“I may spend some time at Nightwood. I need to sort through my mother’s belongings and try to get ahead of grandmother’s estate sale, but also...” She’d visited three times, always at night when she knew Esme would be lost to her cocktail of sleeping draughts, dream leaves, and truffle stool. One night she’d stayed almost until dawn, always in silence because she wasn’t ready to face her, any more than she was ready to lose her. “Now that I’m settling in, I can take over the household duties from the woman you were so thoughtful to hire.”
“It’s a small expense, one we’re honored to cover. Anne does more than keep the house tidy. She’s an excellent nursemaid to Esme. She makes herself available at all hours. Her salary reflects her duty and sacrifice.” He grew solemn. “Be that as it may, her services will not be needed much longer. Then again, your grandmother outlived the physician’s prediction by far, so perhaps she has years ahead of her after all. Who am I to guess?”
Being locked away at Nightwood, for years, was a suffocating notion. The dust choked the very light from the place. She’d fix that, when it was hers. “I wouldn’t want to take employment from someone my mo—my grandmother has grown fond of. I’ll consider your words. Thank you.”
Asterin nodded, gave her a light bow, and left.
With him went the totality of her calm. Blood rushed to her face, an acidic tang overtook her mouth, and the ringing in her ears was as deafening as if someone were standing next to her blowing a whistle. The brand on her leg pulsed, and she felt again the mark being laid, her flesh having held perfectly onto the horrid memory. And oh, the memories were a flood. Fabrien grinning as he left the iron in the fire longer than he’d needed to. Castien buying her the most beautiful dresses and then cutting them off her later. Taven explaining on her fourteenth nameday how her first time would hurt, pretending to care for her well-being, when he hadn’t even bothered to hide the hunger in his eyes or the bulge between his legs.
The abandonment filtered in. Esme’s lies. Wilder’s early departure. Laxius’s weakness. Shioven.
Jesstin was there too. She’d tried to steer herself away from the memories of all the ways he’d made her whole, and to do so, she’d pounded into her head that he’d murdered her brother. It was still hard to believe. She did her best to remember how erratic he’d been that night in the swamp, to remember his tenderness and vulnerability were a fiction, but nothing, nothing had ever hurt more.
Elloven pinched both of her legs, spreading her efforts over the sides and backs of her thighs, until all she could think about was stopping.
She ran to the water bucket, scooped a mug, and drained it down her throat, then did it once more. The empty cup toppled over when she leaned against the counter.
Her apartment suddenly felt too small to contain her. She had to get out, to run until she couldn’t.
Elloven whipped her cloak from the stand and left.
“Archie, the shipment of bitters?” Jesstin sidled up to the bar, where his foreman was stacking mugs for the evening rush. They expected a packed house that night, with a foot of snow already coating the ground. Nothing brought men to a tavern more urgently than roads they shouldn’t be traveling.
“Delayed another day, I’m afraid.” Archie dried his hands and bent over, dragging another keg toward Jesstin. “But we got this. You order it?”
Jesstin knelt to read the label, a burned-in embossment. “North Crag Cider.” He looked up at Archie. “Never even heard of it. Where did it come from?”
Archie shrugged. “Arrived with the shipment from Greenfen. Mayhap they threw it in as a sample. Have you ever tasted cider?”
Jesstin stared at the barrel. Cider was more of a Northerlands tradition, not often seen in their neck of the Easterlands. “Yes,” he said shortly. It was another sign of Elloven, and they seemed to be everywhere, haunting him more resolutely than Gennady had.
“Shall I serve it tonight?”
Jesstin stood and shrugged. “Sure. They don’t like it, we toss it. They do, we order more.”
“I want room twelve tonight, Jessie!” A vivacious blonde blew a two-handed kiss and spun as she passed by in a rush without looking back.
“You know the other ladies always want room twelve too, right?” Archie said with a pointed glance at Jesstin. “Don’t look at me like that. Everyone else believes it’s lucky, so it is.”
“Superstition is for crones and fishwives.” Jesstin sifted through the stack of invoices beside the ledger, verifying their shipments were covered for the week. “The room does rake in the most coin though. Will you run it by the guild leader?”
“You’re figuring some sort of rotation for the ladies, keep it fair?” Archie asked.
“I’m figuring the point of a guild is to tell us what’s fair.”
The Golden Spiral wasn’t like the other taverns along Peddler’s Row in Mythgarde, or even the alleyway haunts. Both of its most unique attributes—open across all hours, the workers having rights and protections—formed the foundation of what Jesstin had decided to build anew when he’d purchased the property that had once been the Azure.
The midnight women at the Spiral were independent workers. They’d banded together and created a guild for their trade, the first of its kind, and he’d been their primary patron. He was happy to support better rights and pay. It meant the women working for him were there because they wanted to be, and not because they couldn’t get different work for better pay.
“You know, the other proprietors, they’re yapping again.” Archie delivered this with the same unease Jesstin remembered from the old days of running the Azure Haunt. Even the slightest provocation or insinuation used to set Jesstin on a tirade, if his workers caught him in the wrong place, time, or mood. He’d been surprised when Archie had agreed to come out of retirement to work for him again—or his “son,” as everyone knew him.
“About?” Jesstin was still searching the list and was about to channel his old self until he found the two items he was looking for. He hadn’t the slightest how they were used, but the women had said they would improve hygiene and protect them from the filth the less prudent men spread around the brothels, and he’d just had to take them at their word on it.
“Same as always. Your speeches in the square. All the... frivolousness you afford our girls.”
“They’re women. We don’t hire girls,” Jesstin said, “and would you tell your wife a lock on the door or a proper winter coat are ‘frivolous’?’”
“Ain’t me disagreeing.” Archie held up his hands to reinforce himself. “I always thought the gi—women deserved better. High time they’re paid properly for it as well.”
