<strong>Sophie</strong><br/><br/>He had not quite said that she would die in the Black Chambers, she noticed.  The maid clung to that hope, that he truly did not mean to snuff our her life as casually as he had her father's, and so took the news that she would never see the sky again more calmly than she might have.<em>He didn't say he was going to kill me, he didn't say he was going to kill me, he didn't say he was going to kill me,</em>she repeated in her mind over and over again, like a ward against the word of gesture that would end her life.  Her terror was delicious; flavor to the meat ate at the table of Balthazar the Black, as a poet in later years had written of the cruel monarch.<br/><br/>Sophie nodded, clasping her hands behind her back, for want of a place to put them.  "Yes, Master.  I understand."<em>I hope I do</em>.<br/><br/><strong>Aurora</strong><br/><br/>There was more to Darius than she'd suspected when she summoned him to attend her, back in the wagon.  Aurora watched as the knight both thought well on the spur of the moment; where to have the tools, and reasoned out what she'd been blind to; where the latch was most like to be, instead of wasting time searching it all.<br/><br/><em>How useful a man to have.</em>she thought.  "You are a useful man," she said, but aloud her voice was admiring, whereas in her thoughts, it was possessive.  "Please do the honors.  I at least thought to bring candles and torches, and will proceed behind you.  Close behind you," she added, with a blush and a whisper.