Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Dahlia
“I love it,” I whisper, staring at myself in the mirror in Sweets’ room. Her space is slightly larger than mine, with the same basics, yet it is full of clothes and colourful drapes—an explosion of fabric.
Spero gurgles on her mattress, chubby fingers fumbling with a soft piece of silk. Silk is rare and royal, not an easy fabric to come by in The Cradle. I have heard that Silk Girls wear only silk, a fabric to match their station as the breeding girls for the lords of The Cradle. I wish I could feel it on my skin, all over me; I’m certain it is divine.
Dressed in a cream corset that shows the tops of my breasts, bone structures hold me tight down the curve of my waist, and a frilly, cream lace skirting, I’m something between a Lace Girl and House Girl. My red hair ripples down my spine and over each shoulder, pieces in chunky tendrils. It’s wild and uninhibited.
Lagos might like me like this.
“Men like the fantasy,” Sweets says, standing behind me, the chipped full-length mirror showing her reflection. She dabs the end of a perfume bottle on my neck, scenting me with citrus top notes and deep base notes of vanilla. Another rarity her trade probably provided her. “Every man wants to fuck a Lace Girl while she sleeps.”
“But I won’t be asleep.” I turn to face her. “And they will know that, right?”
“You’ll be pretending, and they will know. It’s just a game. You’ll bring in a lot of attention, Lace Girl, just like when we first got Beauty. She was our prize. Our little Trade Nurse. She plays nurse with them, and they offer up a good exchange.” She smiles, delight glimmering in her eyes. “What do you want? Chocolate? Fabric to make clothes? New boots? A hairbrush?”
I don’t have to think long. “Ginger. Butter. Flour. Sugar,” I say.
“Really?” Sweets curls her nose. “Fresh butter will be difficult. You don’t want a gem,” she breathes, “like this.” Her delicate hand comes to her chest, fingertips dancing along the fine-linked chain to a deep red stone.
I chew my bottom lip, scrutinising my body in the mirror again. I’ve never looked like this before. If I saw myself on the streets, I may even be jealous. That makes me smile.
“Can we try?” I offer a little shrug to show I’m not counting on it. “If not, oil will do, but not animal. Vegetable or flower oil is best.”
She turns me to face her, hands now on either side of my upper arms, supportive. “Are you sure you want to do this? Lagos and Tomar have been looking after you. You don’t need to.”
“Yes.” I nod. “I’m my own person now. I belong to no man. I want to know what it feels like to be with a man, and to be desired. Lace Girls are ignored. I’ve watched men grovel for House Girls in the Half-tower. Chase them, need them intensely like their last breath.” A flutter of excitement fills my stomach at the thought of requesting butter, of having men offer me jewels, having them drop chocolate between my parted lips, so they can taste it on my tongue… Oh, my cheeks burst with pink, my shameful fantasies on display.
“I can choose a nice man for you,” —dropping her hands from my shoulders, she faces herself in the mirror to adore her own lovely reflection— “for your first time, but the gentle ones typically don’t have very interesting exchanges.”
“It’s not my first time,” I say straightaway, more to myself. The idea of my first time being with a stranger makes my stomach churn. “I’ve been with my Ward many times. I was just in the Deep Sleep.”
“Then it won’t hurt as much, your body will open for them, but you have to relax. You’ll probably tighten up because you’ve never felt it before. Remember to breathe.” She inhales through her rosy lips and exhales a few seconds later. “Big breaths. In and out.”
I follow her as she sashays across the room, her body swaying, seduction carved into her soul. I don’t walk like that, so I study her movements, her salacious lilt.
“Do you know a man who can get me butter?” I ask, my lower lip folding into my teeth.
“I only know one man who can get butter, and he is a gentleman but does not take kindly to the word no. So, just… be agreeable.”
Lagos isn’t a gentle man.
The unwelcome thought forces me to swallow. She doesn’t mean Lagos. He can’t get butter and wouldn’t; it isn’t urgent.
It doesn’t matter. I’m doing this because I want to be independent, feel a man, be adored, and I want something for Tide. He found me lemon, and I don’t feel comfortable asking Lagos for something as silly and non-urgent as ingredients to make ginger cookie dough.
“Okay. A gentle man,” I accept. “What would I say no to anyway?”
She turns, her brows have hit her hairline. “A lot of things, Dahlia. A lot of things. Men do a lot of weird things. I will tell him it is your first time—as a House Girl—and hopefully, he is happy to keep your first interactions vanilla.”
“Vanilla?”
“Yes, meaning…” She considers her words carefully. “Standard sex. Cock in pussy. Talking to you is like speaking to a child. How old are you?”
I don’t take offence. It’s honestly fair in this case. I have skills growing La Mu and sewing, but I’m conditioned to be inexperienced in the ways of men.
Time to change that.
“Twenty-two, I believe, but they changed my birthday in the Lace House. One year I was six, and then a new Wardeness took over, and I was eight. My age went back and forth a few times. I am not sure why. I don’t think they actually knew.”
She huffs dubiously. “Or they wanted to confuse you on purpose. Men like young women. So, they upped your age without your knowledge.”
I blink at her, remembering the moment I was gifted to my Ward. A young girl with red hair tied back in a lace bow. I had breasts and pubic hair, but I remember feeling tiny beside him; it was the first time I’d ever met a man. All Common girls are small in comparison to a man with Xin De genes. My Ward was not Common, though his engineered genus was subtle.
Not like Lagos.
My Ward held my hand in his as they gave him instructions on how to care for me, how to treat me, what I liked to eat, and so on. “So, I could have been quite young when my Ward took me in?”
“But you’re not now.” She stands behind me again, her head over the top of mine. Turning me, she presents me to the mirror again. “Now, you’re a woman, and nothing makes you feel more like a woman than being with a man.”
* * *
I’ve scrubbed myself with soap from head to toe before dressing in the cream corset, matching skirting, and thigh-high white stocking Sweets found under a pile of sheets. They are too long for me, so I folded the tops and created a neat band around each upper thigh.
Spero is with Tomar for the night, as I told him that I wanted to spend time bonding with Sweets and The House Girls. I didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask any more questions, quite smitten with our tiny assassin.
Across the den, three girls dance on tables, and several bodies are eclipsed by dark corners. Men and women, Common and Xin De, conversing privately as everyone seems to do here at The Bite.
I don’t know what to do.
Sweets said I should dance, but I’m not a great dancer… I do sing. I used to sing to my Ward, so instead of joining the other girls on the tables, I sit beside the drum and will myself to sing.
I search the black pockets, trying to see into the depths of each private corner, but I cannot decipher shapes or forms. Still, I am almost certain Lagos is not here. Usually, I feel his eyes like nails dragging down my spine.
Drawing in courage, I inhale and exhale into song, a shanty about fresh air that matches the tempo of the drum.
At first, my voice trembles, so I close my eyes, blanketing the shadowed figures scattered around the room and the gyrating bodies on the tables.
And as I sing the words, I recall the feeling I felt when I first heard them. It’s an optimistic song, and yet, melancholic, just like breathing in clean air.
When I was no older than eight, on my first day at the Lace House, a strange girl crawled into bed with me without so much as a greeting but instead with a song. This song. I was terrified to start my studies and prepare for Meaningful Purpose, but Maple was full of peace and strange energy, as if she saw things outside of reality. Somehow, she was a protective force, steady and confident.
I followed her after that night—I would have followed her, my closest friend, to The Crust that day I left the Half-tower.
If not for Spero.
Tears moisten my eyes, sliding beneath my lids, but I don’t open them as I sing. It’s dark in here; perhaps no one will see my friend’s memory punishing me with grief.
Grief is like an old wound, one moment you’re moving forward and living in the present, then something happens, and you bump it, or nothing happens, but it flares with pain. It opens, and you bleed again.
I want to cry hard. Weep. To sob each word through my lips, but the song ends abruptly because I forget the last verse…
I inhale and exhale.
Blinking the tears away, I open my eyes to the pressure of every gaze in the ruby-hued room.
My throat goes dry when the silhouette of a man rises from a corner and approaches me, his gait slow and assertive. Coming into view, I see a familiar man but can’t quite place him.
“Where did you learn that song?”
Wiping at my eyes, I take a moment to fully emerge from my pit of melancholy. “Um, a friend taught me. Did you like it?”
His eyes crease when he smiles, showing his age, and his height dwarfs me, denoting a Xin De gene along the line. “You’re far too innocent to be a House Girl,” he mentions, lips quirked. “You’re new, aren’t you?”
I peer up, meeting his gaze. “Are you a drifter?” Where do I know him from?
If he was from The Bite, he wouldn’t need to ask that, though, everyone from The Bite is a runaway, just as Tide said.
“Yes. Just passing through.”
“And you’re lonely,” I say with a shrug.
He laughs as if I wasn’t meant to point that out or draw attention to this faux interaction. “Yeah. Loneliness is the greatest misfortune. Are you lonely?”
Yes… I miss my Collective.
I only smile. We both know why he is here, why I’m here. To exchange. It is not different from any formal Trade work, not really. Trading is the blood that courses through The Cradle, whether aligned formally or organised in the desert; it is the lifeforce of our land—what heals it and bleeds it dry.
“I have your gentleman in the corner. Very taken by our new Lace Girl.” Sweets touches the man’s shoulder, dismissive but polite.
“A Lace Girl?” The drifter smooths his shirt down his chest, drawing my gaze to the tight physique underneath. He was the one at the cove, too far to see any facial features, but… I’m sure it’s him. He has a captivating aura. “Well, give a man a chance. What are you asking?”
I lift my chin. “Butter, sugar, flour, ginger.”
He eyes me. “To make cookies?”
“Yes!” I beam. “How did you know? Well, cookie dough, really. I don’t have an oven to cook the cookies, nor do I know how to.”
“Why ginger?”
“Because it is a strong flavour, and Tide might actually be able to taste it. My friend, Tide. He has no sense of smell and can’t taste much. I wanted to do something nice for him.”
He hums. “What about cinnamon?”
“Cinnamon?”
Rubbing his jaw, a cool grin slides above his hand. “Cinnamon cookie dough would be very flavoursome.”
“Excuse me.” Sweets grabs my arm and gently pulls me to my feet, guiding me to the side. Her lips touch my ear. “I don’t know this man. Are you sure? I have the other option waiting. He will get you butter.”
I listen, but feel a pull to this stranger, one that draws my gaze to him again. Eyeing his strong physique, I imagine myself alone with him. Beneath him. Feeling him. Uncertainty nips at my stomach—alone with a strange man. How would a drifter get a spice like cinnamon, anyway? What does he do? Perhaps he’ll tell me. I imagine sharing conversation, gazing at each other, our intimacy having smashed the boundaries strangers have. I could sing for him or talk his ear off, and he could care for me…
Oh, no.
My chest tightens.
“I can’t,” I say. Closing my eyes, I sigh hard. I’m not her… I’m not Sweets. I realise at this moment, while a spice trader and another man with butter cloaked in a dark shadow await my decision, that I don’t want to be merely a body. I want companionship. Accompany, relieve, and soothe—my Trade.
Tide’s words cascade back in waves of disappointment. ‘You can take the man out of the trade, but you can’t take the trade out of the man.’
I open my eyes. “I’m sorry, Sweets. I don’t think I can do this.” I almost say, maybe tomorrow, maybe another night, I can try, but the words are merely a blanket to suffocate my guilt. I let her down. I don’t want to have sex with a stranger, even if it is one of life’s great experiences.
Recoiling, I am readying myself for her sneer, accepting it, even, when a loose smile forms on her lips. “Keep the clothes.” That is all she says before approaching the drifter with the bad news. I can’t listen to her excuses, so I stride from The House.
Can’t look back.
I purse my lips and frown. At this point, I couldn’t imagine a deeper sense of shame. Eyes cast downward, I cross the stony walkway and head toward Tide’s boat. The street lamps glow a deep, moody red, so I know it’s past midnight, but I don’t fear the eerie night time atmosphere because my embarrassment and guilt are killing me just fine.
Still in my stockings and corset, I approach the old dinghy. Tide is unpacking, throwing the canopy back, ready to hit the black seas and work into first-light. Out there alone on the crashing waves. Haze-suffocated stars probably glimmer behind sheets of thick red mist. I imagine that night time in the old-world would have been beautiful, and people would gather outside just to stare dreamily at the sky.
I sigh, but it must be dangerous at sea now in the almost pitch black with the hungry swelling waves.
I grip my hips and stare at Tide, all alone . Yes, I am lonely. But I have him.
The Bite is quiet at this time of night, gloomy and still. I’ve not ventured outside at this time before. Usually, I would be in bed with Spero, awakened by baby cries or obnoxious groans from the adjacent rooms. This is a nice change.
“I wanted to make you ginger cookie dough.” I stop beside his boat. I don’t know why I’m here but seeing him floods me with relief. My reluctant friend—my only friend. “I couldn’t get any.”
He lifts his head and squints, playing at not recognising me. “What are you wearing there?”
“Sweets’ clothes.” I sit down on the edge of the rock, the same place I sat two weeks ago when we first spoke. “I wanted to know what it felt like to be her,” I admit.
He huffs, amused. “You should just be yourself.”
“I don’t know who I am.”
That laugh rattles from his chest; I’ve become very fond of it. “You’re you. Bits of every place you have been and every person you have spoken to. Unique.”
“ She is unique.” Fiddling with the end of my skirting, my nails brush my naked thighs, sending goosebumps across my skin. “I’m just my Trade. Even in this,” I say, smoothing the pretty cream material over my lap. “There are hundreds of me, of Lace Girls. We are all the same.”
“There’s already one of her.”
I lift a brow at him. “That’s a little confusing.”
Watching him hunched over the boat, his old body shaky, I realise how much I’ll miss him when I leave in a week. He’s a grumpy Trade Fisher who can’t smell and doesn’t want any friends or help, but he likes me. Even if he won’t admit it.
“You like me, hey?”
“You’re very annoying.”
I take that as a yes, revel in it for a moment, and almost miss the way his face falls. His eyes widen on something over my shoulder. Rising to his feet, his mouth moves. It takes me a couple of seconds to make out the words.
“Get behind me, Dahlia.”
My spine stiffens, locking me in place while my head turns just as a large black figure approaches like a wraith. Only now do I realise just how dark it is. He is towering over me in an instant, moving faster than my mind can follow.
But I know who it is.
The drifter from The House drags me to my feet with one hand and turns me to face Tide. My eyes widen as my friend’s expression shifts from helplessness to horror.
I go to scream, but the man covers my mouth and snarls into my ear.
“Where is the infant?”
“You leave that girl alone,” Tide warns, lifting a weak hand and pointing a shaky finger. “She is just a House Girl. We don’t want trouble.”
Thick, rough fingers pinch my nose, stopping all air from entering and exiting my body. Panic pours through my veins like an icy blade. I need air, thrashing around in his hold as darkness slowly creeps into my peripherals. Losing consciousness.
The man releases me, leaving me confused and gasping for air. I collapse to the floor. The world spins, but I fight the dizzy feeling, desperate to stay on all-fours.
“Say goodbye, old timer.”
I crawl on my hands and knees, struggling, and I watch. That’s all I can do. I watch as the drifter steps onto the boat and plunges a knife into Tide’s stomach.
A choked scream tries to break free as I gasp for air. Tide’s trembling hands cover the wound, blood trickling through the gaps of his fingers. He looks past the man to me—looks right into my eyes as though he wants to step toward me, to help me, but his legs give out.
He drops on his knees. Sways. Then lands on his face.
“No!” I manage to scream, but then the man is over me again, moving with a gracefulness a person of his size shouldn’t have. It reminds me of Lagos—the way he moves. Lagos. Tomar. I could run to them. Can I run?
“Where is the infant?” My scalp burns as the drifter drags me to my feet by my hair, strands ripping from my crown.
I cry out.
I look back at Tide, unmoving, lifeless. It’s my fault. Unable to accept what I’m seeing, I shake my head, shaking the horrific sight. Drowning in guilt, in fear. “No. I don’t know what you want.” I know there is pain racing along my head, but I’m still wheezing, staring at Tide’s body— shock a blanket of disorientation.
“The infant you had at the cove, Lace Girl.”
I don’t respond. Can’t. Tide…
The drifter holds me up and punches me in the face, beating a black world into my vision.
I groan, blood trickling from my nose. He’s going to kill me. Like he did Tide.
He releases my hair.
My body drops to the hard ground, my hands meeting wet puddles of blood from my gushing nose. I sob on my hands and knees, willing myself to get up, but my legs tremble.
“The infant?”
“I won’t—” is all I can spit out.
When a boot collides with my stomach, I jerk to the side. An unyielding heel rolls me to my spine. I cough blood upward, spraying my face with the wet, hot fluid.
Stepping either side of my body, the drifter leans down and takes a fist full of my hair again.
“Tell me where the infant is, Lace Girl,” he hisses, face close to mine. “And I’ll cut out your tongue so you can’t share your story, but let you live. How’s that sound, baby? Fair? I think so. If you disagree, I’ll get it out of you eventually. Another woman’s infant isn’t worth the pain you’ll experience at my hand.”
Another woman… I sob.
Maple.
Spero.
Worth every inch of pain I can endure. I don’t want to die, but that doesn’t cloud or confuse me. “I won’t tell you.”
A cruel laugh escapes him, the heat of it slithering across my face. “Yes, you will, baby.”
I roll my head on the ground, confused, my ribs aching and nose swelling, constricting air. And the blood. I can taste boiled metallics, iron or… I can suddenly smell it in the atmosphere.
I struggle to stay conscious so I can fight back while he pins my wrists above my head. “You’re a mess, baby. You should see your pretty face covered in blood.”
Blunt pain hits my stomach.
“Aren’t you lonely?” he says, tone roughening. “I could tell you were. I’ll send you back to your Collective. Just tell me where the infant is.”
Another punch.
He is beating me…
My vision crinkles in the corners. I blink over and over, trying to clear the image of the man hovering over me.
Pain flares through my side.
I don’t know what he did to me. I tense up, my body ready for more pain when the drifter lifts his head. “The infant is near.”
What?
He can’t be. Even though Spero can’t be nearby, I reach out a shaky hand and grip the drifter’s shirt, trying to hold him to me, to keep him from standing.
“Oh, baby,” he chuckles. “Do you want to play with daddy? I can give you attention after.”
That’s when the atmosphere thickens with fine needles, pricking my flesh and the taste of liquid metal slides along my tongue.
“Did Master send you?” the drifter says over his shoulder just as he’s ripped away from me. “What are you—" The sentence is cut to a howl of anguish that embeds in the rocky walls.
I cough blood over my face, feeble in any attempt to move. To escape whatever is happening. I want to crawl to Tide. Check on him. Maybe he is still breathing.
“Close your eyes, little flower.”
Lagos…
He’s here. A wail leaves me, weakness and fear bursting free. Relief, shock, and so much pain burns to the surface. I want to see him, to make sure it’s actually him, not a construct of my dying mind.
I squint. The silhouettes of two huge bodies clash and waves of energy seem to outline them as they fight. The smaller black figure quickly becomes parts, his arms torn from his torso and tossed into the black ocean beside us.
I can’t hold my stomach. Squeezing my eyes shut, I turn my head and heave, but can’t give in to my broken body.
Tide…
Through a guttural groan, I stagger to my feet and stumble along the boat, crumpling to a heap at the side of my grumpy, old friend.
“Tide.” I reach out and turn his face, seeing the smallest of life twitching his lips. “You’re going to be alright, Tide. Lagos is here.”
“Dahlia,” he wheezes, anguish holding his features in knots. “I can smell.”
I sob. “It’s blood.”
“No. No, it’s you. Perfume.”
Tears rush over my eyes, coating the vision of him clinging to life. “It’s Sweets’.”
“I like it.” And with that, the tightness in his face softens, taking on the same still, peacefulness that Maple’s did weeks ago.
Death’s serene presence.
I give in then. Lying on my back beside him, a complete bloodied mess, I sigh heavy relief when I hear bones break on the rocky ledge. When I know they are not mine.