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It’s difficult to avoid looking at her, though. I steal glances when I’m sure no one’s watching, treating myself to the vision that is Juliette, wearing a white dress covered in tiny flowers, with lace decorating her low neckline and more lace draping the ground when she walks. Her hair is up today, pinned under a hat which she doesn’t seem to like. She keeps reaching up to adjust it, with a little unconscious pout of her mouth. I nearly laugh once when, with a petulant shove, she nearly knocks the hat from her head, and a maid rushes forward to fix the pins.
She spends most of her time with three women in particular. One is skinny and pale, with freckles, frizzy red hair, and a perpetually startled expression. The second is an arrogant, bronze-skinned beauty with scarlet eyes and lavender hair. Juliette seems most talkative and comfortable with the third member of the group—a pretty, dark-eyed woman with ebony skin and long braids.
As I’m fetching tea, lemonade, or iced punch for the other ladies, I notice that I’m not the only one with an eye for Juliette. Most of the guards circulate through the garden paths, but one guard stands in the shadows, watching only her. When she and her group move, he moves as well.
I’ve been a sneak and a trickster long enough that I recognize a spy when I see one.
He could be observing one of the other three, but it’s unlikely. Juliette can spin straw into gold, and she gave the King the best night of his life. As such, she’s top of the list for filling the role of Queen, and it makes sense that His Majesty would want to keep a closer eye on her.
It unsettles me, but it means our plan is working. As long as he believes her to be an asset, she is relatively safe—if “safe” is even a concept in this place.
After an hour or so in the gardens, the women take lunch on the terrace, and the suspicious-looking guard switches places with another, who continues to shadow Juliette. When they’ve finished lunch, the women are escorted back to their rooms, with the exception of two, who are being brought to the King. I don’t know whether he’s interested in a demonstration of their magic or their mouths. They aren’t my concern.
With the concubines returning to their chambers and the halls filled with people coming and going, I have the chance to disappear. I’ve been seen performing my duty, and now I have a vital errand to run.
First I stop by the kitchen and pull the cook, Mrs. Moorne, into the pantry for a moment’s conversation.
“I’m going to fetch the herb we spoke of,” I tell her in a low voice.
“Eyes everywhere,” she whispers, plunging her hand into a bag of flour and extracting a small leather pouch that clinks slightly. “This was all I could get on such short notice. It will have to be enough.”
“I’ll make sure it is.”
She cocks her head, eyeing me. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
“No promises.” I grin, and she cracks a smile through her worried expression.
“I swear you’ve changed, Rupert. I’m not sure yet if it’s for better or worse. Here, take this basket and shopping list. That way no one will question why you’re leaving in the middle of the afternoon.”
She’s wise to provide me with the excuse. Venedict Luron, the steward of the House, is a sharp-eyed fellow with a nose for idleness. Lucky for me, he usually retires to his room early in the evening, so I haven’t run afoul of him during my trips to see Juliette. But during the day, he’s always stalking through the halls, making sure everyone is occupied in the running of the House. Goddess forbid anyone should take a nap, have a drink or a smoke, or snatch a single moment’s peace when Venedict is on the prowl.
I could never work in a house like this for longer than a few weeks, and I pity those who must spend their lives here, beneath his unrelenting eye.
As the goddess would have it, I round a corner and nearly crash into him. But I pretend to be deeply immersed in my shopping list, and he says nothing as I hurry on through the halls. He thinks I’ve been sent on some important errand. And so I have.
Once I’m out of the House, past its gates, and beyond the main wall of the palace, I breathe easier. I’ve escaped the real Rupert’s duties, and I’m free to investigate the source of the fennisley.
Goddess knows I’d rather be in Juliette’s room right now, exploring her beautiful body, making her come over and over, spending myself inside her. But she wouldn’t be happy if I suggested that. She would remind me of our goals and tell me that time is short.
With her voice and Rupert’s memories in my mind, I hail a cab and ride deep into the seediest parts of Giltos.
The night that I changed my mind about leaving Juliette, when I returned to the alley, I took my time with Rupert Diggs, repressing his conscious mind while gingerly picking through his memories. Because of his fragile stasis and my own low energy levels, I had to do it in phases, until I finally discovered his contact for the fennisley—a black-market peddler of Elvish artifacts named Ayvish Thren.
Generations ago, when the Elves decided to perform the Withdrawal and officially retreat from human society, they requested that all their cultural items of power be returned. Some kingdoms and confederations agreed to do so freely, while some forced the Elves to buy back or bargain for the objects. Others refused to yield their Elvish artifacts at any price.
In the kingdoms where humans would not comply—Darthage among them—the Elves cast curses upon their own relics. They could not reclaim the objects with waging a bloody war, but they could spell the artifacts remotely and poison their use. Many people died from using cursed Elvish objects, until several rulers, including the King of Darthage, banned the use of Elf-made items altogether.
Of course, that only created a black market for Elvish relics, cursed or not. The uncursed items are the rarest and most expensive, but even cursed objects are appealing to desperate humans. Some are willing to risk dire repercussions just to use Elvish magic. Dealers who offer cursed items for sale often provide written instructions so their buyers can either avoid triggering the curse or minimize its effects.
As a Half-Elf, a castoff, a rogue and a renegade, I’ve made some deals involving Elvish relics and antiquities—most of them purloined from my father’s house. I considered those to be part of my rightful inheritance—what I was owed from the bastard who spawned and then scorned me.
So I don’t judge Ayvish Thren for peddling magic. But according to Diggs’ memories, he’s also a dealer of thrash, an especially nasty drug some humans crave as a means of self-destruction. In my mind, that’s a worse path, making coin off addicts with thrash-feeble brains who can’t think beyond their next fix.
This magic merchant and thrash dealer further hides his identity by operating out of a sewing shop—the Gilded Thimble.
Despite its name, the place is anything but gilded. It’s a crooked, smashed-looking sliver of a shop jammed between a cannery and a greasy-looking bakehouse that I’m fairly sure bakes very little bread and probably has a naginleaf farm buried in its recesses. In fact, I’d bet my dick every shop in this fetid-smelling street is a respectable front for despicable deeds.
Not that I mind. Some of my best deeds have been despicable.
