“There are other rooms for that,” she said evenly. “And other hosts.”
“Speaking of hosts—” He let go, returned to his seat—her seat—at the table. “I’ve come to hire three, for my next opening. It will be a larger crowd.”
“Perhaps you should hire more of your own, instead of borrowing mine.”
“The beauty of the Veil is that it’s always changing. Never the same garden—”
“Never the same flowers.”
“Precisely,” he said.
Ciara looked down at her wrist, the skin there red from the lingering cold. “It will cost double. Because of the risk.”
“Risk?” She couldn’t see him arch a brow, but she could hear it in his voice.
“Businesses like ours cater to a diverse clientele, but my consorts have noticed that many of your patrons share the same mark.” She looked down at the glass ball in her hand. “Now, they are of course discreet. But I think you will agree, in this case, that discretion is worth the extra cost.”
As she spoke, she saw the frost spread across the window, felt the air go cold around her, cold enough that if she exhaled, she might see her breath. It left an awful, eerie feeling, like his fingers sliding over her skin. Ciara flexed, and the warmth returned. She would not be made to shiver in her own house.
The Master of the Veil leaned back in the chair. “Perhaps what you say is true,” he mused, “perhaps not. We are paid to overlook the details of our patrons.”
“Discretion isn’t the same as ignorance,” she countered. “Nothing happens in my brothel without my knowing. And I’m willing to bet nothing happens in the Veil without yours.”
She studied the golden mask, and the man behind it.
“I was just with the king’s consort.”
The Master of the Veil inclined his head. “Here? Has the royal bed gone cold?”
“He came searching for information. The palace is worried. He suspects I’ve heard something. He would have paid me handsomely. Yet I gave him nothing.”
“And instead, you tip your hand to me.”
Ciara shrugged. “It’s not tipping if you mean to show it. I want you to know exactly where I stand.”
“You support the cause, then?” Surprise rang through his voice, and for the first time, she wondered if the Master of the Veil did more than simply host the Hand at his establishment.
Ciara considered. “I have nothing against the crown. And no love for your cause. But business is business, and our business is better in times of … upheaval.” She returned the glass orb with its rose to the cradle on the desk—her desk. “Still, my consorts’ discretion may be free. But mine will cost you.”
He rose to his feet, one hand slipping into his pocket.
“Three hosts should be sufficient,” he said, setting a stack of silver lish on the edge of the desk. To these, he added a single cheap red lin. “For your time,” he said, and despite the mask, she could hear the corner of his mouth twitch up in amusement before he slipped past her, and out the office door, leaving a chill breeze in his wake.
Ciara watched him descend the stairs, but she didn’t move, not until she was certain the Master of the Veil was gone.
V
SOMEWHERE AT SEA
A few hours after they set sail, the first two men explained the plan.
They were going to rob the Ferase Stras.
The third man listened, his excitement dissolving into horror.
He’d heard tales about the floating market, back when he was still just the merchant’s son, and not a hero in the making.
Not much was known about the legendary ship, which dealt in the empire’s most dangerous goods. Despite its name, the vessel wasn’t a market so much as a vault, a place to store forbidden magic. Few things aboard were actually for sale, and those went only to the right buyers, chosen by the captain, Maris Patrol.
Some said she was a phantom, bound to the boards of her ship for all time. Others claimed she was just an old woman—though she’d been an old woman as long as there had been the Ferase Stras.
It was impossible to find the market without a map, and the only maps that led there seemed to lead nowhere at all—unless you knew how to read them. And if you did manage to find your way by water, the ship could not be taken, since no guest could set foot on deck without an invitation. And even then, it could not be robbed, since the wards laid upon it were as thick as lacquer, and not only stifled any magic, but would turn a thief’s body to ash before it reached the rail.
It was a doomed endeavor, an impossible quest, and yet, two days later, here they were, huddled on the platform outside the Ferase Stras, waiting to be invited in.
It was a narrow ledge high above the water, little more than a plank fixed to the side of the ship, too small for three men and a trunk, and so as the first man knocked, the third clung to the back edge, close enough to feel the place where the platform fell away beneath his heels. His heart was pounding, bobbing on the line between excitement and terror. He thought of Olik, the hero who walked right onto enemy ships, and made himself at home. Olik, who had put his fear in a metal box, and sunk it in the sea. The third man pictured himself bottling up everything he felt and letting it drop over the edge behind them, leaving him steady, and sure.
Still, he wished he had a mask, like Olik’s friend Jesar, the ghostly terror. The hero never wore one, but the third man knew too well how much faces gave away. Unfortunately, he also knew they’d never be allowed on board with such concealments, so there he was, trying to keep his features smooth, his brow steady, and his mouth set. Trying to make a mask of his own face.
The first man knocked again on the simple wooden door.
“Maybe they’re dead,” mused the second, when still no one came.
“Better not be,” growled the first, resting his boot on the trunk. “We don’t know if the wards are bound to the ship or the bodies aboard.”
The third man said nothing, only stared at the floating market, and wondered how many of the stories were true. If there really were talismans aboard that could split mountains, or plunge thousands into sleep. Blades that drew out secrets instead of blood, and mirrors that showed a person’s future, and metal cages that trapped and stored a person’s magic, their mind, their soul.
“Should we just go in?” asked the second.
“Be my guest,” said the first. “I told them we didn’t need three men for this mission.”
The second man rubbed his fingers, calling up a flame. It flickered to life but as he brought it to the door, the fire guttered, snuffed out by the force of the market’s wards.
The third man tugged nervously at his tunic.
He was dressed, like the others, in the rough-spun black common to pirates. It was scratchier than he thought it would be. Olik never mentioned that. Nor how the constant rocking of a boat could turn one’s stomach.
Finally, the door rattled open.
He looked up, expecting to see the infamous Maris Patrol, but found a middle-aged man instead, dressed in a crisp white cowl.
The captain’s oldest nephew, Katros. The steward of the ship.
He was broad-shouldered and dark-skinned, a sheen of sweat on his brow, as though he’d been ill. But he wasn’t ill, strictly speaking. He was drugged. That was part of the plan. Katros’s younger brother, Valick, took a skiff to shore twice a month, and came back laden with food and drink, the latest shipment of which had been laced with savarin, an odorless powder that weakened the body and clouded the mind. The bulk of the toxin had been put in the wine that Maris favored, from a vintner who now served the Hand.
She must have been in a generous mood.
It wasn’t poison, he reminded himself, as Katros swayed on his feet, his skin taking on a greyish hue. Olik wasn’t in the business of murder—went out of his way to avoid needless death, and so would he. Besides, there was too good a chance the spellwork aboard would catch it. But some people took savarin for pleasure. The danger was only in the dosage, and that was in the drinker’s hands.
Katros Patrol cleared his throat, and steadied himself.