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speak her mind, he realized to his surprise. His first queen had certainly never spoken to him so. Now that he thought about it, they had barely conversed at all. Perhaps if they had …
    No,
Shahrayar thought. He would not travel down that road. There was no sense in comparing the one who had betrayed him to Shahrazad. That much, he could already tell.
    “I will make you a bargain,” he said now, careful to keep his tone light. “I will admit that I am quarrelsome if you will admit that you have a sharp tongue.”
    His first wife would never have taken such a bargain, Shahrayar thought. She would have denied his faults, for was he not the king? And, in denying his, she had hidden her own.
    “Well, of course I have a sharp tongue,” Shahrazad said, as if Shahrayar had but stated the obvious.’! am the daughter of a storyteller, am I not?”
    “That is so.”
    “Well, then,” Shahrazad said, and she extended her hand, as if to seal the bargain. Shahrayar took it between his own. For the first time, he learned how soft Shahrazad’s hands were. And how warm. And he felt the way her fingers trembled within the cage of his.

    “All this bargain-making has made me hungry,” Shahrazad said as she slid her hand from his. “I thought you promised me food, my lord.”
    “So I did,” Shahrayar admitted. He filled a plate, sat down at her feet, and they shared a meal in companionable silence.
    But again and again as they shared the food, Shahrayar’s fingers met those of Shahrazad. Until he found himself craving her touch more than the food. What it would be like to set the meal aside and simply-touch her? To run his fingertips across her palm and up her arm until he had coaxed her head down upon his shoulder. What would his own head feel like resting on her heart? he wondered. Could the very beating of it have the power to warm him?
    When he realized the direction his thoughts had taken, for the first time since the night he discovered that he had been betrayed, Shahrayar realized how weary and confused he was.

    Shahrazad is right,
he thought. J
am well and truly lost.

    And for the first time, he realized how cold he was.
    But just when his thoughts would have given him over to despair, he was pulled back by the sound of Shahrazad’s voice.

    “Might I beg a boon of you, my lord?”
    “Do I get to know what it is ahead of time?” Shahrayar asked, glad to be distracted from his thoughts. But as he turned his head to look up at her, he caught the line of worry between Shahrazad’s brows, and he was sorry that he had teased her so.” You may have whatever you wish,” he promised swiftly, “if the granting of it brings no stain upon my honor.”
    “I swear that it will not,” said Shahrazad. “You know I have a sister, who is but ten years old.”
    Shahrayar nodded, though he felt his stomach sink. “Dinarzad.”
    “It has always been my custom to say good night to her each evening,” Shahrazad went on. “Might she be permitted to come to me here, so that I might wish her both good night and farewell?”
    “Such a thing is easily granted,” Shahrayar said. But his throat felt thick, for he remembered the grief that he had felt upon his first parting with his brother, Shazaman. This parting of the sisters would be both first and last, and he himself would be the cause.
    “It grows late. Do you wish to send for her now?”
    “If it pleases you,” said Shahrazad.
    “Stop doing that!” Shahrayar burst out before he could help himself. He rose, and set their empty plate upon a nearby tray.
    “Stop behaving as if you were my servant. It does not suit you, Shahrazad. I like the sharp edge of your tongue better than the dull one. I seek to please you in this. Just say what you want.”
    God knew, there was little enough else by which he could please her, and he had suddenly discovered that pleasing her was a thing he wanted, very much.
    If Shahrazad was distressed by this outburst, she did not show it,