The Golden City

“Nightdress?” Oriana reminded her.

“Oh, I mustn’t forget that.” Isabel dashed back to the dressing room.

Oriana folded the blue skirt from the top of the pile and set it in the trunk, located the shirtwaist Isabel wore with it and tucked that in next, and then headed into the dressing room to hunt down the matching jacket. She found Isabel standing before the full-length mirror in the cluttered dressing room, holding up a nightdress. It was her most daring, a white satin that bared much of her bosom like an evening gown.

Isabel glanced over one shoulder at Oriana, her face glowing with excitement. “Do you think he will approve? It’s not too shocking, is it?”

Isabel was blessed with an ivory complexion and thick black hair. She had delicate features, delicate hands, delicate feet. Her hazel eyes had been the subject of many a wretched suitor’s poem, and her rosy, bow-shaped lips had earned their own paeans. She was everything that Oriana wasn’t—beautiful by any standard. A good thing too, as Isabel’s sharp tongue and cutting wit might have earned her enemies were she less lovely. But she’d gathered a court of suitors and held them fast while waiting for a man of both adequate means and malleability to come along. Mr. Efisio had never had a chance once Isabel made up her mind to have him.

Oriana’s eyes met Isabel’s in the mirror. “I’m certain he’ll like it, shocking or not.”

“Good.” Isabel smiled contentedly at her reflection, but turned back to Oriana, her face going serious. “I know you don’t approve. I’m grateful you’re coming with me anyway.”

Oriana opened her mouth to apologize for her earlier arguments with Isabel over Mr. Efisio’s fate, but paused. She still didn’t approve. She nodded instead.

“I do love him,” Isabel said then, the first time she’d told Oriana so. “Have you never been in love?”

Oriana gazed down at her folded hands, her throat inexplicably tight. She was only a few years older than Isabel, but her situation in life had never been amenable to courtship. How many times had her aunts pointed that out? Unlike women within human society, among her people a female often remained alone; there simply weren’t enough males. Those females not meant for a mate were destined to serve their people instead, as Oriana did.

That thread of Destiny that bound her soul to some other’s? Oriana didn’t think it existed. She had resigned herself to that years ago . . . or she’d thought she had. Seeing Isabel so excited about her upcoming nuptials made Oriana wish she’d been one of the others—those for whom Destiny had chosen a mate. “No,” she admitted when she found her voice. “I’ve never been in love, so I suppose I can’t understand.”

Isabel’s brows drew together. “Do your people believe in love? Or are your marriages all arranged, like Pia’s?”

Oriana mulled that over. “We believe we are destined for one in particular, or—”

“Then perhaps you just haven’t met him yet,” Isabel interrupted with a blithe wave of her hand.

Apparently Isabel believed that if she were to have a husband, then everyone must. At least Isabel’s interruption had saved her from admitting aloud she was destined to be forever alone. Oriana nodded again, as if she agreed. She was realizing she did that quite often.

Isabel surveyed the mess on the bed with narrowed eyes, plotting how to subdue it, no doubt. “Now, why don’t you go pack your own bag, Oriana? I’ll finish up in here.”

Oriana cast a glance back at that chaos and suppressed a shudder. Isabel would simply cram her clothes into that trunk. As she wasn’t taking a maid along, Oriana would end up ironing everything later. She hated exposing her delicate hands to all that heat, but she would do so to help Isabel start off in her new life properly. One last thing she could do to repay Isabel for her kindness.

She tugged on her black silk mitts to hide the webbing between her fingers. “I’ll be back shortly, then.”

She slipped out the bedroom door and walked down the hallway, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to warm herself. The Amaral household was one of contrasts. In the public areas of the house no expense was spared. Fires would no doubt be burning merrily in the parlors to chase away the September evening’s chill. The silver was regularly polished, and the china lovingly displayed in a fine oak sideboard in the palatial dining room. The rugs and tapestries were of the finest quality, many dating back to the family’s wealthier days.

The social elite of the Golden City seemed to believe that facade of affluence, counting the Amaral family among their most important members. Isabel and her mother were invited to all the important affairs, the balls and picnics and soirees. They attended the theater regularly. Isabel’s approval was sought by younger girls, and her hand by all the men.

But while the Amaral family worked hard to present an affluent image downstairs, they didn’t bother upstairs. The second floor, where Isabel and her mother had their bedrooms, was left unheated. The draperies and rugs were threadbare, and the hall runner had begun to unravel along one edge. Only half the gaslights were turned up, leaving the hallway murky.

The areas of the house where the servants lived and worked were worse. When Oriana reached the narrow back stair leading up to the third floor, it was altogether unlit. But since her eyes were better than a human’s in the dark, she didn’t bother to fetch a lamp to climb its creaking length. The servants’ quarters were cramped and cold, the floors covered only with aged floor cloths. Like most houses on the Street of Flowers, the Amaral home had been transplanted to this spot in the Golden City in the previous century, moved stone by stone. The servants lived in rooms that hadn’t been improved since that time: no plumbing, no lighting, and with peeling paint on the walls. Small wonder the maids so often fell ill.

Being Lady Isabel’s hired companion, Oriana had a room to herself. She was grateful for that. Her little room was a safe haven, a place where she need not hide her hands or her gills or the inhuman coloration of the lower half of her body. While she looked more human than most females on her people’s islands, those things simply couldn’t be escaped.

Oriana opened her door and slipped inside. Once she’d lit the lamp on her nightstand, she stripped off her silk mitts and stretched out her fingers. The webbing between them glowed iridescent in the flickering lamplight. Although they protected her from exposure, the fingerless silk mitts pushed down the webbing between her index finger and thumb. This pair she’d sewn herself. That ensured they were better made than the ones she could buy at the market and long enough to hide all but the tips of her fingers. Even so, they made her hands ache.

Oriana sank down onto her narrow bed, rubbing that sore spot. She kept her nails trimmed close. Otherwise they would curve downward over her fingertips like claws. That was easy to hide. Her webbing was a different matter. At least the other maids didn’t question her refusal to bare her hands. Not long after hiring her, Isabel had cleverly let slip to Adela that Oriana had psoriasis—rough, red patches on her skin—marring her hands and throat. That lie provided a ready explanation for continually wearing mitts and her penchant for high-necked gowns, even in summer. It also meant that the maids never associated with her, for fear it was catching. Whenever she wasn’t in Isabel’s company, she was alone in this cold and unfriendly house.

Over the past year Isabel had become more than just her employer. She’d become a confidante as well. But once Isabel was securely married to her Mr. Efisio, there would be no need for a companion to play chaperone. Oriana would return to the Golden City, alone and without employment. There was little chance she would find work as a companion again, not after having been a party to an elopement.

That didn’t concern Isabel, though, and Oriana didn’t blame her. Mistresses had no reason to concern themselves with the fate of servants they left behind. Isabel was busy planning her marriage and her future; it would only spoil her enjoyment to hear her companion fretting about her own predicament. But without a letter of reference, Oriana was going to have difficulty finding a new position.

Because she’d not yet had her webbing cut away, her initial assignment in the city had been trivial. The sereia spymaster in the Golden City, Heriberto, had grudgingly taken her on, but he’d done little to help her. Oriana had managed to secure a position in a dress shop on her own, one favored by less-wealthy members of the aristocracy. She’d listened to the gossip of the ladies as they came in for their fittings, reporting back to her master on which of them might be sympathetic to nonhumans and welcome their return to the Golden City. When Isabel—a regular customer at that shop—had offered Oriana a position in her household, it had been a step up, with greater access to the aristocracy. It had been a coup for a spy whose master insisted on treating her like an untested child.

Now it would be back to the cramped dressmaker’s shop on Esperanca Street, or possibly even home to the islands to wait for another assignment. She would simply have to see what Heriberto ordered. Oriana sniffled and snatched up the handkerchief off her nightstand. This was no time to feel sorry for herself. She would have to