The boy’s head shot up. “What?”
“I want you to dance. Show me what I am staking my reputation for.” The man gestured at a spot at the center of the room. “Go on. Here is as good a place to perform as any. Do you know the songs the asha play?”
“I know about a hundred in their repertoire.”
“Really?” I hadn’t known that either.
Rahim grinned. “Your dedication is admirable, but so must your dancing be. Begin whenever you feel ready.”
I recognized the dance Likh started with—a complicated piece called “Good-bye,” about a woman from Drycht to be executed for dishonoring her family when she fled with a disreputable lover. It was a popular song used as propaganda against that kingdom in the olden days, though few people nowadays think of it as anything more than a tragic ballad. I was stunned. There was a heaviness to Likh’s body, a weariness that translated beautifully into his movements, and I could almost imagine him as a woman who was putting everything she had into one final dance, a heartbreaking eulogy.
“That was excellent, Likh,” Fox said when he’d finished. My brother wore an expression close to amazement on his face.
The image of that solemn, weeping woman disappeared, and Likh was back, fidgeting and nervous. “Was that OK? I’m told it’s difficult to do well—”
“It is a dance that must be as successful at conveying emotion as it is with performing its intricate steps,” Rahim said. “And a dance where the latter means nothing if you cannot accomplish the former. It looks like I have no choice but to design a hua for you.”
He closed the distance between them and clapped both hands on Likh’s shoulders. The boy staggered. “Agata and Patel must know, of course, but the others will gossip and the word will spread, and so everyone else must be kept in the dark. I shall say it is a fine hua commissioned by a connoisseur from Yadosha, and no one shall be any wiser. We will arrange the bustline like this so that you will give the impression of breasts, and then alter the hips so that you can sway and fill out like a woman. Green and lavender! Your skin is light enough for winter but not too coarse for summer fashion. And ravens! A motif of ravens to suggest your hair. Agata! Patel! Come and measure!”
“Don’t worry,” I called out to Likh as Rahim dragged the poor boy out of the room. “This is part of being an asha too!”
? ? ?
During the days that Likh was being subjected to Rahim’s enthusiasm for hua, I was not without my own tribulations. My dance lessons proceeded as normal, but Lady Hami had decreed that I could now rise up one tier in my combat training. Now, no longer content to have me jump through obstacles and swing my way through bars, she made me swim underwater with weights attached to my feet, got me to claw my way through swamp underneath streams of Fire other asha shot out in my direction, and had me face off against several opponents at once. Other apprentices simply parted the waters so they could walk or hardened the earth underneath them to avoid the mud or used Wind as a shield to prevent their opponents from attacking. I had no such weapons at my disposal.
Mistress Parmina had also decided that it was time for me to start attending parties with Lady Shadi, and this I looked forward to.
The night I was due to make my first appearance, Rahim and Chesh arrived at the Valerian to help me prepare. Rahim told me rather gleefully that he had just made his first hua for Likh and was pleased with how things were progressing. “Guaranteed, no one will look at him and see a boy,” he promised me.
“I’m still not sure how the elders are going to react,” Chesh fretted. Likh had felt compelled to inform his guardian about his plans, and she harbored some understandable misgivings.
“Our little uchenik’s brother is correct when he says it is not against the rules for Likh to dance,” Rahim pointed out. “I do not think your charge will last very long with Deathseeker training. This may be his best hope.”
“The worst we can do is fail,” Fox pointed out. “They’d still force Likh to join the Deathseekers. I don’t think they’re going to sanction either of you, and I don’t really care what they decide to do with me—the most they can do is send me back to the grave, which isn’t much of a threat. It’s Tea I’m worried about.”
“I don’t think they’re going to punish me,” I said slowly. “They’ll stick chores on me, humiliate me a little—but I don’t think they’ll expel me. They think I’m too important for that.”
Chesh glanced at me and smiled faintly. “I also think you’re smarter than they give you credit for.”
The hua was of a modest design—tiny butterflies climbed up its sides, white against a cornflower-blue background interspersed with small lilies. Rahim showed me how to tuck the waist wrap around me to prevent any folds and ungainly creases in the robe. A small elegance spell made from some of the vials prepared for me by the Dawnseed apothecary had been woven in, but try as I might, I could not detect their magic—only a faint sense of them but nothing else.
“Of course,” Rahim snorted when I asked, “they would not be worth their price if anyone could!”
Chesh showed me the kinds of hairpins and combs that went well with the dress. Tonight I wore a tortoiseshell comb adorned with tiny diamonds that would help inspire gaiety and a hairpin with white flutters and an aquamarine gem set on top, which has a soothing spell. As always, I wore my crescent pin. Then she began to paint my face, showing me how to use my color sticks and pigments to properly contour my face.
“I think you’re ready,” she said, stepping back.
I glanced at the mirror and my mouth fell open. I looked amazing!
“We didn’t come here to help you prepare and expect different results, child,” Chesh laughed. “You’d best get going. We wouldn’t want you to be late!”
They waved at Lady Shadi, Fox, and I as we left the house. This time, other apprentices hurrying past stopped to bow to me as well as to Lady Shadi, and I felt very grown-up in my new outfit. Unlike that night at the Falling Leaf, my hua fit me perfectly.
The cha-khana was looking better than when I saw it last. Parts of the garden that had caved in during the undead rodents’ rampage had been fully restored, and some of the rooms gleamed, shiny in their repaired newness. I still could not quite get over the guilt that I felt for destroying it in the first place, but Mistress Peg was most forgiving. In fact, she was ecstatic.
“We’re booked solid until winter,” she informed me, nearly giddy in her joy. She pressed something into my hands—it was a small envelope customarily used for giving tips. I had never heard of a tearoom mistress handing one out to an asha before a party began. I started to protest.
“Mistress Peg, surely I can’t—”