Read Online Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer - Free Book Online

antique kimono, birds and blossoms in golds, peaches, and blues, the fabric thick with labor like a tapestry, the obi sparkling around her stiff waist like a puzzle box of silk. She approached with the small, shuffling steps which in Japan code feminine, her white hands nested pale against the cloth like doves. So perfectly anachronistic were her dress and poise she might have been the model for an antique woodblock print, except for her hair, which sparkled in its cage of hair pins with all the rebellious wheat-lush gold of Europe. I will not call Princesse Danaë the most beautiful woman in the world, since that title doubtless belongs to some obscure person, living happily indifferent to the doors of fame that might be opened by the blessings of anatomy. But I do know who would win a worldwide vote for the face on Earth most likely to launch a thousand ships.
    ã€Œ What good luck, that we have an investigator so perceptive, and so discrete. 」 Danaë’s Japanese is elegant and beautifully accented, but too meticulous, the over-perfect Japanese of one who learned it in adulthood and remains self-conscious, even as the decades mount. 「 Surely Mycroft will protect our Masami. 」
    Her words opened an aspect of this I had not seen before, the poor young intern, still a minor just whetting his eager pen, swept up in a storm of probing questions, which bitter politics would whip into a hurricane to levy at the whole bash’. Suddenly the wide eyes of the lounging siblings watching from the back room felt like fear. 「 Do you think this is directed against the Chief Director, Princesse? 」 I asked.
    ã€Œ I don’t know. 」 Danaë came to her husband’s side. Do not chide me, reader, for using the gendered ‘husband’ when she stands so close, sheltering against him as she gazes up into his face with her brilliant, pleading blue eyes edged by maternal fear. Our age’s neutral ‘partner’ rings false when her every touch and gesture makes such intentional display of ‘wife.’ 「 Masami was so excited by this job at the paper—their dream job. I hate to think someone would destroy that just to get at us. 」
    ã€Œ I’ll do everything I can to protect Masami, Princesse. 」 I said it almost without thinking, or with no thought beyond the desire to drive the sadness from that perfect face.
    Princesse Danaë rewarded me with a smile, warm, her right cheek framed by one stray golden curl, and I relaxed enough to slump back on my haunches.
    ã€Œ Poor Masami is quite innocent, but I fear they will seem guilty when the public finds out the truth. 」
    ã€Œ Finds out what? 」 I asked.
    She sighed, brushing back the wayward curl, and the passion rising in my breast split between the impulse to leap between her and the sources of her grief like some white knight, or to freeze that moment like a portrait so I could feast my eye forever on her face. I should add, reader, that I hold no particular lust for Danaë. Rather her arts—mastery of poise and gesture—can inflict these feelings on almost any victim, and when she sighs thus in the council chamber where the Nine Directors meet, one sigh can trump a hundred thousand votes. 「 As I understand, Sugiyama pulled out of writing the list just a few days ago, and had Masami finish it, but the editor wanted the famous name, so was going to release Masami’s list pretending it was their teacher’s. Masami’s just a junior intern, they had no way to object. 」
    ã€Œ Of course not, 」 I answered instantly. 「 Don’t worry, Princesse. I’m sure we can protect Masami. I’ll do everything I can, and Martin, too, Martin will understand. Martin understands better than anyone how important it is to keep press and public from hounding Hive leaders’ children. We’ll keep Masami out of the limelight, I promise. 」
    ã€Œ Thank you, good