<strong>Sophie</strong><br/><br/>Her relief at being permitted to let go the bar, to know that she would not dance on the spikes that night, was enough to make her obey with tears of gratitude, wrap her soft arms around the King's neck, and impale herself further on his cock.  The pain of the violation was no less, increased, in fact, as she twisted into the new position, but it was, at least, nothing that would maim her with the sadistic wickedness of the board and nails.  Sophie nodded, her tears hot on his shoulder.  "Yes, Master," she said.  "As you wish.  Thank you, Master, thank you for not making me. . .on the. . .thank you, Master."<br/><br/><strong>Aurora</strong><br/><br/>The writing desk, in her estimation, was more likely to contain what she sought, but was also more likely to be protected against unauthorized intrusion.  The princess thought for a moment.  "Look in the wardrobe, I will examine the desk," she said.  She felt more confident in her own ability to recognize something of use than Darius, and she had too much value assigned to the knight to risk him on Balthazar's wards if she could bypass them as she had the door.<br/><br/>There were no traps, Aurora found.  There was much there of little or no use; scraps of letters to or from people as dead as dust, lists whose contents baffled her, inkwells that had long run dry.  But there were also a pair of volumes, slender as folios, bound in black leather that she took with a cursory look at random pages.