Ebonshield lifted her eyebrows, sucking on her lips so that they smacked when she opened her mouth. "This is the deal that Maestro Roma de Balj struck with the Lunars, when the phases were first arranged. We would be ranked among the Stars, and allowed our 'little' heresies, and sanctioned to practice our disreputable profession, but only if a Lunar was present at each deal. This was their way of ensuring that no darker-phase Child would dare employ us to strike down the priests, who in their structure must be held inviolate." She grinned. "Of course, that did not prevent the Lunars of one House from paying us to attack those of another. But this was a pact made before the rise of the Great Houses themselves."