its throat.
“… which room is the dona’s …?”
Eclipse nodded to the corner windows on the top floor. The curtains were drawn, no sign of what might be going on inside.
“… SHE HAD FIVE MEN IN THERE WITH HER, WHEN LAST I LOOKED …”
“I don’t like the idea of bursting in blind,” Mia muttered. “And the map might not be here yet.”
“… start in the ink den, work your way up, hide until it arrives …?”
“That sounds suspiciously like a plan.”
Mia dropped onto a narrow ledge on the bordello’s third floor, and leapt across the rain-soaked gap to the balcony on the Dinner. Waiting a moment to listen for any commotion, she peered through the keyhole to the bedchamber beyond. Four figures in various stages of undress were passed out in a tangle of limbs on a four-poster bed, empty ink needles on the furs beside them. Dead to the world.
Quiet as shadows, Mia retrieved her lockpicks from her boot heel, sweet-talked the balcony door and slipped inside. The quartet didn’t stir from their inkdreams. he shook off the rain and was sneaking past the bed when a soft knock sounded. Mia was across the room in a flash, hiding behind the door as it opened gently.
“Service?” a young voice said. “Mi Dons? I have your sugarwater.”
A girl stepped inside, a golden courtesan’s masque on her face. She looked barely a teenager, but dressed as a woman—crushed black taffeta and cheap chiffon. She carried a silvered tray, four fine goblets and a decanter of sea-blue liquid. Lowering her voice as she saw the slumbering inkfiends on the bed, she turned to push the door closed and silence the celebrations downstairs.
Lightning flashed across the skies outside. A hand reached from behind her, holding her tray. Another about her mouth.
“Hush now,” Mia whispered.
The lass stood still as a statue in Tyrant’s Row.
“I mean no harm, love,” Mia said. “You’ve my word. I’ ll take my hand away if you promise not to cry out?”
The girl nodded, chest heaving. Mia edged her hand from the girl’s lips, stepped back, hand on her gravebone sword. The girl turned slowly, looked her up and down—the blades, the black, the stare—her breath coming even quicker as she realized what Mia was about. Glancing toward the bed, looking for marks of murder.
“I’m not here for them,” Mia promised.
“Are you … here for me?”
Mia looked her over—the low neckline, the tightly cinched corsetry, the golden masque. A woman twice her age might find herself comfortable in such an outfit. Might revel in the power it gave. But this one was barely more than a child.
… Barely more than a child?
Daughters, what am I?
She should be away about her business, she knew it. The Dona was upstairs, the map was on its way, and Mia needed to end one and steal the other by the morrow. But there was something about this girl. Just one of dozens working inside these walls. Could she have ended in a place like this if Mercurio hadn’t found her? If her life had been just a little different?
This was softness, she knew it. She should be steel. But still …
“How old are you?” she found herself asking.
“Fourteen,” the girl replied.
Mia shook her head. “Is this what you want?”
A blink. “What?”
“Is this what you dreamed of being?” Mia asked. “When you were younger?”
“I …” The girl’s eyes were locked on the sword at Mia’s belt. Her voice turned cold with self-mockery. “I used to pray Aa would make me a princess.”
Mia smiled. “None of us get to be princesses, love.”
“No,” the girl said simply. “No, we don’t.”
Silence hung in the room like morning fog. Mia only stared, as she often did, letting the quiet ask her questions for her.
“Horses,” the girl finally said, tugging her dress higher. “I used to dream of working with horses. A little merchant’s wagon, perhaps. Something simple.”
“That sounds nice.”
“I’d have a black stallion named Onyx,” the girl said. “And a white mare named Pearl. And we’d ride wherever the wind blew, nobody to stop us.”
“So why don’t you do that?”
The lass looked around the room, the bordello beyond it. The light dying in her eyes as she shrugged helplessly. “No choice.”
“You could choose the purses at their waists.” Mia pointed at the trio of marrowborn on the four-poster. “The jewels at their throats. I know a man called Mercurio who lives in the necropolis. If you told him Mia sent you, he could help set you up. Someplace with horses, maybe. Someplace you want to be.”
A glance upstairs. Fear in shadowed eyes. “They’d catch me.”
“Not if you’re quick. Not if you’re clever.”
Thunder rolled beyond the window.
“I’m not,” the girl said.
“That’s Fear talking. Never listen to him. Fear is a coward.”
The girl looked Mia up and down, shaking her head. “I’m not like you.”
Mia could see her reflection in the serving girl’s stare as lightning arced across the skies outside. Death pale skin. Gravebone at her side. Shadows in her eyes.
“I’m not sure you want to be like me,” she said. “I just doubt this”—she reached out and untied the golden masque—“is anything like you.”
The face behind the gold was thin. An old bruise at her lip. Tired, pretty eyes.
“But it’s your choice. Always yours.”
The girl looked to the inkfiends. Back to Mia’s eyes.
“Are there many of them upstairs?” Mia asked.
The girl nodded. Licked the bruise at her mouth. “The worst of them.”
“There’s a package being delivered here this eve. Do you know anything of it?”
The girl shook her head. “They don’t tell me much.”
Mia looked down at the crystalware goblets, the decanter and the silver tray. Up at the girl and her tired eyes. The girl was staring at a purse among the inkfiend’s scattered clothes. A golden ring on another’s finger.
“What’s your name?” Mia asked.
The girl blinked. Looked back at Mia. “Belle.”
“Could you do me a favor, Belle?”
Sudden wariness