She stands and realizes that it is warm and wet between her legs. Something thick is running down the inside of her thigh. She steps back, nearly tripping over the leg of her chair. On the floor are three drops of blood in a perfect triangle.
She feels dizzy. 'What's happening?' she asks. 'Am I dying?'
Tanen smiles, the first time she has ever seen him do so. His smile makes her more nervous, not less. 'Quite the contrary, Sela.'
He takes her face in his hands and looks hungrily at her. 'Today your life has finally begun.'
The city at night, after a rainstorm, was a glittering wonderland. Kerosene lamps and witchlights twinkled on rain-glazed cobblestones. Distant thunder from the retreating storm rattled beneath the tip-tip dripping from eaves and the muted slap of boots on wet stone. Here in the alley, earthy smells and human smells and dank smells and chimney smells mingled into an aroma different from all of the others, the after-rain smell.
The dress Paet had given her was constricting and uncomfortable. He'd given her scented powders for her skin and hair, and painted red circles on her cheeks. She hated it.
She knocked on the door at the end of the alley. 'What do you want?' came a muffled voice from inside.'
'Bryla sent me, she did,' said Sela. She was talking in Ecara's accent, the way common city Fae talked.
The door was opened by a sullen stump of a man with thick arms and legs and silver tips on the points of his ears.
'Didn't send for anyone tonight,' said the man.
She smiled a helpless smile and shrugged. 'Bryla said to me go to Enni's place, and so that's what I done,' she said.
She smiled a lopsided smile and waited, waited. The man looked at her. Wait. She felt the click and a thread sprung up, seething, bloodred.
There were two kinds of male lust, Sela knew. One was a desire to possess, to grab, to take something away. The other was an opening up, an exquisite longing for communion. This was decidedly the former.
Sela stepped forward a bit and the thread deepened. Sometimes when it was this thick she found herself knowing things. 'You're ... Obin, right?' She reached out and touched his collar.
'All right, come in,' said Obin. 'But don't get your hopes up. It's dead in here tonight.'
'The rain,' she tried. Yes, that was right. Rain was bad for business.
The door opened onto a narrow hallway. Obin led her through it and into a small parlor where three women sat, all heavily perfumed and tightly corseted, as Sela was. They all looked tired and bored. When they saw Sela, a tension sprung up in the room. A green-brown web of suspicion and contempt formed among the women.
'Who's she?' said one. She was thin and pale, with dark hair, and delicate hands. There were circles under her eyes.
'Bryla sent her,' said Obin. 'Don't know why.'
'She can't just come in here on a night like this,' said the dark-haired woman. 'That's silver out of my purse.'
'Now now, Perrine,' warned Obin. 'Let's be ladies, shall we?'
Sela sat primly on a vacant love seat and waited, ignoring the glares from the other women. After a minute or so, their attention drifted and they began a desultory conversation that Sela ignored.
A knock came at the door and Obin went to answer. A young guildsman, nervous and polite, entered the parlor and looked at the women. Sela waited for him to find her with his gaze. The instant his thread appeared, she pushed back against it. Not me. His gaze slipped past her, the thread evaporating. The guildsman settled on the dark-haired woman, Perrine, and she led him through an arch in the back of the room.
Two more men came, and each time Sela pushed them away. For a little while, she was the only girl in the parlor. Obin tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she pushed back against him as well, and he lost interest in her.
Perrine reappeared after half an hour, followed by the young guildsman. His eyes were glazed, and he had a dopey smile on his face. Perrine looked haggard and stumbled a bit. She flopped down on the couch and took a cigarette from a box on the center table.
'Young ones,' she said after he'd gone. 'Hate the nervous young ones.'
They sat in stony silence for several long minutes. Then another knock, and in came the man Sela had been waiting for. He was just as in his portrait, with cape and cane and a wide mustache. He bowed low when he saw the dark-haired woman. 'Lady Perrine,' he said in a booming voice. 'So good to see you this lovely evening.'
Perrine smiled and waved, suddenly alert and attentive. She stood and curtseyed, and Sela followed her lead.
