“Hall of Mirrors, more like it,” Mia muttered.
A turn had passed since the incident in Mouser’s hall. She’d shushed away Tric and Ashlinn’s concerns with some feeble talk about a bad piece of herring at mornmeal, and after some dubious stares, the pair had let the matter drop. The rest of the flock had another lesson scheduled in the Hall of Songs, but with Mia’s arm still black and blue, she’d instead been escorted by Naev to her first lesson in the infamous Hall of Masks.
Stairs and halls. Choirs and windows and shadows.
Now the hall stretched out before her, embroidered with faint perfume. Scarlet on every surface. Long red drapes swayed like dancers in a hidden wind. Stained glass, glittering crimson. Statuary carved of rare red marble was arranged in neat rows; the figures were naked and beautiful, but strangely, each one was missing its head. Stranger still, there wasn’t a single mask in sight. Instead, everywhere Mia looked, she saw mirrors. Glass and polished silver, gilt and wood and crystal frames. A hundred reflections staring back at her. Crooked fringe. Pale skin. Hollows around her eyes.
Inescapable.
Naev retreated from the room. The double doors closed silently behind her.
“You’re early, my love.”
Mia searched for the voice among the reflections. It was smoke-tinged. Musical. She glimpsed movement; pale curves being covered by a wine-red robe. And emerging from between curtains of sheer scarlet silk, she saw Aalea, Shahiid of Masks.
Her stomach almost ached to see the woman in full light. To call her pretty was to call the typhoon a summer breeze, or the three suns a candle flame. Aalea was simply beautiful; painfully, stupidly beautiful. Thick curls falling in midnight rivers to her waist. Kohl-smeared eyes brimming with mystery, full lips painted the red of heart’s blood. Hourglass-shaped. She was the kind of woman you read about in old myths—the kind men besieged cities or parted oceans or did other impossibly stupid things to possess. Mia felt an insect high in her presence.
“Apologies, Shahiid. I can return later if it please you.”
“My love, no.” Aalea’s smile was like the suns emerging from the clouds. She swept across the room, kissing Mia’s cheeks. “Stay and be welcome.”
“… My thanks, Shahiid.”
“Come, sit. Will you drink? I have sugarwater. Or something stronger?”
“… Whiskey?”
Aalea’s smile felt like it was made just for Mia. “As it please you.”
Mia found herself sitting on one of the velvet divans, a tumbler of fine goldwine in her hand. The Shahiid reclined opposite, a thin-stemmed glass of dark liquid held in painted, tapered fingers. She looked like a portrait come to life. A goddess walking the world with earthly feet, somehow seeing fit to spend a few moments with— “You are Mia.”
The girl blinked, feeling a little dizzy in the perfume. “Aye, Shahiid.”
“Such a beautiful name. Liisian?”
Mia nodded. Took a gulp from her glass, winced as the liquid burned her throat. Daughters, but she was dying for a smoke …
“Tell me about him,” Aalea said.
“… Who?”
“Your boy. Your first. You’ve only known one, if I’m not mistaken?”
Mia tried not to let her jaw hang too far open. Aalea smiled again, dazzling and bright, filling the girl’s chest with a warmth that had nothing to do with goldwine. There was something in those dark eyes that spoke of a kinship. Of secrets shared. Like sisters who’d never met. A voice in Mia’s head whispered the Shahiid was working her craft and yet, somehow it didn’t seem to matter.
That was the trick of it, she supposed.
“There’s not much to tell,” Mia said.
“Shall we begin with his name?”
“I never learned it.”
Aalea raised one manicured eyebrow, letting silence ask her question for her.
“He was a sweetboy,” Mia finally said. “I paid him for it.”
“You paid a boy for your first time?”
Mia met the woman’s eyes, refusing to look away. “Right before I came here.”
“May I make a guess as to why?”
Mia shrugged. “As it please you.”
Aalea reclined on the divan, stretching like a cat.
“Your mother,” she said. “She was a beauty?”
Mia blinked. Said nothing.
“Do you know you’ve not looked in a mirror once since you sat? Everywhere you turn in this room, you see your reflection. And yet you sit there staring at the drink in your hand, doing everything you can to avoid your own face. Why is that?”
Mia looked at the Shahiid. She’d always had men fawning over her, most like. Didn’t know what it was to be plain. Small. Ordinary. Anger flashed in Mia’s eyes, her voice becoming flat and hard.
“Some of us aren’t born as lucky as others.”
“You are luckier than you know. You were born without that which most people prize their lovers for. That ridiculous prize called beauty. You know what it is to be overlooked. Know it keenly enough that you paid a boy to love you. To taste that sweetness, if only for a heartbeat.”
“It wasn’t that sweet, believe me.”
Aalea smiled. “You already understand what it is to want, my love. And soon enough, you’ll understand how much power instilling that want in others can bring.”
“… What exactly do you teach here?”
“The soft touch. The lingering stare. Whispered nothings that mean everything. These are the weapons I shall give you.”
“I prefer steel, if it’s all the same,” Mia frowned. “Quicker and more honest.”
Aalea laughed. “And what if you need information to fulfill an offering? If your mark is in hiding, their location known only to a trusted servant? Or you need to acquire a password to access a gathering at which your mark will be present? The trust of a woman who can lead you to your kill? How will steel serve you then?”
“I’m told hot coals work wonders in those situations.”
“Warm skin serves better still. And leaves fewer scars.”
The Shahiid stood, drifted to Mia’s divan and sat beside her. Mia could smell the woman’s perfume, heady and dizzying. Staring into the dark pools of her eyes. There was a gravity to her. A magnetism Mia couldn’t help but be dragged into. Perhaps it was some kind of arkemy in the scent she wore?
“I will teach you how to make others love you,” Aalea purred. “Men. Women. Completely and utterly. If only for a nevernight. If only for a heartbeat.” She reached out with gentle fingers, drew a tingling trail down Mia’s cheek. “I will teach you how to make others want. To feel as you feel now. But first, you must master the face you see in the mirror.”
Aalea’s spell shattered, the butterflies in Mia’s belly dropped dead one by one. She glanced at the nearest looking glass. The reflection therein. The scrawny, pale girl with her broken nose and hollow cheeks, sitting beside a woman who might have been one of the statues in the room come to life. This was lunacy. No matter how sweet her perfume, how delightful the nothings she might whisper, Mia would never be a beauty. She’d resigned herself to that fact years ago.
“I’ve looked into the mirror harder than most, believe me,” the girl said. “And while I appreciate the sentiment, Shahiid, if you sit there telling me I need to learn to love myself before others can love me, I think I might spew this O, so fine whiskey all over your pretty red rug.”
Laughter. As bright and warm as all three suns. Aalea took Mia’s hand, pressed it to blood-red lips. Despite herself, the girl felt a blush creeping into her cheeks.
“Dearest, no. I’ve no doubt you know yourself better than most. We plain ones always do. And I don’t mean to say you must learn to love the face you see in the mirror now.” Again, Aalea touched Mia’s cheek, eliciting a dizzying rush of warmth. “What I mean to say is, you must master the face you see in the mirror on the morrow.”
“Why?” Mia frowned. “What happens this eve?”
Aalea smiled. “We give you a new one, of course.”