The great scholar Jibar has said that it is best to think of magic like music. Some have aptitude for it, while some have the ability to learn it note by note. The greatest users of magic, those who rise to become sorcerers, have both.
—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings, Laocantus Aurus Iovit III
CHAPTER THREE
The streets were full of revelers, clogging up the passageways. Usually respectable merchants’ daughters danced in the roads, their hair whipping like ribbons; the doors of taverns were propped wide, spilling roisterers onto the cobblestones. Music drifted down from wrought-metal balconies overhead, along with handfuls of stiff colored paper cut into the shapes of phoenixes, swords, ships, and other symbols. A crown cut from yellow paper had tangled itself in Asti’s reins; a girl in a white dress threw red hearts from an open window. Conor caught one out of the air and tucked it in a shirt pocket. Conor wore an unremarkable black Valdish cloak, his favorite disguise for wandering the city streets without being recognized; its hood was pulled up, covering his face. Kel wondered what the girl would think if she knew she’d given her paper heart to the Prince himself.
The young men entered the city, unrecognized and without guards. Or so Conor seemed to think; Kel suspected guards in the shadows watched them as they went. Jolivet’s Arrow Squadron, ready to intervene in the case of danger. But it was only a suspicion, and Kel did not voice it. It mattered too much to Conor to believe that he was free, if only for a few hours.
It was the sort of night that usually charged Kel with burning energy, left his veins humming with the contemplation of possibility. He wondered if it was the same energy that seized sailors as they approached the horizon and whatever might lie beyond it: uncharted islands, buried gold, ruins from the time before the Sundering.
They passed into the Temple District and turned toward Hourglass Street, where many found their own golden ruin in the night. Here there had once been an alluvial plain, reclaimed before the Empire fell and covered over with a skin of bricks bound together with gypsum and quicklime. The area was crisscrossed with canals; the water in them, fed by underground streams, ran a sluggish dark green beneath arched metal bridges.
Signs hung in front of the gabled “shops” that lined Hourglass Street. Each bore a painting indicating what sort of distraction one might find inside. Most were simply bodies twined together in some form of erotic congress. Others required deciphering: a female figure peering through a door, a man with a rope around his neck, a young woman carrying a flowering vine while another woman knelt at her feet.
Kel could remember the first time he had been here with Conor. Perhaps they had been fifteen. They had both been nervous, with Conor trying hard to hide it. He had said: Pick which one you like.
Kel had realized Conor didn’t know which place to select, either, or what to ask for. He was leaving it to Kel, because it didn’t matter if Kel seemed inexpert or ill at ease. So Kel had picked the Caravel, because he had liked their sign: a tallship with white sails, an open book beneath, its pages forming the waves on which the ship charted its course. He had introduced himself and Conor to the madam, Domna Alys Asper, who had been more than delighted to welcome them. To be able to boast the patronage of the Crown Prince would surely bring other clients to her door. She had given them each a gold hourglass, emblazoned with a ship. These, she had explained, were theirs to keep, and to use each time they visited.
In the Temple District, the cost of pleasure was measured in turns of the hourglass. One could have as many hours as one liked with a courtesan, enjoying their company and skills, as long as one could pay for each hour. Thus Hourglass Street had gained its name, and that night Kel had lost his virtue, over the course of two turns, to a red-haired courtesan named Silla.
Domna Alys had been correct about Conor, too. In the years since, the Caravel had become a favored gathering place for members of the noble families on the Hill. Where Conor went, so went the fashions for everything from clothes to amusements. Never mind that Kel had been the one to choose the Caravel; there was no need for anyone else to know that. Besides, Kel had become quite fond of Domna Alys over the years. Why shouldn’t she profit?
She was there tonight, hurrying to greet them as they left Asti and her brother, Matix, in the care of Caravel’s discreet footmen. Red and gold lamps dangled from thin metal wires above the front door; brothels, too, could be patriotic. Alys waved them inside the small entryway, smiling. “Monseigneur!” She glowed with pleasure at the sight of Conor. “And my young lord.” She bowed to Kel. “What an unexpected delight. Your friends, I think, have already arrived.”
Falconet, then, and whoever he’d brought with him. Kel sighed inwardly.
“A welcome visit, Domna,” said Conor. “After a wearying day, what better resting place than here?” He produced the red paper heart from the inside of his jacket and offered it to Alys. She smiled and tucked it into her bodice.
Domna Alys was the sort of woman whose beauty gave no clue to her age. Her skin was smooth, her cheeks flushed a pale rose, her eyes wide, blue, and enhanced with the expert application of kohl and shadow. Coils of black hair were dressed high at the back of her neck, and her dress fell in elegant pleats to her ankles, revealing brocaded slippers. She was, Kel thought, just that bit too fashionable to be a merchant’s wife, and not quite richly dressed enough to be a noble. She knew a great deal about everything that happened in the city, from the Hill to the Maze, and she kept it to herself. A madam who gossiped about her clients would not have a business for long.
She led them into the main salon, where the carcel lamps had all been lit and fresh flowers trembled in long-necked glass vases. The furniture was black lacquer inlaid with greenstone from Shenzhou, and carved screens from Geumjoseon showed images of dragons, manticores, and other extinct creatures. The room smelled heavily of jasmine and incense—a rich scent Kel knew would linger on his clothes for hours.
Joss Falconet, already draped across a green velvet sofa, waved to them in desultory fashion. He was the youngest of the Council members, having gained the spice Charter seat upon the death of his father two years ago. He was handsome, with high cheekbones and the smooth black hair of his Shenzan mother. Two courtesans shared the sofa with him already: a dark young man playing with the lace at the cuffs of Falconet’s scarlet velvet coat, and a blond woman leaning against his shoulder. Around his neck gleamed a chain of rough-cut rubies set in silver bezels. When he was pleased by a courtesan, he would pull one free and gift it to them. It made him very popular.
“Excellent,” Falconet drawled. “Finally someone to play with.”
Kel sank into a carved jade chair. It wasn’t the most comfortable item in the room, but he had no intention of relaxing just yet. “You seem to have plenty to amuse yourself with, Joss.”
Falconet smiled and indicated the rosewood table before him. On it a game of Castles had already been half set up; there was a pack of cards there, too. Falconet was an inveterate gambler and could usually convince Conor into a game. If there was no game handy, one could find them betting on which noble would fall asleep first at a banquet, or when it would next rain. “I did not mean that kind of amusement, Kel Anjuman. I am looking for a challenge, and courtesans are hardly a challenge—no disrespect meant, my dears—as they are inclined to let me win. Castles, Prince?”