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MARY
Irested my gloved hand on Charles’s arm as we strode through the streets of Hesten, following the directions Demery had given us. We traveled west out of the bustling, dingy wood-and-brick tenements of the Knocks and onto a broad thoroughfare called the Boulevard of the Divine. East of a canal between two of Hesten’s islands, the boulevard played into its name with a collection of brothels, faux temples and dens of various vices. All were closed at this time of day, but locals passed to and fro, red-cheeked and bundled up to their noses.
My eyes wandered across shuttered windows and doors painted in pastels, snagging on a sign over an alleyway. It had no words but contained a rather lewd and unfortunately educational depiction of several individuals.
“You are blushing,” Grant murmured in my ear.
I tore my eyes away from the sign. “And? What’s wrong with that?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. But I do not suggest looking across the street and up to the second balcony.”
I glanced up instinctively and choked. There, through a set of glass doors stood a very naked, muscular man smoking a pipe and watching us pass by.
Charles doffed his hat, and the man raised his pipe in acknowledgement.
I snapped my eyes back to the road. “Charles!”
“Mary!” he repeated, mimicking my tone and fitting his hat back on his blond hair. “Come now, do not pretend you’re unfamiliar with the sight of naked men.”
I kept my gaze fixed ahead, coaching my expression into blankness.
Charles’s eyes widened sightly.
“Youarefamiliar,” he realized, taken aback. “Ms. Firth, I’m shocked. You do notseem…well.You do not strike me as that kind of young woman.”
I stepped over a pile of manure and picked up my pace, forcing him to do the same. The topic was one I wasn’t enthusiastic to discuss, particularly given how I’d responded to seeing him that morning, but he irked me. “You must not know very many young women, then.”
When he didn’t reply immediately, I looked at him sideways. Awkwardness passed through his expression, then he planted a smile on his lips and sauntered on.
The Knocks’s half of the Boulevard of the Divine ended at a huge, broad bridge of stone and lanterns, strung with sweet-scented pine garlands for the approaching Winter Festival. Here, both on the banks and on the bridge itself, a lively market of carts and stalls was set up. Patrons clustered around great stone braziers, sipping coffee and hot liqueur while the crowd flowed around them. Laborers cleared snow and manure, women clutched baskets and hawkers of every nationality cried their wares.
Presenting ourselves as we had, well-appointed but obviously visitors, we attracted a good deal of attention. Flowers, fabrics, pastries, candies, fae dragonflies, teaspoons and bottles of foreignair—“Enliventhe senses with a breath of thePassara!”—werelauded to us, though at the sight of our weapons, no one dared to come within arm’s reach.
I was grateful for that. My nerves were increasingly on edge, my relief at being ashore tempered by something intangible, something I couldn’t quite name. Perhaps it was the foreignness of the port and the volume of itsinhabitants—easilymore people than I’d ever seen in my life, combined. Perhaps it was the cold, biting at my cheeks and creeping up my sleeves, or the absolute absence of trees. But by the time we passed over the bridge and onto the Shasha’s side of the boulevard, something in my chest had hardened.
Daily shops and cafes turned into fine inns and boutiques, the tall face of every building graced by impractically shallow balconies and lavish moldings in Ustistyle—everyarch calculated and every façade a simple variant of pale reds, blues or yellows. Statues of old Usti saints and gods lined the way too, each one stoic and decorated with ice.
“Phirandi House, blue, with odd windows around the door,” Grant recited, stopping in the street next to a building of that description. Its double doors were accessed by a broad, fanning staircase and crowned by an array of clear glass windows that reminded me of a morgory’s deadly plume. The doors themselves boasted huge, tentacle knockers and the expected notation,Phirandi House.
I took one knocker in a gloved hand and dropped it twice. Grant took up station at my side, tugging at his cravat and working his jaw in preparation for a winning smile.
The door opened to reveal a young man with immaculate white brows set atop green eyes and milk-pale skin. He wore a style of clothing I’d noticed on the street, something between a frock coat and a kaftan belted high over the stomach with a broad sash. His breeches were loose at the thigh, narrowing into high dark stockings at the knee, with red garters and fine boots.
Charles unfurled his smile and startled me by speaking in Usti. I’d never heard the language on his tongue before, and shot him a curious glance.
The pale steward surveyed us for a critical moment, then gestured us inside and said in perfect Aeadine, “This way, Mr. Grant, Ms. Firth.”
“Does every Usti speak Aeadine?” I whispered to Grant as we slipped inside. I was truly starting to feel my lack of a second language. “And should I have learned Usti?”
“No and yes,” Grant hissed back.
Troubled by this, I fell silent as we were seated in a receiving chamber with a hard sofa and too many paintings on the walls. A maid arrived to set out a tray of tea and dry honey shortbread dusted with cinnamon, then she and the steward vanished.
“It seems we are to wait,” Grant muttered, wandering over to the fireplace. A huge portrait hung over the mantle, depicting a dark-haired Usti woman in hunting garb with two enormous, barrel-chested hounds I mistook for bears.
“Will you teach me Usti?” I asked. My mind lingered on my embarrassing lack of education and the anticipated arrival of Lady Phira, but I eyed the shortbread longingly. Was it polite tojust…eatthem all?
“If we’ve nothing better to do.” Grant ran his gaze over the portrait and on to the room’s other decorations. “My, Lady Phira does have taste.”
