throat was raw from screaming and her tears were spent, she’d been reduced to huddling against them, shaking and scratching at them with bloodied nails.
She shook the memory away, focusing on a different question. “How do you know all this?”
Ramson’s jaw tightened. “I’ve been to a few of these shows before. I’ve seen how it works. The people here can negotiate purchases of Affinite employment contracts as the night goes on. It’s all done discreetly behind closed doors.” He paused. “That’s what we need to try for once we see May perform.”
She pulled her hand from his, suddenly cold. Of course Ramson knew of these shows—he was a criminal, an underground crook. But she had to ask—she had to know. “Ramson,” she said, and her voice was barely a breath. “Did you ever…were you ever one of them? A broker?”
“No.” The word cut with truth, yet something in his eyes made her insurmountably sad as he turned them to her. “But watching it happen is another crime in itself, is it not?”
She had no answer to that. Ana shuddered and turned away just as the drumbeats came to a sudden stop. As though on cue, the crowd erupted into wild cheers. A figure strode onstage, in front of the blackstone-infused glass wall and velvet curtains within. He was a clean-cut, gold-haired man who wore his charm like his navy-blue silk waistcoat: diamond-studded and glittering and sewn to the collar with flashing gold thread. When he waved, the bejeweled rings on his fingers glimmered as they caught the torchlight. “Mesyrs, meya damas, and all other guests!” he cried in a booming voice that resonated across the entire auditorium. “Are you ready for tonight’s show?”
The crowd’s screams grew louder and became a chant. “Bogdan! Bogdan! Bogdan!”
“That’s the Penmaster,” Ramson explained.
The Penmaster—Bogdan—raised his hands, beaming. “We have an excellent program planned for you tonight! Watch a formidable Ice Queen give us a prelude to the Fyrva’snezh! A Wood Nymph grows flowers from thin air! A Marble-Maker creates stunning statues! And, don’t miss it: our Steelshooter battles a Windwraith to the death! Who will make it out alive? There’s only one thing we know, and it is that you will all leave happy!”
The crowd erupted with cheers and applause. Ana’s stomach tightened, but she stayed silent as she watched a scene that should never have existed unfold before her eyes.
Bogdan held his hands up, and the crowd fell silent.
Suddenly, the drums started again. Boom-ba-da-boom. Ana’s pulse thundered with the beat, and she found herself holding her breath as she stared at the brightly lit stage.
The curtains exploded behind the confines of the glass. The crowds screamed as a massive cloud of mist obscured the stage from view for a moment, curling up against the glass walls and pouring over the top in plumes of white. As the vapor cleared, a figure stood in its midst. Tall, pale, and slender, with flowing ash-white locks and a dress of pale blue, she was winter incarnate.
The Ice Queen swept her palms in an arc around her. Ice spread at her feet, propelling her in a wide circle around the inside of the glass. Hair flying, dress rippling, she twisted her hands and ice shot from her wrists to the ground, anchoring her as she somersaulted through the air and landed on the other side of the stage.
The crowd erupted; the Ice Queen smirked and curtsied with all the grace of a performer.
“She looks like she’s enjoying it,” Ana whispered.
“She’s a regular,” Ramson muttered by her side, bringing his hands together in a slow clap. He was staring at the stage, his jaw clenched, his shoulders stiff. “She works with the brokers.”
“Under contract?”
“Right, but…” Ramson hesitated, and for the first time since they’d met, Ana watched him struggle to find words. “She’s not contracted against her will, if that’s what you’re asking. She works with the brokers.”
Not against her will, Ana thought, turning back as the Ice Queen spun onstage, ice blooming beneath her feet.
The audience oohed and aahed as the Ice Queen began to sculpt ice with flicks of her wrist. A splash of ice rose into the air, becoming a graceful, loping deer. Another wave crystallized into a pack of running wolves. A prowling Cyrilian tiger. A valkryf horse.
This was greater than just a show, Ana realized. This was a Deities-damned display of what Affinite employment could look like; a reassurance to those who blindly believed their own righteousness and morality while continuing to perpetuate violence