I trailed Klemena to the right, into the passageway defined by the colonnade and the low wooden rail connecting the stone columns. She held a side door open for me. We passed into a hallway lit by ornate lanterns. Klemena shut the door behind us, cutting off the loud noise of the main floor, and I could breathe again.
Six doors led to other rooms, three on each side. Klemena led me to the third door on the left, the farthest from the main floor, and held it open.
I walked into a square room about the size of a large main bedroom. Bright lanterns glowed on bare stone walls, one of them highlighting a small door in the far wall. On the left, a square stone bath waited, sunken in the floor, filled with steaming water, and big enough to sit four to six people comfortably. Pink and white petals floated on the surface. A tray on the rim of the bath offered a bar of soap the size of a small matchbox, a bottle of what was likely scented oil, a sponge, a comb, and a folded towel. On the right, a small table and two chairs provided a place to sit down.
“May I attend to you, my lady?”
“No. I’m fine.” I dropped one of the two dens Everard had given me into her hand. Only one of his coins left. “I need a change of clothes.”
“What style?”
“The kind of dress that the wife of a successful craftsman might wear. Something that wouldn’t make me stand out on the street.”
“Shoes?”
“Yes, please.”
“Will you require a companion, my lady?”
“No.” Sex was the absolute last thing I needed right this second.
Klemena bowed. “I will return with your dinner.”
“Thank you. Could you please bring me water instead of wine?”
“Yes, my lady.”
She exited and shut the door behind her.
I dropped my cloak. It fell in a soggy mess at my feet. Something moved on my right, and I almost jumped.
An old metal mirror, pitted from the moisture, spanned the height of the wall.
My heart hammered so hard and fast, it hurt.
I took a long breath, trying to calm down, and looked.
A woman in her mid-twenties looked back at me. About five feet four inches, pale, average build, long brown hair, face pretty in a normal-person way, and terrified eyes. No jewel-toned irises, no raven locks, stunning features, or perfect proportions. I hadn’t taken over anyone’s body. I was still me. My hair was a gunky mess, my legs and face were splattered with mud, and a leather bag hung around my neck on a cord. I had hit a man with a rock and then died for it. But I was still me.
I should’ve been more freaked out. I should’ve cried or broken down but running for my life straight into the sensory overload had wrung the last of my emotions out of me. I was numb and running on fumes.
I slipped into the bath and sat on the stone bench, submerged to my collarbones. The water was luxuriously hot and smelled faintly of lavender.
Suddenly nothing mattered more than getting clean.
I opened my hand over the rim of the bath. The last of Everard’s copper dens slipped from my fingers and landed on the smooth stone with a soft clink. I took the bag off my neck, put it next to the coin, reached for the soap, and began to lather my hair.
Getting Kair Toren off of me took a minute.
Midway through it, Klemena returned with a stack of clothes and my dinner: a slender glass bottle filled with water, soup, fresh bread, and roasted fish with some vegetables on a wooden tray. The light dinner. The regular dinner had five courses. I hadn’t eaten for three days. I couldn’t be trusted not to gorge myself on it and then throw it up.
I gave Klemena one of the nomas from the bag. It would cover the bath, the clothes, and the dinner. If I had been renting a room at one of the cheaper legitimate inns, it would’ve paid for a week-long stay with meals. Klemena asked me if I wanted to keep my old clothes. I told her no. She bowed, collected my discarded cloak, and left. As bad as it smelled, they would likely burn it.
I devoured half of the soup and most of the bread before I almost got sick and had to stop. Now I sat in the bath, leaning my head on the wall behind it, with my hair brushed out and my stomach gurgling. The rest of my meal waited on the platter. I would finish it as soon as my digestion settled. I’d eaten so fast, I had barely tasted the food.
The water in the bath was still warm.They must heat it somehow.
Everyone in the capital knew about the Garden of Soft Blossoms. It sat outside proper society, and yet it was accepted the way upscale strip clubs were accepted in our world. Calling it a brothel would be like referring to the Met as “a little art gallery.”
