9. 8 #3
Cursed by the Gods. What would he need to hide? A scar, a disfigurement, a burn: I had considered them all. But perhaps it was something even more invasive, if it was applied by the Gods themselves.
I picked up a grape and ate it slowly, feeling the weight of our changed positions more than I expected. I offered Jusia another slice of cheese.
She took it, and then bit her lip. I saw a nervousness that belied her usual calm. “Annie, what happened with Robar?”
I stared at her. She alone had known I was seeing him. She had known I was breaking the code with him. The first time he had bought me, he had told me he loved me. He had told me he would come again, and asked me to give him a signal when we turned so he knew it was me.
Jusia was the only one I had told of this. She had warned me against it, of course, but she had kept my secret from Talia.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how he had dismissed me. How he had looked at me as if I was worse than a stranger, with complete and utter disinterest.
Instead, I poured myself a glass of wine, and changed the subject to Jusia’s own life. But she only looked at me that same way. Guilt riddled her. “What’s wrong, Jusia?”
She downed her wine, a drop of it escaping her lips and trickling down her chin. “I have to tell you something.”
I froze, and then swallowed the grape in my mouth heavily. “What is it?”
Jusia poured herself another glass of wine, then offered me one. I shook my head.
She took a sip, and I saw now how nervous she was. How nervous she had been from the moment we stepped into this room. “He visited last week.”
I blinked, and my fingertips went cold. Please, not her. Anyone but her. “Robar?”
“Yes.”
The tiny naive part of me that had hoped Robar’s declaration in the Fancy had been a lie: died. He had come again after all. I still had to know, though. I still had to give her the knife to stab me with. “Did he ask after me? Was he looking for me?”
“No. He came as a visitor.” She grimaced as she clenched her hand around the glass stem. “He chose me.”
Of course. Of course he would. He had come to the House before he knew me.
Once he had forgotten me, he would have been the same man who had come that first time.
Just as enticed by the pleasures of our House.
Of course, I told myself logically, while my world cracked.
There was no loyalty to me, none that he remembered.
Jusia looked up, and whatever she saw on my face made her own crumple. “Annie, I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head and looked away, moving to where I couldn't see the bed, trying as hard as I could to keep the image of her with Robar out of my head. The more I tried, the more I saw her knelt before him. The more I imagined his face of ecstasy and pleasure, but it wasn’t me who had brought it.
I remembered Robar’s response to whether his Ekrissian had enjoyed her time: “It certainly sounded like it.”
I closed my eyes as nausea rolled in my belly. “It is fine. It is your role.”
Jusia spoke quickly from behind me. “I asked him about you, I knew he was sweet on you. I figured that was why you left? But he didn’t seem to remember visiting you.”
I flinched. She had tried, tried to remind him of me. It hadn’t worked.
This wasn’t Jusia’s fault. It was entirely mine. I blinked back tears, still staring at the wall. “No. No, he wouldn’t. That was the deal I made. In exchange for leaving, I had to make him love me again on the outside.”
“Ekris gave you that deal?” Jusia asked.
“He did.”
For a moment, all I could hear past the swirling storm in my thoughts was the bubbles of the water in the bath behind us. I breathed carefully, not wanting to break down here. I didn’t want to make her feel even worse for something she could not control. I would cry when I was alone again.
A glass touched back onto the table, and then Jusia touched my arm.
I shivered as she found the final knife to lodge in my side.
“Annie,” she murmured, her voice wracked with guilt. “Robar said he will return here. He asked me to signal.”
I inhaled. “I see.”
It wasn’t a one off. It wasn’t a need he was filling, some urge to quench. No, he had asked to see Jusia again, specifically. As he used to ask me. He didn’t love me. It was a pattern. I was a pattern.
I turned abruptly, seeing the horrible expression on her face. I couldn’t do this, I was so close to falling apart. I forced a fake smile onto my own face and moved past her to the door. “I’m sorry, I have to—”
“I know,” she interrupted.
I glanced back from the door, a hint of a real smile flickering under my tears. None of this was her fault. But looking at her now, all I could see was him all over her.
She frowned, her arms hanging by her side, and the gulf of space between us became something I knew would take months and years to heal. “Annie, come back soon. Find a way. I miss you.”
“Yes,” I lied. “I miss you, too. Stay lovely.”
We both knew it would be some time before we saw each other again. This was another pattern, the lies we told to our patrons. I missed you. I’ll see you soon.
She touched her hand to her heart, and I left her in the sanctum alone.