Cecilia Slatemark had been cruel for most of her life, and she had been very good at it.
She did not pretend otherwise. As a child she had blackmailed tutors for fun and toyed with nobles twice her age until they cried. She had once broken her own brother so thoroughly that he still flinched when she entered a room. Cruelty had been easy, and it had been hers, and nobody in the Empire had ever been able to stop her.
Then she had met Arthur Nightingale, and found that she could not bring herself to hurt him, and spent three years learning a different way to love.
She had not, however, forgotten how the old way worked.
She was thinking about that at eight in the morning, standing at the window of Arthur's office with a cup of tea she actually intended to drink, while he took a call from the master of the largest water guild in the Empire.
Aqua Marinus looked as though he had not slept since Ashmere.
