“Lord God Bastard, Mother’s Son, Fifth and White. Please spare Desdemona. She’s a good demon.” Pen considered that descriptor, in all its ambiguity—good for what?—and decided to let it stand. “She has no life save through me, and, by your leave, please . . . please let me serve her in her need.” And, in what was surely the most foolhardy impulse of his life, even beating out Drovo’s drunken oath to the military recruiter, added, “And Yours.”
