dragged the cup up to his lips and sipped.

Ruben saw the sheen of dampness upon his lips and the ripple of his throat, heard him swallow, then sigh, so softly like a fresh-kissed lover. He did not care for lapsang himself. His tastes ran to strong, sunshine teas, Ceylon and Darjeeling, the sort he had shared with Jaedrian at Cambridge. But now he wanted to put his mouth against Milord’s and drown in smoke and pine and darkness.

Flustered, he looked instead at the square of brightened sky that waited behind Milord’s window. “The time . . .” he said helplessly, his mind lost to other thoughts, other images, none of them utterable.

“A quirk of prison life, I find.” Milord glanced anxiously at the cup he held. “One always has an insufficiency and an abundance.”

Ruben forgot himself and smiled. “There’s still enough time for tea.”

“How gentlemanly.” Something played about Milord’s lips, a softening of their curve. A smile? An answering smile? Then he lowered himself to the floor. The weight of the chains had stripped his grace from him, but there was still a precision to his movements, a care that stopped just short of fussiness.

Not wanting to loom, Ruben dropped to his haunches, clasping his hands before him.

Milord regarded him, his expression unreadable. “I have had few opportunities in my life for conversations with educated gentlemen.”

“I’m not sure I’ve much faith in the value of education, and I’m not sure I’m much of a gentleman, but would you like to talk now? For a little?”

“You know,” said Milord wonderingly, “I do believe I would. Perhaps you could begin by explaining to me the workings of this flask of yours. And then I would like to know why the sky is beautiful.”