by M. J. Scott
Though I’d probably be bored stupid within days. Nothing ever really happened here. The “doctor” who ran the place wasn’t a healer . . . the sanatorium was a place for those the healers couldn’t really help, those whose minds rather than bodies were broken. Regardless, he was well trained and his staff was kind. It was the best I could do for my mother—give her a peaceful place to live out her days.
I intended to keep her here, which was why, as far as the sanatorium was concerned, I was Miss Everton and my mother was a widow who’d never gotten over her lost husband. A twisted version of the truth really.
I wasn’t ashamed of my past, but this was not the sort of place that would accept a failed whore and her half-Fae bastard daughter as suitable clientele. So Miss Everton I would be.
As long as my mother needed me to be.
* * *
The lingering sadness of my morning’s visit had almost lifted when I reached the door of my salon around noon. I’d occupied myself on the hackney ride back trying to remind myself of the good news I had to share. My charms had decanted enough information to keep my client happy the previous evening, plus my trip to the Blood Assembly to bring her said information had been blessedly uneventful. On top of that the costume mistress at the Gilt had commissioned not one but three dresses for the new diva.
The last would be welcome news to Regina.
“Reggie,” I called as I let myself in, “I have news. Is there tea?” I locked the door behind me. The salon wasn’t open today.
“I’m in the workroom,” Reggie replied, voice slightly muffled. I made my way across the tiny reception room where we met our clientele and pushed past the green velvet curtain into the back room.
Regina Foss—Reggie to me—stood regarding the half-finished dress on the mannequin in the center of the room with a considering frown. Her lips were pressed around several glass-topped pins.
“Tea?” I repeated, and she waved a hand toward the sideboard where a pot sat steaming gently. I poured myself a cup gratefully. The kitchen at the Swallow didn’t really come to life until midday. Between six and midday, one was left to the tender mercies of the assistant cook. Who invariably offered stewed tea and burned coffee. I hadn’t wanted to stop anywhere on the way to Bodwell, in case I was late for Mama.
Reggie, on the other hand, made perfect tea, hot and strong.
And sweet, after I stirred in the sugar she wrinkled her nose at. She should’ve been the one with Fae heritage. The Fae specialized in complicated herbal brews they wouldn’t dream of sullying with sugar. But her mother and unknown father were both human. The strange thing was, Reggie, blond, blue-eyed, and sweet-faced, resembled my mother far more than I did. My father had stamped his connection to me clearly. A fact I resented each time I looked in the mirror.
I sipped tea and waited for Reggie to finish making whatever decision she was contemplating. Finally she altered the width of a pleat before placing her pins. When she straightened, pushing wisps of hair back into her neatly coiled bun, I had nearly finished my cup and was considering a second.
Reggie studied the gown for a moment before giving a pleased nod and turning her attention to me with a smile. There were shadows under her eyes, and her plain navy blue dress looked somewhat crumpled.
“Did you work through the night again?” Reggie tended to lose track of time when she was in the throes of creation.
She shook her head. “I got some sleep.” Her eyes flicked guiltily to the long, low sofa against the wall. It was intended for our customers to use during fittings. More often than not it was where Reggie catnapped during her all-nighters.
“How much sleep?” Probably no more than me, but I needed less sleep than a human. “Do I have to start sending someone to escort you home again?” I shook my head at her, not entirely joking. “You know you don’t need to work so hard. We’re doing well.”
“I wanted to finish this. Mrs. Bailey is always so pleased when we finish early.”
So she should be, the old shrew. Mrs. Bailey was married to the man who owned half of Lower Watt. She did her best to spend the money he made and was one of our best customers, but each new order was a test of Reggie’s patience as trims and colors and designs were debated and fussed with endlessly. Which was why I largely let Reggie deal with our customers. I probably would’ve brained the old bat with the teapot by now.
“Well, make sure you rest this afternoon,” I said. “We have a new commission from the Gilt.” I rummaged in my carpetbag for my notebook.
I’d finally captured Reggie’s interest. She turned away from the mannequin, joining me at the worktable. I winced a little as I sat down. I’d stiffened up in the ride back from Temple Heights. I felt as though I’d, well, fallen off a building. Two bands of livid purple across my upper and lower back had greeted me in the mirror this morning and I ached all over. Some of the bruises had darker patches in perfect circles.
Next time I fell off a building, I would make sure I was caught by someone wearing something far more comfortable than a mail shirt. Or land on a haystack. Of course, the more sensible thing to do would be not to fall off the building at all. Even if that meant missing out on being saved by handsome knights.
“Holly?” Reggie’s voice dragged my attention back to reality. “Are you well?”
I blinked, then nodded. “Yes, perfectly, thank you.” I spread the notebook open, showing her my sketches. “These are for the new production. The Courtesan’s Lament.”
Reggie reached for the drawings. “These are for the courtesan?”
“Right. First act, white before she’s seduced. Then the purple for the middle and red for the final act.” The wardrobe mistress had given me a quick outline of the story. Typical theatrical rubbish, romanticizing life. Being a courtesan was hard, and falling from that position was harder still. It wasn’t all beautiful gowns and handsome lovers.
“And the hero?” Reggie asked.
“There are two. A mysterious Beast and the faithful human swain. Three guesses as to how that ends.”
“With tears and beautiful singing as one dies?”
I nodded.
Reggie snorted. We had much the same opinion about the appeal of operatic plots. Like me, Reggie was the daughter of a former employee of the Dove. Like me, she’d pulled herself up from that life to quasi respectability. Or maybe near respectability, in her case. After all, she was truly a modiste, not a thief and a spy who mostly pretended to be a modiste.
Though, in fact, our arrangement was a partnership. I drew designs and Reggie executed them, generally improving the dresses in the process. I gave her the lion’s share of our income, though she didn’t currently know that. My other activities brought me enough income to pay my mother’s expenses and mine and I wanted Reggie to have some security if anything ever happened to me. Along with Fen, she was one of my closest friends. I didn’t want any of us ending up like our mothers.
“Did Madame Petrovich give you the new diva’s measurements?”
“Of course.” I nodded at the notebook. “They’re on the next page. The diva will deign to be fitted at the Gilt once you’ve done the muslins.”
“I’m sure that will be delightful,” Reggie said. She copied down the measurements. “They might take a while . . . that third one is complicated with the train and the cloak and all that beading. Let me make more tea and you can tell me all about last night.”
For a horrible moment I thought she meant the Templar and the roof, but then I realized she meant my interview with Madame Petrovich. I summoned a smile. “Excellent plan.”
We spent another hour or so going over the designs, me explaining my ideas while Reggie suggested alterations and additions. As I stood to make yet another pot of tea, there was a rattling of the doorknob and a voice piped, “’ullo in there. Looking for Miss Evendale.”
I frowned slightly. Most of my customers were women and they, apart from a select few, tended to come here rather than summon me. The kinds of people who
looked for the Owl knew to go through the Swallow. So who was looking for me?
I stuck my head through the curtain. A small boy peered through the glass, his expression brightening as he spotted me. Even curiouser. He didn’t look like a servant, more like one of the street rats who made a living overcharging anyone they could pester or con into giving them small jobs and errands.
“You Miss Evendale?” he yelled in a squeaky bellow.
I walked over and unlocked the door. The boy stepped back as I opened it a crack. “I can get a message to her,” I said, not wanting to confirm my identity.
“I were told only to give this to Miss Evendale herself.” He waved an envelope at me and I caught sight of a familiar seal. Damn.
I held out my hand for the envelope. “I’m Miss Evendale.”
He looked suspiciously at me from under the peak of his grubby cap, for a moment reminding me of the Templar, then grudgingly handed me the envelope.
“Hold on a moment,” I said, and went to get a tip. Street rat he might be, but I didn’t like to think of him going hungry.
The boy’s eyes widened gratefully when he took the shilling. “Any reply, miss?”
“No. Not now.”
He shrugged and left. I locked the door again and carried the envelope into the workroom, laying it on the table beside my notebook. I sat regarding it with disfavor, wondering whether I should have pretended ignorance of Miss Evendale. But the one who’d written this note would find me in the end.
He always did.
Reggie lifted her head from the notes she was making on the diva’s dresses. “Is something wrong?”
I sighed. “No. An errand to run, is all.”
“Are you sure? You look pale.”
“Just tired,” I fibbed. “It was a late night last night by the time I was done at the Gilt. And Mama was having a bad morning.”
She nodded, eyes full of sympathy, and turned back to her notes. She didn’t pry, Reggie. She listened if I wanted to talk, but she didn’t demand information. It was one of the reasons I liked her so much.
I gathered up my things. “I’ll come back after, if I can. Otherwise, tomorrow. Make sure you get some rest.”
She lifted her eyes once more and smiled. “I’ll be here.”
I blew her a kiss and left. It was nearly noon now and the streets of Gillygate were bustling. As border boroughs went, Gillygate was the least disreputable. Mostly human poor rather than Night Worlders and its shared border with Bellefleurs along the western edge, where the cathedral and the Templar Brother House were, tended to keep things more peaceful than elsewhere.
The streets were safe during the day as long as one was sensible. Which was the reason I’d chosen it for the salon. It was the safest place for Reggie to be, and the location wouldn’t deter any potential customers. At least, not any potential customers who were the sort of women who would frequent a border borough modiste.
I ducked around a pie cart and crossed the street to the underground. Gills End Station was a minor one, being so close to Melchior, but it was on the correct line for where I wanted to go. I was unlikely to find a hackney or an autocab willing to take me to my destination, and walking would take too long and be too dangerous even at this time of day.
When I emerged thirty minutes or so later into the streets of Sorrows Hill, the mood was entirely different. Quieter for one thing in the middle of the day. Which made sense when many of the residents would be sleeping the day around underground.
Not that the lack of Blood made the streets any safer during the day. I hooked a see-me-not charm onto the button of my glove. It wasn’t the same as invisibility but would make me less likely to draw unwanted attention.
I had my cutthroat under my skirts and a pistol in my bag, but I preferred not to get into trouble in the first place to having to try and fight my way out of it.
Luckily my destination was in the opposite direction to the main Blood warren and not too far from the station. Since Lucius had died or vanished or whatever it actually was that had happened, there had been an increased amount of violence around the warrens and I was more than happy to avoid them.
Still, by the time I lifted the ornate brass knocker on the door of the redbrick town house, I was cursing the one who’d called me here for more than the usual reasons.
After all, he had more than one residence available to choose from in the City. Hell, he could even have summoned me to Summerdale—or one of the nearby villages given he was unlikely to ask a half-breed to actually enter the Veiled World.
Making me traipse across the town and into danger was another way of him making a point. That I would come when he called. Whenever and wherever.
My father is like that.
I didn’t know the tall, handsome young man who opened the door so I simply gave my name. He nodded with a half bow and ushered me up the stairs into a sitting room.
“I’m here,” I said as my father turned from the window.
Cormen sa’Inviel’astar studied me for a moment.
I gazed back. My father is horribly handsome, in the way of the Fae. His hair is a deep gleaming brown, the color of polished mahogany or very expensive brandy, and his eyes are true bronze, unlike the strange light green-brown shade of mine. It’s easy to see why my mother was so enchanted by him. Especially as he looks no older now than he does in my earliest memories of him.
His Family name means “bright night over the hills” or something close enough to it, and I suppose to some he shines like the evening star. I know to my mother he does. Even now, despite everything he’s done to her.
But to me, he’s simply the bastard who fathered me and destroyed my mother.
He frowned slightly at me and I resisted the urge to rub my chest, where his damned pendant lay hidden beneath my clothes. The gold suddenly seemed cold against my skin. I hated the weight of it. Hated what it represented.
Not an acknowledgment of me as his child, no, for that he would need to give me a Family ring, and one of my fingers would be covered from knuckle to knuckle with a veritable blaze of jewels. No, this was something different. More a brand to my way of thinking, marking me as belonging to him if anyone else should come poaching.
It was spelled, so I couldn’t take it off. Which had led to some interesting episodes in bed, but I usually claimed it had too much sentimental value to remove. Hardly the truth, but the men I took to my bed were there for things other than interest in my sentiments.
I was sometimes tempted to wear it outside my clothes, hoping somebody might try to steal it. But they’d have to cut off my head to achieve that aim. So I kept it hidden from view.
Much as my father kept me hidden from the view of the Veiled World. Though, to be fair, most of the Fae who produced half-breeds did that. Some, though, had the decency to leave those offspring alone.
Not my father.
The silence stretched and I realized he was waiting for me to greet him more correctly.
“Sir.” I inclined my head politely. No “Father” or “Papa” between us. No, things had to be properly respectful for the bastard and her sire.
He acknowledged me with a nod, much shallower than mine had been, then waved his hand toward the chair. “Sit.”
I did so. Things would be over faster if I didn’t make a fuss. And I preferred to spend as little time as possible with my father. My mother had mourned and missed him when he’d left. I’d hated him for abandoning us, for what he’d done to her. It was because of him I’d learned to harden my heart, set my eyes on my goals, and let nothing stop me. I’d learned to survive because I’d had to.
But I would never forgive him for changing from the indulgent charming father of my childhood to this distant stranger who seemed to view me as nothing more important than a possession he kept on a seldom-viewed shelf, to be taken out and put to use occasionally.
I had, from time to time, spied for him. For a price. I charged him more than my other clients. I figured he owed me t
hat much. After all, a good portion of my money went toward keeping Mama in comfort at the sanatorium. And it was no one’s fault but his that she needed such a refuge in the first place.
I crossed my hands neatly in my lap and stared up at him. I wasn’t going to ask first. No, if he wanted something, he could be the one asking.
“I have a task for you,” he said, voice cool.
“Oh?” My stomach curled a little. Damn. It was barely six months since the last task I’d performed for him, retrieving a trinket he’d misplaced in a Beast pack house. Probably while fucking the daughter of the Alpha. That was Cormen’s usual mode. Screw someone over or screw something up and call in someone else to clean up his bloody mess.
“There’s some information I wish to acquire.”
Damn. Not even stealing. Spying. Spying was always more complicated. I set my teeth, forced myself to a politely encouraging smile.
“It involves the humans.”
I bounced out of the chair. “No.”
I didn’t spy on the human world. Denizens of the Night World and the border boroughs, yes. Any humans there had made their choices. But the rest of the human world was off-limits. Too dangerous. Human laws were much stricter about transgressions involving the human boroughs. I had no desire to hang or lose a hand.
“Sit down,” he snapped.
I stood my ground. “No. Spying on humans is too risky.”
“You won’t come to any harm.”
“Oh? And how do you intend to guarantee that?”
“You keep telling me that you’re good at what you do. If you are, there is no risk.”
“What if I’m not as good as I think I am?”
He waved a dismissive hand, as if that were of no importance to him. It probably wasn’t. He believed that I wouldn’t rat him out if I ever fell foul of the law. I wasn’t so sure but didn’t want his attention to turn to my mother with a vengeful purpose, so I probably would hold my tongue. He wouldn’t care what happened to me, of course, only what affect the knowledge of his offspring being so careless and troublesome might have on his standing within the Family and the court.