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“Maybe you could tell me how a person no one has heard of managed to rise to king of the world in a span of days.”
She stood from her desk, walking around to perch on the front, leaning forward as she dragged a finger below my chin without an ounce of fear. “What is that information worth to you, beautiful girl?”
I snatched her wrist, yanking her face to mine. “I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m not going to fall for your tricks. Keep your secrets, Visha. I’m here to make a trade.”
Her golden eyes fell to Chaos, sitting at my waist. “What kind of trade? A desperate one, I hope.”
“I’m not desperate.”
“If you keep those silly morals, you will be.”
“Refusing to kill isn’t a silly moral; otherwise, you’d be lying on the floor, and I’d already be gone.”
She stood, all dramatics and seduction leaving her tone. “Spoken like a magic wielder that doesn’t understand what it’s really like to taste the power. Tell me what you want, Deyanira.”
She’d taken less time to crack than normal. Thank the old gods. Still, my tongue numbed, and the room rippled. “Five hundred coins and I’ll let you see what I’ve brought first. Three hundred and you can buy it for less, sight unseen.”
The trill of her laughter coiled around the room as she moved to a bookshelf and withdrew an old leather tome. A game. Bargaining gave her a high as potent as the opium haze swirling through her brothel. But she would never seem eager, nor rushed. Nor out of control of every possible scenario. I forced my eyes to focus, studying the tapestries on the walls, each depicting a lusty scene of two lovers tangled in various poses.
“Cordelia, would you come here, Petal?” The words had barely left her stained red lips before her favorite courtesan was at her side, eyes trained to the carpet, dark lashes grazing her pink cheeks.
“Yes, Lady Visha,” she murmured as quietly and gently as I’d ever heard her.
“I need Everen from the peacock room, if you wouldn’t mind?”
Cordelia bobbed down in a small curtsey. “Yes, Madame.”
When the door clicked shut, Visha set her book down and came to stand before me. “Your father’s throne is lost. It’s wise to stay away from Icharius Fern. While you may have never heard his name, we in the Scarlet District certainly have. He beats my girls and shows no mercy if he thinks he’s being pushed around. There’s something very dangerous about him.”
“Do you think he’s working with the Maestro?”
She tapped the side of her nose and winked without verbally confirming. If Lady Visha was being careful in her own brothel, even in front of her courtesans, something was definitely brewing.
She gripped my arms and examined me more seriously than I’d ever seen her, golden eyes flickering in the lamplight. “The Maestro doesn’t care for politics, and everyone knows that.”
Watching closely, she waited for me to connect the dots she would not speak aloud, but the drink mixed with that fucking haze had fogged my mind. She’d never spoken to me so frankly, and though I would wager her aim was to create a false sense of security, I still had to fight to trust the tone in her voice. The desperation on her face. She may have had an angle here, but she wasn’t lying.
There was a link between the Maestro and the real Icharius Fern, and if it wasn’t about the politics, it had to be something else.
“The Life Maiden?” I mouthed without making a sound.
Shaking her head, she turned away just in time for Cordelia and a completely naked, black-haired woman to stride in, fingers clasped around the navy straps of two high heels, bouncing off her thigh as she walked. She didn’t recognize me at first. Maybe my stance was too loose, my muscles too relaxed to be dangerous.
Her breath caught in her throat, giving away the exact second she’d figured it out. Stumbling over her bare feet, she nearly fell, trying to run back out of the door. Cordelia was faster, slamming it shut to stop her, as her mistress would have demanded, had she needed to.
“Relax, Petal.” Visha moved to stand before Everen, drawing a manicured nail across her collarbone, up her neck, and to her chin before brushing a thumb over her bottom lip. “I will protect you.”
The light’s glow reflected off the tears welling in her soft blue eyes as she slowly nodded. I withheld my snort at the notion. As if she had any sway over Death’s magic.
Lady Visha moved her hand down her courtesan’s trembling arm, stopping just below the four red bands marking her a thrall. “Who do you see standing in this room?”
Everen drew her head back in confusion, eyes falling to me, then Cordelia and back to her mistress. “Just the three?—”
The brothel owner brought a swift slap down on Everen’s hand before repeating the question. Without missing a beat, the woman answered. “I see no one, Madame.”
“Good.” The seductive and lingering tone to her smoky voice had returned. “Today, you have a choice to win your freedom. Shall we play a game?”
Her eyes doubled in size. “Will I have to leave? If I win?”
