Warning rumbled deep inside my throat. My fingers flexed around the knife handle under my cloak.
Elaine placed a hand on my right shoulder, her fingers fitting neatly between the bumps and spikes of the bone under the cloak.
“Well, that’s entirely up to you,” she said in the same clear voice. “I feel joy when I’m relaxed. To be relaxed, I need to feel safe. Can you guarantee my safety tonight? Mine and my master’s?” She tipped her chin at me.
Never once had I heard her call me her master before. But I kept silent, not revealing my surprise.
“You’re safe,” Lord Arnaf replied, pretty convincingly. “My people and I mean you no harm.”
Elaine took a long breath. I noticed a slight tremble in it, but it was safe to assume that no one else did.
“Great,” she said. “Let’s eat then? I’m so hungry, I could eat a camel and enjoy every bite. Shall we?”
She moved over to the table. I stayed by the entrance, my fingers still clutching the knife handle, my heartbeat still elevated, my gaze alert. I no longer trusted anything Lord Arnaf had to say, and now I questioned my entire process of getting clients. I vetted each and every one of them by interrogating our common acquaintances and using everything I knew. But my resources were limited.
Tonight, it became painfully obvious how fragile my control of the situation was. What could I do if an affluent highborn from Kalmena brought an army of guards to overpower me and take Elaine away? I’d die defending her, but would that be enough to protect her?
I could try binding clients with long lists of promises before allowing them to come anywhere near Elaine. But that would require giving a bunch of promises in return too. Each formal promise would weigh me down like an iron manacle, restricting my ability to make decisions and act quickly when needed. Provided nobles would even consider making any promises in the first place. We risked losing clients with a demand like that. And what would happen if I ended up breaking a promise? I would die, and Elaine would be left alone and unprotected.
Dark thoughts crowded my mind during Elaine’s dinner. At least she seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself now. With her cheeks rosy from a glass of wine in her hand, she chatted animatedly with the young men.
Instead of turning their backs to her, they had all taken seats around the table. Each had a tendril in one of Elaine’sleilathas. Once they got a taste of her joy, they had been going out of their way to pick the best morsels of food from the dishes on the table to feed them to her in their attempts to please her.
She laughed at their eagerness, the sound of her laughter relaxing my strained muscles and easing the tension in my chest to have some food and water too. It looked like my precious business partner had salvaged the evening after all.
Or so I thought, until the dinner ended, and Lord Arnaf got up from the cushions again.
“Well, thank you for a lovely evening,” Elaine announced, climbing to her feet and brushing the crumbs out of her skirt.
“Too lovely to end it, isn’t it?” Lord Arnaf murmured. “Luckily, we have more pleasurable things prepared for you.”
Elaine straightened, and I sensed her alarm without the need to be connected to her through any tendrils.
“What kind of things?” she asked warily.
Eleven
Elaine
Timur and I had a common goal in mind. He had his reasons for becoming a pleasure trader, and I worked with him for my share of the gold we earned. But whether he knew it or not, I also earned another reward besides money.
I loved giving joy to those who couldn’t feel it otherwise. It thrilled me to watch the shadow fae’s faces light up with genuine smiles, their bodies relax, and their conversations start flowing. I enjoyed being the source of their merry mood and the reason for the good time they had.
Usually, I felt safe because I believed I was in control. I never drank too much alcohol and always made sure not to drink on an empty stomach.
Tonight, I’d only had one glass of wine with dinner. Sadly, Lord Arnaf didn’t seem to handle alcohol very well. Or maybe he tended to be naturally slightly unhinged and the few drops of intoxication that had filtered through the only tendril he had connected to me had made it worse.
“We’re not done here,” he declared. “You want double the money, I want double the joy.”
He constantly tried to alter our agreement, creating the uncertainty that jeopardized my feeling of safety. I might’ve made a mistake by agreeing to have six clients instead of one after all.
Lord Darfin’s handsome features folded into a grimace of displeasure.
“She isn’t feeling that good anymore, Arnaf,” he complained.
“Great, Arnaf. Now you spoiled it for all of us,” Lord Kamir, another one of my clients this evening, groaned with disappointment.
“We’ll just need to get her in here.” Lord Arnaf sauntered to a screen of black and red silk stretched over a wooden frame.
