fool. Have you ever looked at what’s happened to all the other girls in your guild? Not even ten years out, they’re drunks and riot weed smokers, cutpurses and cripples, beggars and cheap whores, fifteen-year-old mothers with starving children, or unable to bear children at all because they’ve used tansy tea so many times. I promise you Elene’s not the only girl from your guild with scars given to her by some twist. But she is the only one with a hope and a future. You gave her that, Kylar.”
“I should have—”
“The only thing you could have done better was murder that boy earlier—before he did anything to you. If you’d been the kind of child capable of murder, you wouldn’t have been the kind of boy who cared what happened to some little girl. The truth is that even if they were your fault, Elene’s scars are a small price for the life you’ve given her.”
Kylar turned away. The landing had a window overlooking the market, too. It was simple glass, clear, neither cut nor colored like the glass in the courtesan’s room. It too was barred, though with simple straight iron, the bars’ edges as sharp as one of Blint’s knives. Elene had come closer and he could see her scars, but then she smiled and her scars seemed to disappear.
How often did girls in the Warrens smile like that? Kylar found himself smiling in response. He felt lighter than he could ever remember. He turned and smiled at Momma K. “I wouldn’t have expected to find absolution from you.”
She didn’t smile back. “It’s not absolution, it’s reality. And I’m the perfect person to give you that. Besides, you carry guilt as badly as Durzo.”
“Durzo? Durzo never feels guilty about anything,” Kylar said.
A flicker of disgust passed over her face. She turned to look at Elene. “End this farce, Kylar.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Durzo told you the rules: you can fuck but you can never love. He doesn’t see what you’re doing, but I do. You believe you love Elene, so you won’t fuck at all. Why don’t you get this out of your system?” Her voice got gentle. “Kylar. You can’t have that girl out there. Why don’t you take what you can have?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Go in to Daydra. She’ll thank you for it. It’s on the house. If you’re worried because you’re inexperienced, she’s a virgin, too.” “Too”? Gods, did Momma K have to know everything?
“No,” Kylar said. “No thanks, I’m not interested.”
“Kylar, what are you waiting for? Some glorious soul union with that girl out there? It’s just fucking, and that’s all you get. That’s the deal, Kylar, and you knew it when you started. We all make our deals. I did, Durzo did, and you did too.”
Giving up, Momma K gestured to one of her bashers downstairs to let a client through.
A hairy-knuckled slob wheezed his way up the stairs. Though richly dressed, he was fat and ugly and foul smelling and grinning broadly with black teeth. He paused on the landing, licking his lips, a slack-jawed picture of lust. He nodded to Momma K, winked conspiratorially at Kylar, and went into the virgin courtesan’s room.
“Maybe they were bad deals,” Kylar said.
“It doesn’t matter. There’s no going back.”
28
F eir Cousat knocked on a door high inside the great pyramid of Sho’cendi. Two knocks, pause, two, pause, one. When he and Dorian and Solon had been students at the magi’s school of fire, they hadn’t rated such prestigious rooms. But he and Dorian hadn’t been given the rooms now so much to thank them for their historic services as to keep an eye on them.
The door cracked open, and Dorian’s eye appeared on the other side. Feir always thought it was funny: Dorian was a prophet. He could foretell the fall of a kingdom or the winner of a horserace—a lucrative trick when Feir could convince him to do it—but he couldn’t tell who was at his own door. He said that prophesying concerning himself involved spiraling uncomfortably close to madness.
Dorian ushered Feir inside and barred the door behind him. Feir felt himself passing through an improbably high number of wards. He looked at them. A ward against eavesdropping he’d expected. A ward against entry was unusual to maintain when you were in the room yourself. But the truly strange one was a ward to keep magic in. Feir fingered the threads of the weave, shaking his head in astonishment. Dorian was the