THREE #3
Halfway down the block, I stumble across a pleasure house, men and women with painted cheeks hanging out the windows.
They’re laced in low corsets, biceps and breasts spilling out as they call to everyone passing by on the street.
My cheeks must be as red as theirs, because a girl who can’t be a day older than me takes a step from the door and looks me up and down.
Her skirts are hiked so high that I can see the garters holding her stockings.
“This is not your street, dove,” she whispers in a kind voice. “Best head back where you belong.”
I nod, a lump forming in my throat, and head toward the first side street I see. She calls out again, but I don’t turn back to see if it’s meant for me or for a potential client.
I dart down the narrow alley, catching a few people looking at me as I pass.
When our eyes meet, their gazes drop guiltily to the street.
Glancing down at my new dress—one of three Broderic scraped the money from Stars know where to buy—I realize how I must look.
I’m dressed as a lady. My clothes aren’t quite as elegant or expensive as those on the High Street, but they’re not the working garments of the people around me.
I don’t belong here, but I don’t belong at the palace, either.
And now I sense eyes watching me again, the feeling like a stone in my shoe that I can’t shake loose. Clipped but distant footsteps echo behind me. They fade in and out. One second, I’m sure I’m imagining them. The next, it feels like I’m being followed.
I quicken my pace, looking around like I’ll find the right place to land, but I might as well be stretching my wings in a cage.
There’s nowhere for me to go. The walls close in, the alley tapering and my chest constricting along with it until I can’t quite catch my breath.
I’m sure that I’m going to pass out, but then the passage twists slightly.
I steady myself against the wall as I stagger a few more steps to a hidden square.
In the open air, the tightness around my heart eases—until I look at the sign hanging from the nearest eave: The Sixth House.
The name isn’t as concerning as the skull and bones crudely drawn under it.
Its windows are blacked out, as are the ones in the shop next to it.
That one doesn’t even have a name, just a painting of a heart impaled on a knife. Somehow, that’s advertisement enough.
Dread skitters down my neck like a dozen tiny legs.
Something tells me that I won’t find any Calix-issued licenses in these shops.
No chalice-stamped documentation that the magic inside is legal.
The door to The Sixth House groans open, and I find myself sidling toward the only normal storefront I see: a bookshop with thick, leather-bound tomes piled in the window.
A bell jangles as I enter and swiftly close the door behind me.
The little shop is so cluttered that I immediately knock into a table, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
I steady the table, barely stopping its heaped books from hitting the floor, as a well-dressed woman appears from some hidden pocket in the back.
Her dark hair is cut bluntly at her chin, and it swings just above the tall collar of her neatly tailored wool jacket. She looks at me and blinks, her blue eyes shutting and reopening as slowly as a drowsy cat.
“Can I help you?” The question is colored with doubt, like she already knows the answer.
“I’m …” I pick up the first book I see. “Browsing.”
Her mouth twists, but she inclines her head. “Of course you are. Fiction is on the east wall.” Boredom replaces the doubt as she rattles off my options. Then she pauses and studies me for a second before slowly adding, “The specialized texts are past poetry, upstairs through the curtain.”
I don’t know what she means by “specialized,” although her tone gives me some idea.
Everything else in this square suggests the forbidden.
I don’t want to know what’s up there, but I’m sure it’s equally scandalous, if not outright illegal.
I inhale, swallowing my pride. “Thank you, but I’m just browsing. ”
“Take your time.” She sweeps one more look at me and disappears into the back again.
Opening the book in my hand, I’m relieved to find it’s only a history of the Last War, the foreword proclaiming an honest and accurate depiction through personal stories.
Aside from whatever waits upstairs, the books seem relatively innocent, if a bit dusty.
I shove it back on the shelf and make my way to the poetry corner, studiously ignoring the heavy curtain that leads to parts unknown.
A few minutes to calm my nerves, and then I’ll head down that crooked alley and back to the Arcade.
I reach for a book of sonnets, but my hands are still trembling and I nearly drop it.
“I’m twenty-five. I know the way.” I mutter my own words to Kieren under my breath, each minute making me more embarrassed than the last.
Just as I’m about to put the book back and leave, the bell over the entrance jangles again. I peek through the empty space on the shelf, and my breath catches when I see a red cloak, dark as blood in the shop’s dim light.
The bishop stands in the doorway.