“You’ll see.” She tugs her hood further around her face. “Most people who live in the shadow of the wall are strapped for coin. It’s cramped and damp and riddled with mold, but it’s rich withsecrets.”
A flutter hits my heart.
I like secrets.
I follow her around a sharp turn into a narrow alley. A web of strings crisscross overhead, laden with dripping clothes and bedsheets. I dodge the puddles, watching the fluttery train of Gael’s cloak grow more sodden by the second. “And how did you learn about these secrets?”
She pauses, stepping closer to dig through my knapsack, then pulling out the masks and handing one to me. “I used to sneak out at night and explore the city. It’s a different world when the sun’s down. Morethrilling.”
I smile at the spike of rapture in her voice, feeling it infuse me with a bout of excitement that makes my heart race.
She sets her mask on her face—like coating the upper half in a lick of blue paint—and I follow suit. She leads me into a tighter alley that slopes into a shadowed staircase tunneled through the earth. “And then one night, just shy of my nineteenth birthday, I stumbled uponthisplace …”
She raps her knuckles on the worn, blue door at the bottom of the stairs: three rapid knocks, two slow, three rapid again.
I plant my hip against the wall and cross my arms. “You’re not going to murder me, are you?”
She leans back, inspecting her nails. “After seeing you almost decapitate your guard and considering you have a blade strapped to your right thigh, I don’t think I’ll risk it.”
Well then.
“Good eyes.”
She shrugs. “In this city, it pays to be observant. Literally.” She chuffs a humorless laugh. “I think it’s the only important thing Mother ever taught me. A lesson that’s saved my rebellious ass more than once. Parith can be merciless if you don’t know it well enough.”
“Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask, seeing how familiar you are with the city …”
She lifts a brow.
“You don’t know where I might find a woman named Madame Strings?”
She makes a face like she just smelled something sour. “I’ve seen her around. She creeps me out. What do you want from her?”
“I have questions. I heard she knows a lot of …things.”
“That’s true.” A small pause, then, “Is that why you wanted to go to the markets?”
I nod, and understanding dawns in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I can’t help …”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I tell her, and the door creaks open, spitting out a stout man with sharp eyes and a fuzzy beard that smothers half his gruff face, the other half covered by a mask much the same as ours.
They give each other curt nods before Gael grabs my hand and leads me through the doorway. Down a tight spiral of stairs, we shoot out into a long, damp cave that seems to go on forever—lit by strings of small, circular lanterns hanging from the roof. A low throbbing pumps through the ground, like a heart sits beneath the bare soles of my feet, the beat growing deeper.
Deeper.
The walls become clothed in vines, and I run my fingers over their velvet branches, feel the same dramatic beat thumping through. The rich, salty tang of sweat knocks me in the back of the throat, accompanied by the sweet, floral nectar I recently grew far too familiar with.
The rich bouquet of wantonneed.
My head spins, the smell so intoxicating, it alleviates the weight of my body. Makes my breath speed up and my nipples pinch painfully beneath their crushing bind.
“What is this place?” I ask close to Gael’s ear as we reach a curl in the cave, the stone softening with a coat of spongy moss my feet sink into.
She throws me a cunning smile over her shoulder. “A forest nymphlair.” We step up to a thick fall of vines that bar the way. “Clutch thy pearls, High Mistress …”
My heart rate accelerates as Gael pierces her hands between the natural curtain and cleaves an open path for us.
