Author's Preface
Thin lips part and resolve from a place nonplussed to one of muted affection.
"Dear Pyna..."
Sepet sweet
Fetch for me, so kindly,
Father's fourth key...
The tray-bearer's brows, thin as his lips, a little, cloud.
"As you wish. Allow me this-"
Pyna, her regard like that of a perilous porcelain marionette, with eyes of chipped glass and little painted-bow lips in the ruddy chamber-light.
Leave the seneschal a moment.
His poison petals and stew.
Setting the copper service down with gingerly care, up onto a cracked and ill-kept alabaster shelf, Sepet swiftly turns, his thin-lipped smile blooming anew.
"Of course, Pyna dear. Have you travelled far?"
Sepet's eyes, expressing ample wondering, wander without a word to rest upon Umin, who shifts with naked unease, attempting his utmost to remain as unseen behind Pyna, and the cascading curtain-works as is mortally conceivable.
Dark as dust and
Dark as rue...
Dear Sepet, through under-roads and fatty forest-folds.
As ever, far far. And no.
Upon Father I have not of late looked.