The Lone Warrior (64 page)

“We’ve met,” he said at last.

“Well of course you have, you’re from the same place.” She beamed up at him.

“Of course,” Quin said. “There are no more than two billion people on Palimpsest.”

She pouted. “Now you’re making fun of me.”

“On the contrary.”

What color were Rose’s eyes tonight? He remembered being fascinated with the way they’d changed with her emotions—from blue, to green, to gray, every hue on the spectrum. Stone toes creaked under the force of his grip, but he didn’t notice. What shade would they be when she lay beneath him, lush and naked and panting? For a moment, he was tempted to use his visual Augmentation to check, but why rush? His mouth curved into a wolfish grin. He’d savor the discovery close-up.

Rose was the center of a laughing group, holding court with effortless charm. As if she felt the weight of his stare, she looked up. The world held its breath, then a dark brow arched in cool inquiry. Their gazes snagged, a salute like rapiers clashing. Quin’s blood surged.

A small hand tugged at Quin’s sleeve. “Will you introduce me?” the blonde girl asked, breathless with excitement.

“Mm?”

On the far side of the room Rose dismissed him, turning her head to converse with a young man wearing a waistcoat with huge silver buttons. The boy looked both poleaxed and delighted.

“No,” Quin said.

“Oh.” The hand fell away. A pause. “Why not?”

“I can’t remember your name.”

Ignoring the outraged gasp, Quin started across the floor. It wasn’t until he drew level with the supper table that he realized he had a stone toe clenched in his left fist. Godsbedamned Augmentations. Irritably, he shoved the thing in a pocket. Didn’t know his own strength anymore.

Oh yes, a blue dark as a midnight sea. Artfully outlined with something sooty.

Satisfied with the color of Rose’s eyes, Quin wandered over to the food. A man his size took a power of feeding. The Dark Rose was busy right now. She’d keep.

The sight of him stopped her heart. The boy with the regrettable waistcoat had been telling her where to find the most sought-after modistes and milliners, but her skin had prickled, a primitive, instinctive warning. With a shiver, she’d looked up—straight into hard hazel eyes.

Sister save her,
Quin
!

No, the Quintus, she corrected herself quickly. Only four ranks below the Technomage Primus of Palimpsest, and a member of the Tower’s Council of Ten.

What in the gods’ names was he doing on Green IV?

Calmly, she held his stare. He gave her a tight grin, no more than a baring of teeth. Standing between a vapid little blonde and a chilly marble statue, he was . . . well, startling, like some great tawny animal, his vitality forced into the constriction of evening dress. More bull-like than feline though, with those brutish shoulders and brawny thighs, his hair cropped short.

Something about his posture, the way he kept rubbing the fingertips of his left hand together, made her think he felt as out of place as he looked.

Her brain raced, sifting facts, arranging and discarding. In the secret drawer in her bedroom, back at The Garden, she had a sizeable dossier on Quin. Rose bit her lip. Sister, she wished she’d brought it with her, but who’d have thought he’d turn up here on Green IV?

Smiling, she accepted a glass of pale wine from the boy with the waistcoat. He cleared his throat, refusing to let his gaze drop below the level of her chin. Nice lad, well brought up.

Quin, on the other hand . . . No one in their right mind would ever refer to him as ‘a nice lad,’ not at any stage of his development and certainly not now. The Quintus was the brutal and calculated result of a Technomage charity program. Taken at an early age from the mean streets of the Caracole slums, his initial test results had been off the charts. The Technomage teachers had struggled to keep up with his thirst for knowledge. If he had family, he never mentioned them, or not that Rose could discover.

But he’d fulfilled that early promise in spectacular fashion, designing engines for starships and flitters. Apparently, he’d made amazing improvements to all kinds of devices, from glowglobes to laseguns. The Quintus was not only a brilliant engineer, he was a Scientific maverick, creative, opinionated and moody.

He’d come to do something with or for the Machine. There could be no other conclusion.

Rose stiffened her spine. If she glanced over Waistcoat Boy’s shoulder, she’d see Quin leaning against the wall with a plate loaded high, devouring delicate tidbits one after the other, using his fingers. Her lip curled. For the Sister’s sake, he even ate like a machine, with extraordinary efficiency and dispatch. His eyes were very bright, and they never wavered from her face.

So strange. Rose knew all there was to know about men, how they thought, what they wanted, but she had no idea what was going on behind that level burning gaze, only that the heat bloomed in her cheeks as if she were sixteen and still a virgin. She stared down at her hands until the feeling passed and she could breathe again.

Very well. He obviously wanted to speak with her. She’d allow it, but she’d be on her guard, and so very cool his . . . interest . . . would shrivel to a nub.

“I declare, I simply
adore
those sleeves,” said a girlish voice at her elbow. “You
must
tell me all about your modiste.” With a smile, Rose turned to speak with a vapid blonde wearing a shade of blue too strong for her delicate complexion. When she looked up a few minutes later, Quin had disappeared.

THE FLAME AND THE SHADOW
THIEF OF LIGHT
THE LONE WARRIOR