Instead, she reached into her hair and drew out one of the thin silver pins, letting it hang from her fingers as she stepped inside.
The room was just as she’d left it, with one noticeable exception. A man now sat behind the pale wood desk—her desk—as if it were his own. She flicked her fingers, and several candles sprang to life, casting the room and the intruder in a soft yellow glow. His face brightened, or rather, the mask he wore did, reflecting the light. It was an ornate thing, the surface like poured gold, the top curling upward like the spokes of a sun.
Ciara’s shoulders loosened in recognition. She painted on a smile, but didn’t let go of the pin.
“The Master of the Veil,” she said. “What brings you here?”
The Veil was another pleasure garden, one of dozens in the city. But unlike the others, it didn’t stay in one place, and only opened at the whims of its master. That was the gimmick, an invitation-only club that descended like a cloud-shadow, sweeping over a building for a single night.
The man behind the desk spread his hands and said in Veskan, “I was waiting for you.”
She stiffened a little, answered in Arnesian. “There are far more comfortable rooms in which to wait.”
“I’m sure,” he said, lifting a glass orb from the desk. Inside, a white rose hung suspended, preserved in perpetual bloom. A gift from one of her patrons. “But none are quite so private.”
Ciara lifted her chin. “You should know, more than most, the discretion of my hosts.”
He began to roll the orb across the table, from one hand to another. “Indeed. They have certainly been … accommodating.”
As the glass ball whispered on the table, Ciara studied the Master of the Veil.
She’d never seen his face, but then, she didn’t need to. She’d dealt with enough patrons to read the kinds of truth only a body tells. She noticed the way he draped himself across the chair—her chair. The way he took up space, even in a private office, as if entitled to it. Ostra, she thought. Maybe even vestra. It was there, in his posture, and in the languidness of his Arnesian, and the formality of his Veskan, which spoke more to education than experience. It was there, in the shape of his hands, and the crescents of his nails. It was there, in the taunt that tugged at the corner of his voice, as if they too were seated at a Rasch board. Though she guessed he didn’t play games, not unless he already knew that he would win.
The man pushed the glass ball again, but this time, as his left hand flung the orb away, his right made no motion to catch it. It rolled, briskly, across the desk, and straight over the edge.
Ciara lunged forward, caught the sphere just before it shattered on the floor. She sighed, and straightened, and when she did, the Master of the Veil was right there, no longer behind the desk but in front of it, in front of her, so close that she could almost see the eyes behind the mask.
A single lock of dark hair curled around the corner of the golden mask. She reached up, as if to tuck it behind his ear, her fingers ready to pull the mask aside, but his hand closed around her wrist, his fingers burning cold. She flinched, but his grip tightened, seeming to enjoy her discomfort. She’d handled enough patrons to recognize the ones who took pleasure in another’s pain. She fought the urge to drive the silver pin into his side, and smiled through the biting cold.
“There are other rooms for that,” she said evenly. “And other hosts.”
“Speaking of hosts—” He let go, returned to his seat—her seat—at the table. “I’ve come to hire three, for my next opening. It will be a larger crowd.”
“Perhaps you should hire more of your own, instead of borrowing mine.”
“The beauty of the Veil is that it’s always changing. Never the same garden—”
“Never the same flowers.”
“Precisely,” he said.
Ciara looked down at her wrist, the skin there red from the lingering cold. “It will cost double. Because of the risk.”
“Risk?” She couldn’t see him arch a brow, but she could hear it in his voice.
“Businesses like ours cater to a diverse clientele, but my consorts have noticed that many of your patrons share the same mark.” She looked down at the glass ball in her hand. “Now, they are of course discreet. But I think you will agree, in this case, that discretion is worth the extra cost.”
As she spoke, she saw the frost spread across the window, felt the air go cold around her, cold enough that if she exhaled, she might see her breath. It left an awful, eerie feeling, like his fingers sliding over her skin. Ciara flexed, and the warmth returned. She would not be made to shiver in her own house.