Shadow Phantoms - H.P. Mallory Page 0,61

belt. It comes away dusted in white, like a baker’s confection. He steps closer to me, offering the digit. I don’t normally like to take it this way, but he’s not leaving me much choice. This is all I’m going to get.

So I take his finger, guide it reverently to my mouth, and slide my tongue along every contour, trying to catch every speck of the priceless powder I can find. The process is over quickly, and my mouth tingles pleasantly as relief swells through me.

“Perform well, and you’ll get more,” Darius promises. “But, if you don’t...”

He lets the statement hang, a sword over my head, waiting to drop. The meaning is very clear.

Failure isn’t an option.

***

I tangle my fingers in the velvet folds of the navy-blue curtain and drag it back a few inches to peer out at the crowd beyond. Male voices overlap, sounding like a rumble of distant thunder. The room is hazy with pipe smoke, the heavy fog of it pressing into my lungs and further tightening my chest.

The number of men who occupy the chairs that ring the small stage staggers me, and I can tell there are still more I can’t make out clearly, arranged at the small tables or standing at the back. How many men are packed into this back room? Fifty? One hundred? I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many men crowded into the Wicked Lyre at one time, even around the annual festival, when spirits run high and men pay their last coin to see the creamy flesh of a nubile, young thing.

Every man in the room is wealthy. If their clothing isn’t a giveaway, their voices would be. Cultured speech, with accents that range from the clipped tones of Grimm, the airy sing-song of a Wonderland noble, or the lilting honeyed tones of a cove-dwelling merchant from the Sea of Delorood.

I let the velvet slide between my fingers, dread settling in the pit of my stomach like a heavy millstone. How the bloody hell am I supposed to pull this off? I’m dizzy already. I’m going to go out there, slide one veil off, and then trip and fall on my face. And that will be the end of poor Neva Valkoinen, the end of Snow White. They’ll find my body in an alleyway, a patchwork of blooming blue and purple bruises, swarmed by the city’s vermin.

Darius’ voice issues from the other side of the curtain, an ugly common accent among the sea of more pleasant voices. The room goes silent when he begins to speak, introducing me to the crowd as he has for years now. Is it four? I think it must be. Gregory died when Darius and I were seventeen. I’m twenty-one now.

And I don’t know what to make of those years. They’re gone and I have nothing to show for them. But nevermind. Thinking about the past only depresses me and my life is depressing enough as it is.

“And now, the main event! The greatest beauty you’ll find in Ascor. Perhaps in all of Fantasia! I give to you, the lovely Snow White!”

The curtains are drawn aside to the sounds of thunderous applause, revealing me in all my dubious glory. I’m bathed in the glow of a thousand twinkling faerie lights that illuminate the stage. The lights are another item that sets the Wicked Lyre apart from other taverns, besides the star attraction. Darius is the only man within the city able to afford to light the place with fae-spelled orbs, day or night.

The weight of a hundred gazes falls on me seconds later, tracing what little they can see of my silhouette through the veils. The one dangled above my head is taupe, and the colors grow increasingly bolder the closer they get to the center of my body. Light glints off every jewel and bangle adorning me. And there are many. They chime as my body moves to the beat of the sultry music.

It’s too bright. My head spins and I choke on bile. I feel as if I’m going to faint dead away. My eyes sweep the crowd, searching for something. Rescue? Pity? Perhaps a man who can look at me and see a sick girl being paraded on stage, instead of an object of lust to be used and discarded?

Every face I meet is eager, drinking me in like I’m a draft of Sweetland Port. There’s no one here who gives a damn about me, no one who…

My gaze settles