Whispering, the girls file from the room. Aoki looks over her shoulder as she goes, offering me a smile I can’t return. Wren also pauses in the doorway. She looks round. Just like last night when our gazes caught across the stage, there is a radiance in her eyes that pulls something in the pit of my stomach into life.
“Good luck, Lei,” she says. “I’ll be thinking of you.”
I blink after her as she slides the door shut.
“So. The King has finally summoned you.”
Madam Himura’s voice cuts through the quiet. I look down at my lap, where my fingers twine together.
“Mistress Eira predicted it,” she goes on. “Apparently he was quite taken with you at the dance recital last night.” With a rustle of feathers, she comes round the table to kneel beside me. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lei-zhi. Being scared of your first time is normal. All girls are.”
I bite my lip. “Is there… is there any way—”
She clicks her beak. “Do not ask the impossible of me. The King’s decision is final.” A clawed hand lands on my shoulder with surprising gentleness. “You’ll feel better once it’s over. You might even grow to enjoy it in time.”
I remember Aoki’s tear-streaked face.
“I doubt it,” I mutter.
Madam Himura snatches back her hand, the callous tone returning to her voice just as quickly as it went. “Whether you enjoy it or not is beside the point. This is your job. And as with all your duties, you will perform to the best of your abilities. Even if your abilities don’t seem much.” She jabs her cane against the floor. “Rika!” she barks at one of the maids. “Take Lei for her ye lesson.”
I frown. “Ye lesson?”
“Night skills,” Madam Himura responds curtly. “To prepare you for tonight.”
She doesn’t say it, but the word is in the air with us, sharp and cutting and cold.
Sex.
I’m finally about to be trained for the most important role of a Paper Girl—and the one I’ve been dreading the most.
Hidden in the southeastern corner of Women’s Court, beyond high walls and set deep within gardens scented with the rich, heady fragrance of jasmine and frangipani, are the buildings where the palace courtesans live. The Night Houses. During her description of the different areas of the palace when we first arrived, Mistress Eira didn’t go into any further detail, telling us only that they are strictly out of bounds unless we’re given explicit permission from her or Madam Himura. Now, pulling up outside the concubines’ home, I wonder why. It’s not as if we’d just be able to saunter in. Along with the steep walls, dozens of soldiers line the deep gate leading into the grounds. Sunlight glances off their leather armor, the elaborate sheaths of the jian crossed at their chests.
Rika, Madam Himura’s maid, helps me down from the carriage. The guards don’t move, but their gazes flick over me. I catch the eye of a tall cheetah-form soldier as we pass. She has a surprisingly sweet face, sandy fur almost as pale as skin, looped black markings around each eye. She gives me a smile, friendly somehow despite the glint of canines.
My eyes shift from her to the demon next to her, then the next. I turn to Rika. “They’re all female!” I say.
She nods. “Male guards aren’t allowed permanent fixtures in Women’s Court.”
“But what about the visitors? Aren’t they men?”
“There’s an entrance on the side that leads directly from City Court for them to use.” Then she adds, almost as an afterthought, “That’s where the house with the male courtesans is, too.”
“Male courtesans? For the female court members, you mean?”
“No, Mistress. They are also for male court members.”
We fall silent. I can’t say I’m that surprised by this news. At our nightly events there have sometimes been male demons who have had other men as their escorts, like the two lion-men last night. But I’ve never seen it the other way round—two female lovers.
We don’t say any more as we head along a winding path through the gardens. It’s peaceful here among the trees, the floor dappled with sunlight. The grounds are lush and wild, with willowy trees and tangled knots of flowering shrubs, vibrant after last night’s storm. Red saga seeds pepper the grass. There’s the trill of birdsong, the rustle and rush of breeze-blown leaves. The violet beams of half hidden pavilions wink from deep in the foliage. As we pass one, movement from inside draws my attention. The view is partially blocked by the swaying leaves of a ginkgo tree, but I make out the form of a naked woman beyond the latticed balcony.
Her long raven hair tumbles to the floor. Two elklike antlers twine elegantly from the crown of her head. Tossing her head back, she shifts, and the brown-haired body of some kind of bear-form demon sits up from under her. His hands grip her shoulders as she moves on top of him. I can’t hear their noises from here, but it’s clear what they’re doing.
My cheeks burn. I look quickly away, hurrying down the path with my eyes fixed on the ground.
After a few more minutes the gardens open onto a square populated with a cluster of low, two-tiered buildings. Moss crawls up their green-and-red walls. Over their open entrances hang banners marked in sweeping calligraphy, each displaying the same character: ye.
A figure emerges from the middle house. “You’re late.”
The woman cocks her head to one side, arms folded across her chest. She’s a dog-form demon, Moon caste, the spotted umber hair flowing over her lithe frame just showing the beginnings of gray. Long legs—a meld of human limbs and dog haunches—show through the split in her maroon robes. Though her ears are floppy, any softness this adds to her appearance is countered by the keen contours of her face and the flint-colored stare she gives us as we approach.
Rika bows. “Our sincerest apologies, Mistress Azami.”
Just as I start to mumble a greeting, the dog-woman strides forward and grabs my arm. “Your job during these lessons is not to talk,” she snaps, yanking me up the steps into the house. “It’s to listen. Only listen. Can you do that? Can you keep that pretty mouth of yours shut for the next few hours?”
I almost trip on the lip of a step. “Y-yes, Mistress.”
“What did I just say? Aiyah, you’re a slow learner, aren’t you? Let’s hope you have some talent between the sheets to make up for it.”
With an irritable click of her tongue, she drags me up a flight of stairs to the upper floor and down a narrow hallway. I get only a quick impression of the building’s interior; low, shadowed corridors, glimpses of moving figures from behind thin rice-paper screens, and sounds, unfamiliar but somehow… not. Heavy groans. A stifled moan.
Mistress Azami raps on one of the doors. “Zelle!” she barks. “Open up! Your Paper Girl is here for her lesson.”
A silky voice answers from inside. “Why don’t you ever ask nicely, Mistress?”
“And why don’t you ever just do as you’re told?” Grumbling, the dog-woman opens the door and shoves me through. “Three hours. The basics. Go.”
She shuts the door with a slam.
I stumble to a stop, hastily smoothing down my clothes. My eyes meet with those of a Paper caste girl just a few years older than me. She’s leaning by the window, dusky light from the half closed shutters painting her slim outline in gold. A slit travels up one side of her indigo skirt, exposing the lean length of her legs.