Velsa didn’t see Calban, and she relaxed slightly. It was easier to handle strangers. They were all dressed in Earth-style clothes: two men in light-colored suits with long, thin neckties, and two women in ankle-length dresses, one blue with a wide collar, the other green with rows of buttons on the bodice and sleeves. They were mid-conversation and stopped to admire the girls and the tea for a moment.
“I could get used to this,” one of the men said, grinning at Pen as she put the tray on the table.
“It’s a lot of food,” one woman said. “You’d think Calban wanted to serve us up for dinner at the end of the week.”
“This is English tea,” Pan said.
“Ooh, English tea!”
“Is it England where they drink so much tea? I can’t keep a single one of these places straight.”
“You probably can’t even name half the countries in our own world, can you, Borlan?”
Borlan shook his head with a laugh.
“So are you girls quadruplets?” Borlan asked.
“Yes,” Pen said, without missing a beat. “Pan, Pen, Pin, and Pon.”
The Daramons laughed.
“They’re adorable,” the woman in green said. “Leave it to Calban to own a matched set.”
“Do you girls dance or anything?”
They glanced at Velsa and then said, “We’re just serving today.”
So they probably did dance, if Velsa wasn’t here. She imagined them as puppets, dangling on strings.
She jumped when a hand suddenly pinched her rear. One of the men. “They’ve got tighter flesh than I expected.”
“You’re terrible,” the woman said, pulling his hand back into his lap. “Poor girl, you scared her.”
Velsa’s urge to retaliate was so strong that she felt her mind thrum past the band; the man rubbed his forehead. “My head,” he groaned. “Should’ve slept longer.”
Velsa took some small satisfaction that she had fought—but that was dangerous, too. He didn’t say anything, so he must have not have realized it was her, but the next person to grab her might be more astute. Then what? Calban might find somewhere much worse to put her.
A young servant burst into the room, with several newspapers in his hand.
“There it is,” the woman in green said. She noticed the panicked expression on the boy’s face as her arm moved to grab a paper. “Is everything all right, lad?”
“Dragons,” he said, handing out the papers. “Three of them. Spotted off the coast.”
There was a flurry of conversation from the Daramons as Velsa’s legs got a little shaky again.
“Which coast?”
“Northeast of here.”
“Spotted when?”
“So they could already be attacking.”
“Calban says the defenses are strong enough to withstand a dozen dragons.”
“I wouldn’t want to be the one to test it.”
“So that’s it, then, isn’t it? This must be a declaration of war, if they’ve sent dragons to our borders.”
“Well, they might just be scouts…”
“Scouts…right.”
“Really—there’s no use worrying about it. Calban is beyond confident, and he knows perfectly well what dragons can do.”
They read the papers, commenting here and there on the article, but information was scant. Three dragons were no laughing matter. Velsa had seen firsthand how destructive they could be, with their strong telepathy and fire breath. Grau said there weren’t many dragons left in the world, so more than anything, this showed how seriously the Miralem considered the threat.
The next morning she heard Calban speaking to someone about how much food would be needed, and she thought, Flynn!
She edged down the stairs only to see a man with a boyish face and a trim scarlet tunic, holding an open notebook. “Some imported cheese would be very fashionable,” he said.
“No,” Calban said sharply. “Lots of Miralem will be at this party and the cheeses upset their stomachs, and cream too. Flynn knows this.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Duly noted. He is very sorry he couldn’t be here today.”
It seemed Flynn had sent an assistant.
Her heart sank. She had pinned all her hopes on him.
When Calban left the assistant alone for a moment, Velsa came down the stairs. “What happened to Flynn?” she asked.
“He’s tied up with other business.” The young man gave her an urgent look and went after Calban.
“Wait!” she implored, but he didn’t turn around.
Velsa dragged her hands through her hair as her panic magnified.
She wondered if Kessily was the other business. More than anything, he wanted to get her out of Nalim Ima, so that she wouldn’t stir premature rebellion. Velsa had no reason to think Flynn cared about her in particular.
Maybe the couple at the party had been right. Maybe overhearing them had been a warning from fate that she had ignored. Flynn wasn’t much of a rebel—he’d even said so himself. He was trying to understand what Kalan was up to, but he wouldn’t stick his neck out for Velsa. Why should he? She was a nobody.
She stomped her foot with frustration before climbing the stairs, her eyes trailing over the patterned paper that decorated so many of Calban’s walls.
“Miss?”
Sorla’s voice came from the bottom of the stairs. Velsa whirled.
The girl standing there didn’t have Sorla’s face. Her face was not crude, but finely crafted. A cute face, with the doll-like, not quite human charm that all well-made Fanarlem shared, but with slightly sly eyes that reminded her just a bit of Parsons.
“Sorla, is that you?”
“This is the face you tried to give me.” Sorla was coming up the stairs.
This made perfect sense, since the head came from Parsons, and had been probably been crafted by the same maker. It suited Sorla well, although Velsa didn’t say so, since Sorla had been reluctant to change her appearance.
“What happened? Where are you staying?” Velsa rushed to her, clutching her hand. She felt as if she hadn’t heard Sorla’s voice in months.
Sorla spoke quickly. “When the Peacock General came for Grau, I went out the fire escape. I took the spare head Parsons gave you, since Calban knows what I looked like before, then returned to the caves to get help. Kessily and Dennis were there. Flynn came a little later. He’s still making plans to get them a boat so they can sail to Laionesse, and he can’t wait for us. He said he’s only one man and he can’t save everyone. But I thought—if I could pose as a servant to his assistant, I could at least get in the house. They’ve banded you, haven’t they?”
Velsa tugged on the necklace that hid the golden band. “Yes. It’s tracked, too. All I need to do is get the damn thing off and no one will do it for me.”
“I doubt we have time now,” Sorla said. “I don’t have tools on me. Maybe I can sneak into the party tomorrow…”
“I don’t know, Sorla. I don’t want you to get caught, too. And I can’t go to Laionesse without Grau.”
“Kessily and Dennis said they would try and get Grau.”
“Really?” Velsa hadn’t expected this. “Why would they do that?”
“You told Kessily he might be able to help her. Besides, they said we’ll need two sorcerers to steer the boat to Laionesse.”
“Well…”
“We have to try!” Sorla said. “It won’t even be sneaking. I’m legitimately being Dorin’s assistant. I spent all morning carrying boxes into the carriage.”
“Get some tools if you can, but I might be able to find some here, too. We’ll get my band off and get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Sorla whispered, but as always she seemed almost a little too excited. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Be careful,” Velsa said.
Chapter 17
Velsa spent the next twenty-four hours lining up the plan on her own end. She didn’t want to tip the other concubines off. They might be sympathetic to her, b
ut they could also blab. She purposefully ripped a seam on her arm so she could ask if they had an enchanted auto-needle. Just as Velsa hoped, this led to Pin showing her a workroom in the basement where she could access everything needed to repair Fanarlem bodies.
Velsa stayed behind in the room and found some scraps to sew into a pouch where she could stuff all the jewels. She formed a hook out of some wires, so the pouch could be hooked to one of her ribs. If she didn’t pack the jewels well, when she tried to stuff them in her ribcage they would end up sliding down into her stomach.
She shoved aside the little voice in her head that kept whispering how insane this plan was.
As the guests began to arrive the next day, the concubines were summoned to a staging room where a man was pouring wine into glasses and setting them on trays.
Pan, Pen and Pin each took a tray automatically. “Can you manage one, Velsa?” Pin asked.
“Yes…” Of course she could manage a tray physically; her skeleton was better than the others. Emotionally, could she serve guests without betraying how on edge she was? That was another matter, and she wasn’t sure which Pin was actually asking about.
Although when she picked up the tray, she had trouble balancing it on one hand the way the other girls did. The man pouring the wine shook his head and took the tray back. “Let me give you something else, bellora,” he said, his accent thick Atlantean, languid and romantic.
At least he called her ‘bellora’, a word usually reserved for flesh-born women, which softened the humiliation of being given a square tray she could hold with two hands, containing shot glasses full of spirits that hardly weighed a thing.
“It takes a little practice to get the balancing act down, that’s all,” Pan said. “You’ll get it.”
The square tray did have another advantage, she realized as they walked down a long hall, with the sounds of the party growing louder with every step. The other concubines, holding the trays up high, displayed more of their body. Velsa’s tray partially blocked the view of her exposed hips.
“Velsa and I will work the banquet hall,” Pin said. “Pan, you take the music room, and Pen, the ball room.”
They nodded. “Sounds good.” “Good luck, Velsa.”
Velsa knew all these rooms. The banquet hall was just as before; a dance performance at one end, dancing to the music played by a handful of musicians, and table after table of food. This time, many of the guests were Halnari Miralem. “It’s easy,” Pin told Velsa. “Just wander around and ask people if they would like a drink, especially if they catch your eye. You don’t have to flirt with them like we do.”
“Good, because I’m certainly not doing that.”
Pin grinned. “You’re really stubborn, you know that?”
“I’m not stubborn, but I’m not going to flirt with other men!”
“I have a feeling you were never that good at flirting.”
“I don’t want to be good at flirting.” This conversation was going nowhere, so Velsa gripped her tray and set off into the crowd.
The guests at this party seemed taller than the ones at the masquerade, even despite her heels. This could have been a matter of perception, as her own social standing had shrunk to nothing, but the Halnari truly seemed taller than the Daramons. They were like lilies or tulips, stem and bloom transformed into human, lean and beautiful and a little frail. They all wore draping sleeves and elaborate hairstyles, different arrangements of braids and loops to signify their status, although Velsa didn’t know what each braid meant.
The men were as lovely as the women. They were taller and had shorter hair, and their feet were not shape-shifted as much, although she still thought they didn’t look quite right. Maybe they had four toes.
She moved around the room, offering the tray half-heartedly, as the Halnari looked at her with admiration or concern. “Thank you, dear.” “Thank you.” The Miralem didn’t believe in slavery, and they afforded much more respect to their women; not a single one of them laid a hand on her.
But there were Daramons here too, businessmen and politicians discussing trade with the Halnari, all being very jovial. The Daramons desperately needed their telepathic neighbors to the north. All of this must be a constant balancing act. Velsa imagined the Halnari could demand an awful lot in exchange for sending many of their best telepaths to Nalim Ima. They were already a wealthy nation, with land rich in resources.
Velsa idly wondered why the Halnari had decided to throw their lot in with the Daramons to begin with. The other Miralem must revile them. For all the talk of new technology, the Halnari telepaths were a crucial component of the strength of Nalim Ima.
For that matter, what did the Halnari think of the Wodrenarune and his people? This party didn’t feel as fun or relaxed as the parties she had attended. The Halnari held themselves at a distance—or the Daramons held them at a distance—it was hard to tell which was more true.
Much of the idle conversation was about the dragons. It seemed they were scouts after all; they hadn’t attacked, but everyone was sure they would return. And yet, no one seemed particularly nervous about it.
If anything, the guests were excited.
They really are confident about this war…
She spotted Flynn’s assistant, leading a few of the servants out with more food, but so far, no sign of Sorla. Did she dare to ask the assistant about her? No—it was early yet. Too soon to escape anyway. The drinks had to be flowing. This plan needed patience.
Near the dancers, she almost bumped into Calban. “Long term, art will win the war,” he was saying. “It’s harder to fight cultural dominance than it is to fight soldiers. Propaganda, my dear, that’s my new favorite word.”
She hastily backed away with a mumbled apology. He was dressed very sedately today, especially by his standards, in an Earth-style suit, and so she had not recognized him.
“No, no, Velsa. Please. I’ve been looking for you. Unfortunately, there is something I need you to do.”
Velsa tensed, hoping he wouldn’t send her off where Sorla couldn’t find her. He motioned for her to follow him to a table stacked with desserts, and he took the shot glasses off her tray and replaced them with a bowl of chocolate custard.
“This is Parsons’ favorite,” he said. “I need you to take this to her and apologize for your deception.”
“Apologize?”
“Yes,” he said. “Her father is a very important man and Parsons is his heir, so I’m afraid I must make sure that she knows I took her concerns seriously.” Calban had a spark in his eye like he found all of this rather funny.
Velsa stared at the custard. She had some words for Parsons. An apology was definitely not among them.
“Please?” Calban said. “For me?” He put a hand to his heart. Still amused.
“Fine,” Velsa snapped.
Calban put a hand on her shoulder and steered her out of the banquet hall, past the music room, and finally to a smaller room. He peered in and then nodded. “Yep, she’s still here, go on.”
He left her to do it alone. Not that his presence would have helped.
A number of women, mostly Daramons sprinkled with a few Halnari, were gathered on chairs and sofas, playing card games. They all looked up at her as she walked in. Parsons was lounging back on a sofa, a few cards in one hand, with a Halnari girl beside her holding a drink, and another Daramon girl and Irik across.
Oh, Irik was here too. Just terrific.
Parsons looked at Velsa, and her superior expression drained away. Her spine went rigid, and her dark eyes were like gun barrels pointed at Velsa as she approached.
Velsa put the custard down on the table in front of her, in the middle of the card game. “I’m sorry that I spent any time with you, when I was really just a lowly concubine, and you were flesh-born and obviously far superior,” she said.
The Halnari girl made a low “Oooh.” Maybe the drinks had loosened her up, because despite her long braids and fine clothes, her expression looked
eager to make trouble, uncharacteristic for her people.
“I am superior,” Parsons said tightly. She looked at the door. “Did Calban send you in here?”
“Yes,” Velsa said. She resisted the urge to snipe at Parsons any further. It was certainly tempting—but if Parsons was angry enough, maybe she could have Velsa removed from the party and foil her plans.
“Take your stupid dessert back,” Parsons said, shoving it with her shoe. “I don’t want an apology. I just don’t want to see you again. Get out of my sight.”
Irik was looking at the floor. The other girls were staring at Parsons.
“I think you’re getting a little crazy with this,” the Halnari girl said. “You can hardly blame the girl for wanting to be real.”
“She made a fool out of me,” Parsons said. “I am nothing like her, and she pretended that we were in the same universe. She claimed that her life and her soul was just like mine, and for me to find out that I took a slave to the theater—”
The Halnari girl put a hand on Parsons’ shoulder. “Shh, shh. It’s not a big deal. Especially if you stop making it into one.”
“Calban sent her in here to mock me!” Parsons said. “And it isn’t because he values Velsa. It’s because he doesn’t think much of me. He thinks it’s petty of me to defend my own dignity, but it isn’t. I am tired of being treated like I’m some doll brought to life just to be the local mascot.”
The Halnari girl shrugged. “I still think you need to get laid.”
“You drunken hussy—” Parsons wrested the drink from her hand and slammed it down on the table so hard it splashed up into her hand, which cut off whatever rant she was about to launch into, because like all Fanarlem she wouldn’t want to get her stuffing wet. She looked for a napkin but was forced to wipe her hand on her skirt.
The Halnari girl threw a card at Parsons and cracked up laughing. Some of the older women in the room were now glaring at them. The Halnari ladies, especially, looked disturbed that one of their own was causing trouble.
Parsons stood up. “I’m going to have words with Calban,” she said. “It’s completely unacceptable that he would keep you here.”
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