Delilah's Little Red Book

Randomalia...

I’m worried about Chandra and I don’t really trust Emily to do a damned thing about it. Which is annoying. I’m worried about Viresh, who won’t write me back. Which is really annoying. I wonder if he has written to Surya. Or if Surya’s heard from Vikram’s cousins, from Rajinder and Anjali, yet. And if they’re friends.

I want to get my hands on James Randall rather badly, and explore that first and second chakra hypertrophy to its full extension, which is an itch I’ve not had in a while. That would be anything but annoying if I could only do something about it.

Does Lavinia Scalara think she’s making some kind of point by suggesting we go to Kulkarni’s? I don’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. It almost feels as though she thinks I’d be uncomfortable eating anywhere else. Like she thinks I’m categorically unable to eat food that doesn’t involve curry and chaat. Is she trying to accommodate me? (Viresh thinks I don’t go through this because I’m white. This is one of the more annoying things about Viresh.) I like Kulkarni’s and Prasad needs the money after all the lightning rain damage, even though the place is still open, so I don’t mind...but I seriously considered making the reservation at some French place you’d rather expect to see Lady Leffoy, just to fuck with her head.

Home at last. I got two minutes with Chandra before he went off to school. Which was more than the Pendry or Crockford kids got, but then, I didn’t actually do anything wrong. And for once the damn British believed me. Except run a disorderly house, which is a euphemism I truly loathe as my house is a good deal more orderly than most people’s. Damien had better hope that the constables catch him before I do.

Apparently this thing of his with boys is a habit, not an isolated incident. It’s one thing when you’re dealing with professionals, or with someone like Endymion who’d been around the block five times before most people get to the corner. But apparently he laid hands on the Crockford kid too. I’m writing to Chandra, and if he’s laid a hand on my son, the constables should only hope they find him before I do, because there won’t be anything left to question.

I’ve been as co-operative as I can possibly be, and I don’t know what else I can do to make that point clear. If I were cynical like Damien or—whatever it is that Maya was, I’d suspect maybe this has more to do with the amount of business Lavinia Scalara lost to me than it really does with anything else. Figuring out that her house was really a front for intelligence collection wasn’t exactly advanced alchemical theory, but most men aren’t very bright when their pricks are hard. I’m not a spymaster just because she was. And at any rate, my loyalties, such that they are, are a known quantity. Everyone knows I want Britannia out of India. That’s all there is to it. But everyone also knows that there were limits—that there were people I was not willing to ally myself with. That’s why Vikram is dead, after all.

I really would rather they do not question my girls, but I can’t stop them. I never could stop Penny Davies from doing anything she wanted to do. Nor Lavinia Scalara.

I want to believe that Damien didn’t do these things, but I’m afraid he did. Endymion at thirteen was no virgin, but he was still young. I’d like Chandra to wait a bit longer, but Henry Dashwood was pushing my sister at Endymion as soon as he could get it up. It isn’t Endymion’s fault his father-in-law is a fascist who can’t handle the truth about Endymion’s family of choice; that’s not the same as betraying your country.

I want to believe that Damien didn’t do any of this, but I can’t. Damien is exactly the kind of idiot Ficino and Sforza wanted to believe that Vikram and I would be. The enemy of the State he hates must be his friend, never mind that it’s another State no less oppressive. And I could never convince Damien that Maya was a black lotus and she would have been one no matter what Endymion did. She knew what she was going when she set her foot to that road. I tried as hard as I could to stop her, but she was determined. I’m not sure that Damien is not a black lotus himself.

Anyhow, considering the number and amount of drugs they’ve given me, they should know that I didn’t know what my brother was doing or where he has gone. I want to say good-bye to Chandra before they send him away to school, and if I don’t get to that, I’ll see that it comes out of Damien’s hide, even if he’s in Kerala by now. And I hope, for the sake of the people who raised us, that he’s not in Kerala.

I would really prefer not to believe that Endymion sent the constables to my house, no matter what Damien says. But somebody did, and I would very much like to know who. Chandra is understandably upset; I’m more upset that he’s telling his mirror about it, as if he thinks Maya is listening in there. As if he believes she would do something.

No. I don’t believe that Endymion did this. Endymion knows about the work that Vikram and I used to do and he also knows we’re not traitors. He would have told us then if he’d had any objections. He might have set the constables on Damien, but if he had I don’t think I could blame him for that. He wouldn’t have set them on me.