bottom of the stairs, dressed in regal violet embroidered robes. He bowed with great flourishes to each individual or group that descended, a sultan welcoming his guests. Initially people escorted their choices to him, but as the evening wore on and the guests came to outnumber the paidika’s stable, they came to him with names written on slips of paper, which he wrote down on a small parchment on a podium beside his mammoth guard. They understood that they would have to wait to take their turns. Later arrivals might not have anyone left to choose from at all. He might send in a second client while a boy still lay in the afrit’s perch, but not a third. Nobody could recover from three sessions in a row, and it wasn’t as if he was going out of business after tonight.
Early in the festivities one guest clutched Diverus as he was retreating with an empty tray. He looked at the hand on his sleeve, noting the polished nails, and glanced up at coal-black eyes fringed by long lashes behind a gold mask. Dragged before Bogrevil, he listened as the guest said, “I’d have this one.” It was a woman, as Bogrevil must have known, too. He expected to be let go.
Bogrevil closed his hand over hers. “He’s lovely, you know. Your taste is uncommonly fine.” He let this statement hang in the air for a moment—to tease, or to torture Diverus. “He is, however, of diminished capacity, and it might well be catching. Let me assure you, were he not, he wouldn’t be serving food. Now, let me offer you something else tasty,” and he led her away. Diverus didn’t see her again for some hours.
One by one boys were purchased and taken off while others milled about waiting their turn. Each time he watched one leave the room, he wanted to stop him. Didn’t anyone notice Abnevi’s absence? Didn’t they wonder what had happened? Could they read the guilt in his eyes?
He couldn’t help thinking of each of them in their curtained and candlelit chambers, lying beneath insubstantial monstrosities as their life was drained, their souls served up as refreshment. How could Eskie suggest that they desired such a thing?
As the evening wore on, other guests considered him. Their eyes spoke their interest. He wondered what they got from what they inhaled, and why any one boy was more appealing than any other. And why was it only boys—a preference of the afrits or merely less problematic than if the genders mixed? Would there be paidikas full of girls, or was there another word for such places? He knew so little of the world, so little that was of use.
Each time his tray emptied and he escaped to the kitchen, he stalled as long as he could, staying at the back of the line, remaining as invisible as possible, remembering what Eskie had said. Perhaps the fourth time he had done this, the cook placed small brass cups upon the tray as he held it, then filled each with a green distillation. As he filled the ones nearest Diverus’s body, he leaned across the tray and said, “Clever boy. Dressed so nice, have you become merchandise now?” At Diverus’s look of shock, he laughed. “Can’t dodge all night long, you know, no matter how you hang back. It’ll be my turn to choose eventually, when they’ve all gone. He’s saving you for me.”
Diverus flung the tray at him.
Thick green liquid spattered the cook from head to waist, most of it running down his filthy apron. Diverus shoved past those waiting behind him. The cook yelled at him then erupted in the sort of laugh that promised punishment, but Diverus didn’t stop. He ran out and into one of the back corridors full of afrit chambers.
A curtain parted, and the woman who’d earlier attempted to rent him stumbled out. Her dark eyes were slits, barely open, her features slack. A blindfold hung loosely about her throat on top of her gilded mask. So drunk on the essence she’d inhaled was she that she’d forgotten to put her disguise back on, or even all of her costume. She was barefoot now and bare-shouldered. The cape she’d worn must be in the room still. She kept to the wall to steady herself. As he passed her she called out, “Pretty boy,” reaching limply for him, but then slid down onto the settee as if the gesture had robbed her of all energy.