uncontested courtesans, who do maintain their right to vote.”
“Wait, the other courtesans can’t vote?”
“It’s not quite that simple. They can vote, assuming they’re American citizens, but they can only vote if they jump through a lot of hoops. They need special paperwork, which is often difficult or expensive to get, unless the household they belong to provides the documentation for them. Those changes were ratified during the last election.”
At a complete loss of words, I stared at Sandro, my mouth open.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He shrugged. “And enough rich people got together, somehow convinced those under them this was a good idea, so here we are. And so freedom died, not with a bang, a scream, or war, but in silence. It died in its sleep. Those of us with intact moral compasses do the best we can to help those we can. I’ve decided I’m helping you.”
“Just because I told you no to your face and gave you the slip?”
“You’re also pretty to go with being smart and stubborn. You’re also kind, which is a major factor. That you’re capable and independent will create a lot of problems for me, I’m sure, but I won’t worry about you going out by yourself. As I am a quadrant master, you’ll be able to come with me, too.”
As I technically classified as a quadrant master, too, I understood why he would care about that. The boundaries showed no mercy, and unless taking a train to get through it as quickly as possible, the transition between quadrants caused enough problems that every train station near the boundaries had permanent medical facilities to help people with the transition as needed.
Quadrant masters rarely needed help at all, although I tended to feel under the weather for a few days after crossing.
“Foxes do have an easier time of it,” I admitted, as foxes didn’t change forms when crossing through the boundary. Other varieties of shapeshifters went through hell, as a song sparrow from the Alley might become a blue crab in the East, and nothing confused a body quite like transforming from an avian to a crustacean. As such, the blue crabs tended to stay in the East so they didn’t get a rude surprise. If they got lucky, they could go to the South and become a crawdad, although magic rarely cooperated how most shifters would like.
Sandro chuckled. “You have no idea how right you are. One of my friends wants to leave the East because he hates his shape, but he’s a full shifter, so he’d have a rough time getting through the boundary. He needs a nice person with a bucket of saltwater to get him over unless he’s on the train, and even then, it’s annoying for the full shifters who can’t control their shifting. They sometimes make him ride in cargo.”
“Into the Alley?”
“Yes.”
I could only think of one Alley shifter species they’d force into cargo if he couldn’t control his magic: elks. Nothing made a mess of a cabin quite like an angry elk popping up from where there’d once been a blue crab. “Is he one of the ones who panics when his biology gets completely rewritten by the boundary magic?”
“He is.”
“No wonder they put him in cargo. I’m surprised they don’t just put him on top of the train and chain him down.”
“If you use a big enough cage, it’ll hold a pissed-off elk. Most trains now have cages set up for the shifters who can’t be easily contained.”
“Beats becoming a bird after being a crab,” I muttered.
“The bird shifters are big problems, because they freak out, fly around the cabin, and really don’t want to be caught. And losing a bird in the boundary? That’s a quick way to die. The new birds have zero survival instincts.”
“They really don’t,” I agreed. “And you’re a mage?”
“I’m a mage,” he confirmed. “While there are a few witches in my family, most of us are mages. We are good at fashioning talismans, but we don’t need to use them to control our magic. We tend to be a little more flexible than other mages, so as long as the magic is somewhat related to our mastered form, we can usually make it work.”
Huh. That put Sandro and his family in the upper brackets of magic users. “Your family actually crafts talismans? But there are no talisman mage types in the East; East mages are either limited evokers or deal in curses.”
“We’re polarized curse casters, although I am capable of tossing