Hearts of Tabat

By Cat Rambo

In the second book of The Tabat Quartet, Nebula award-winning author Cat Rambo expands the breathtaking story from Beasts of Tabat with new points of view as Adelina, Sebastiano, and others add their voices. Tabat is a world, a society, and a cast of characters unlike any you have read before.

Fireworks.

Riots.

Rousing speeches. All markers of the vast societal upheavals taking place in the city of Tabat.

But personal upheavals reflect the chaos. Adelina Nettlepurse, noted historian and secret owner of Spinner Press, watches the politics and intrigue with interest, only to find herself drawn into its heart by a dangerous text and a wholly unsuitable love affair with a man well below her station.

The match offered by Merchant Mage Sebastiano Silvercloth would be much more acceptable, but Sebastiano is hampered by his own troubles at the College of Mages, where the dwindling of magical resources threatens Tabat itself. And worse, his father demands he marry as soon as possible.

When Adelina's best friend, glamorous and charming gladiator Bella Kanto, is convicted of sorcery and exiled, the city of Tabat undergoes increasing turmoil as even the weather changes to reflect the confusion and loss of one of its most beloved heroes.

Meanwhile the Beasts of Tabat—magical creatures such as dryads, minotaurs, and centaurs—are experiencing a revolution of their own, questioning a social order that holds them at its lowest level. But who is helping the Beasts in their subversive uprising?

"a fascinating world of magic, intrigue, and revolution.”—Publishers Weekly on Beasts of Tabat

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781614756385

Cat Rambo

Cat Rambo (they/them) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer whose work has appeared in, among others, Asimov's, Weird Tales, Chiaroscuro, Talebones, and Strange Horizons. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, where they studied with John Barth and Steve Dixon, they also attended the Clarion West Writers' Workshop. They are currently the managing editor of Fantasy Magazine. They published a collection of stories, Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight, and their collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon’s Tale and Other Stories, appeared in 2007. They live and write in Washington State, and “Cat Rambo” is their real name.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Panic froze Adelina, held her so she couldn’t move despite the screaming in her head. Her fingers were tight around Leonoa’s; she’d paused to let the tiny woman, hampered by her twisted frame, catch up amid the chaotic, crowded room.

This is what a riot looks like: The flirtatious pink velvet of her skirt darkened to sullen plum by spilled punch. Flickers of firelight dancing like angry Fairies on the sticky surface. Two shattered windows, shards of broken glass highlighted by the glare from the aetheric lamps hanging over the street outside, actinic blue-white washing in over the parquet floor that was Bernarda’s pride, two hundred and thirty different kinds of wood, each dedicated to a different Trade God, zebra-striped bits of southern wood and chips of mammoth ivory and black coralwood from the depths.

Adelina tried to shut off the relentless writer in her head, but it had always been her first refuge from terror.

More details: the punch bowl, shattered by the first brick that had come in, that had landed soundly in the middle beside the overturned table. Punch and bits of curved luster-glass everywhere, a great puddle changing the colors of the woods beneath it, tinting them dark and rose and scarlet.

Two paintings askew on the walls, others on the floor in a jumble that drew the eye as much as their impious and arresting subject matter, the cause that had set the riot off, had lit the torches outside.

How had they known about the paintings and their subject matter before the exhibition, she wondered. Someone must have known what the paintings would be like, must have tipped people off, organized the crowd. It was too orderly. Too assembled. But who could have done such a thing?

Adelina matched gazes with the most likely culprit, dressed in Coinblossom colors, and staring from across the room. Marta’s eyes glittered hate at Adelina. Gods, even now the woman would rather hold her grudge against Bella and anything associated with her than worry about keeping herself alive in the middle of chaos. She remembered Marta from years ago, in the Merchant finishing school, as bitter and petty then as now, almost two decades later.

This is what a riot sounds like: Angry shouts coming in through the windows, drowning out the frightened chatter all around Adelina (Was that Bella Kanto who just went out? Of course I knew she’d be here.) Bernarda, somewhere behind the scenes, ordering someone else to do something, it was unclear what, but her tones were unmistakable and imperious. The woman’s best chances of keeping her gallery further intact had just walked out the door in order to stand down the rioters, who had grown from the few dozen that had been here when Adelina and Bella first arrived, immediately after the now-absent Duke’s speech.

And that person, her ex-lover and now best friend, Bella Kanto was, in theory, supposed to be concerned with Adelina, let alone worried about her own cousin Leonoa. But Bella had said "Yes, unfair, I’m sorry, in a tone that said she was anything but sorry, and then had the colossal nerve to call Adelina sweetheart" and tell her where to meet up afterward. As though she were ordering a child strayed past curfew on its way home.

Someone jostled her, shoving her sideways so she lost hold of Leonoa’s hand. Her purse, in her other hand, was knocked loose, contents spilling, and she knelt, gathering a handful of silver skiffs, a quill and knife, a few papers, wondering where her little silver mirror had rolled to, before standing again and reclaiming contact. Leonoa stood wide-eyed over her, trying to make sense of the skirts and trousers pushing past. Like Adelina, she’d dressed in her best for the occasion; her stiff, gaudy skirts projected out around her, preventing the worst of the buffeting.

Adelina took a breath, trying to slow her heart.

This is what a riot smells like: smoke and sweat and alcohol and all the mingled pomades and perfumes. Who was still wearing vetiver? That went out last season. And what was that intriguing cinnamon and musk blend, was that an actual edge of rum in it or some remnant of the punch?

There, in the crowd, that panicked face flashing past, was that Scholar Reinart? Gods, he was everywhere. She’d been invited as a Nettlepurse Merchant, not in her position as the secret owner of Spinner Press, but its business seemed to follow her.

The crowd was a mix of upper crust Tabatians, most of them dark-skinned like Adelina, although there was a scattering of paler-skinned Northerners, new-come to wealth and seeking social status by buying art here at Bernarda’s gallery, patronized by the Duke himself. The only signs of the elections whose campaigns had been troubling the city for weeks were a few feather pins, fastened to collars or sleeves in colors that denoted their wearer’s party allegiance.

That is what a riot feels like: Leonoa’s small fingers in Adelina’s own, Bella’s tiny cousin and the center of all this clamor, breathing hard, the gasps and gulps of air she took in when stressed.

Adelina’s own pulse beat fists against the hollow of her throat, pressed tight fingers behind her brows every time the streetlights outside struck her eyes, hammered at the pit of her belly, unnerving her.

Leonoa was watching the great double-doors, twice her height and then some, through which Bella had vanished with the two guards to face the angry mob. Her lips firmed, resolute. This is absurd! she proclaimed. Of all the people Adelina knew, Leonoa was the only one who’d allow indignation to make her totally ignore the danger all around her.

Adelina allowed the irritation to set the tone, to be the touchstone by which all the rest of the scene was rendered normal and therefore acceptable.

Otherwise I’ll think about the fact that my best friend is facing down a mob, aided only by two fellow Gladiators, and while Bella Kanto is the best in the city, the best that Tabat has ever seen, those are still long enough odds that someone could get hurt.

Anger at Leonoa, the center of all this chaos, flared, and Adelina released her hand and took a step forward, towards the center of the room. The paintings still pulled Adelina’s attention to them, drew her like forbidden angers. Irritation sparked inside her. Surely you knew something would happen, that there would be consequences for painting such … She paused, at a loss.

What words can encompass the enormity of what Leonoa has done? Beasts—creatures of magic—are part of the social and economic order of the city, the thing Tabat’s economy depends on. But they are less than Human, things rather than people, and yet Leonoa’s art depicts them as though they were the latter.

Take, for example, the nearest canvas, splayed open to Adelina’s eyes, so close that three steps would have allowed her to stroke the surface: a Minotaur, dressed in Merchant fabrics that matched her chestnut eyes, handing another Minotaur a handful of Tabatian coins, golden galleons and schooners. Both Minotaurs, female and male, didn’t look at the viewer, and something about the posed-unposed nature of that made the picture all the more shocking.

Or the next image, a Dog-Woman, dressed in silver armor that Adelina knew well, the very armor that Bella wore each year as Winter’s Champion when she fought in the ritual battle that determined whether Spring would be early or—as it had been now for decades—late. Its presence on a Beast was impious and shocking. The Dog-Woman’s orbed eyes gleamed as fiercely as Bella’s, and her nose flared as though she scented an opponent.

The Duke had forbidden Abolitionism and all the works advocating or teaching it, though everyone knew that some nobility dabbled in such causes. But would the Duke spare Bella’s cousin the way he would have one of his fellow Nobles? I doubt it.

We need to get out of here, she said to Leonoa, cutting off the words the painter was about to emit. This isn’t a play—they’ll burn it down around our ears. And when the Peacekeepers arrive to sort things out, there’s a good chance they’ll just haul everyone off and throw them in cells without bothering to sort out who is responsible for what and who does or doesn’t have an invitation.

Leonoa’s lips thinned even further, forming a single, adamant line. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve painted. Art is art.

Your art is illegal heresy.

No one should have the right to forbid art from taking on a subject. That is counter to civilization.

Leonoa has always been one of those souls prone to taking up causes, but she’s never taken up anything illegal before. Adelina thought back on her conversation with Bella, coming down to the gallery. What was it that Bella had said? That her cousin had become involved with someone who resembled a Beast but claimed to be something other than that—claimed to be a Human who’d fallen victim to sorcery.

She took another breath of perfume and fruit punch. Is that smoke? Is this really the time to be having such an argument? Reaching again for Leonoa’s hand, she caught it. Bella said to meet her in the Duke’s Plaza. If we go out through the servants’ hall, we should be able to give the crowd the slip. Look, there goes Bernarda.

The gallery owner was indeed crossing the room. Her height, build, and upstanding, intricate hairdo made her resemble a warship ready for battle. She allowed no one to stop her, charting her course across the intricate floor and through a smaller archway. Despite her demeanor, her actions were that of a thorough retreat. It was clear that she had chosen to abandon her gallery and everything in it to the riot. Out in the street, Adelina could hear the clash of swords, more shouts.

With a whoosh, the curtains around the broken windows went up in flames, the bright silk, its pattern echoing the wooden flooring, flaring into heat. The crowd screamed panic.

Where are the Duke’s Peacekeepers? Although this was not the most fashionable area of town, it was not one that she would have expected to be so lightly policed. Perhaps some other crisis was happening elsewhere?

She could tell that Leonoa would have liked to have argued things out further as Adelina pulled her away from the windows, but the artist shrugged and followed Adelina with pragmatic haste.

Indeed, the rioters had made no attempts to interfere with the work of those servants appointed to undertake the event. Adelina didn’t know whether the lack was oversight or an act of courtesy. Probably the former, given that riots seldom hold to the usual standards of etiquette.

Chapter 2

They were not the only people with the wisdom to flee. At the immediate exit of the building, a few had accumulated, arguing whether to attempt to face the mob in front in order to gather their vehicles.

The earlier rain had thinned and turned to snow, dots of ice drifting down through the crisp air to disappear before they ever reached the ground. High overhead, the thin cloud layer seemed too insubstantial to produce any form of snow—wispy cirrocumulus clusters, the three Moons touching them with red and purple and white light, almost gaudy against the night sky.

A burst of fireworks, matching the Moons, collided with the darkness. Somewhere the Moon Temples were having yet another political rally.

They’re pretty enough, Leonoa said, but I’m looking forward to being able to fall asleep in the evenings without fireworks and shouting.

The wind reached long fingers down the back of Adelina’s cloak and made her shiver. Leonoa looked more lopsided than usual, as though she had withdrawn into herself at the same cold touch but had been unable to do so evenly.

We’re only a staircase away from the tram, Adelina said.

I’m sorry, Leonoa said. She gestured ruefully at her legs.

Adelina flushed, embarrassed. She prided herself that she did not make the delicate painter feel as though her deformities, the result of some childhood disease, made her less than anyone else. Small consolation that it took a riot to drive me past the bounds of etiquette.

There really isn’t enough time to stand here letting you feel guilty about that, not if there’s not enough time for me to pontificate about art, Leonoa said, nudging her.

Very well, Adelina said. I will save feeling guilty for some other occasion.

That’s always what Bella says she’ll do, but she never seems to get around to it, Leonoa drawled.

They would have laughed, but they heard shouts from behind them, and a whoosh of flame. Heat flared and the snow around them in the air vanished.

The building’s going up! Adelina gasped, and pulled Leonoa across the alleyway and down a few houses. They paused there. Adelina would have been flummoxed as to what to do except for the sight of a pedal cab, apparently en route to the front of the gallery. She waved and flagged it down. We could go to the Press but Leonoa looks almost done in. We will go and sit quietly and drink chal at Dripkettle and give her time to recover.

What’s happening tonight? she asked the driver as she climbed into the basket beside Leonoa.

A fire at Bernarda’s gallery, very close, the driver, a freckle-faced Northerner, said cheerfully. All sorts of crabs in tonight’s nets.

But something else must be happening, Adelina insisted.

Leonoa gave her a curious look. Why do you say that?

Listen, Adelina said. She gestured towards the distant sound of the fire and the crowd. The Duke’s Peacekeepers have yet to show up. Why would it take them so long?

Leonoa frowned. That’s odd. She cocked her head. No, you’re wrong. There they are.

The distant whistles were audible to Adelina as well and she knew what they meant. But still. They should have been there nearly as soon as it started. And how did news of your paintings spread far enough to such a crowd without anyone realizing there would be trouble?

They did take a while, Leonoa admitted. Would they have been coming from somewhere distant?

I cannot think of where, Adelina said. She tapped the driver’s shoulder. But now we are bound for Dripkettle, in the Plaza near the waterfall.

Aye. The driver picked up the yoke and headed out into the middle of the street. Her hair was glazed with ice crystals, and Adelina put her own cloak around Leonoa, trying to shelter her from the worst of the cold.

Oh, do stop fussing, Leonoa snapped, but with enough good nature in her tone that it didn’t sting. I’m not a child.

No, but Bella said that Winters trouble your bones worse lately, Adelina said.

Leonoa grimaced. My cousin takes far too much interest in the state of my health.

What would you prefer she worry about? Adelina asked.

So few matters trouble her, Leonoa said. It makes it refreshing to be around her. Bella makes no pretenses or promises. She simply is what she is and what she always will be.

But will she always be it? Adelina asked.

What do you mean?

She cannot be Champion of Tabat forever. That’s why we have the yearly match of Winter’s Champion against Spring’s. She cannot keep winning for more decades.

True enough, but she acts as though she can, Leonoa said. Sometimes I think she does so because she cannot imagine herself living any other role. Without it, she might not know who to be anymore.

Adelina contemplated this. Resolute, infuriating Bella, so sure of herself—hard to imagine her somehow at odds with any situation. She said, the cold wind swallowing her almost-shouted words, I hope Bel will be all right.

Do you really doubt that she will be? Leonoa said. She studied Adelina. And what about you, Adelina? I thought perhaps you’d come to the gallery to survey for some new lover. You’ve been a while without alliances, as far as I know.

I’ve got no time for entanglements. Hiding my business with Spinner Press from my mother takes long enough. I worry she’ll introduce some marital alliance sometime, some likely Merchant man or woman eager to tie themselves to the Nettlepurses.

My family may not approve of my art, but at least they don’t prohibit it outright, the way you say your mother would if she knew.

And she would, trust me. It would be the final straw of the bundle Bella built. Maybe that’s why she’s encouraged no other alliances. She’s afraid I’ll find someone worse she’ll hate worse than she ever did Bella.

They suddenly laughed together. The fear and hysteria of the riot ebbed away as they trundled along through the streets, climbing upward to the Plaza that lay directly below the cliffs housing the Duke’s castle. A center of social activity, the Plaza had been the first location (other than the Duke’s castle itself) to display the aetheric lights, brilliant, magical in origin, revealing magics and malignant forces, designed by the College of Mages.

Dripkettle, a newer teahouse owned by one of the Duke’s many cousins, lay on the western side of the Plaza. Its rooftop veranda, pleasant in the Summer and not navigable in seasons like the Winter, overlooked the waterfall that thundered endlessly in the Plaza’s center, falling through a great silver hoop and not emerging from the other side, not a drop, to touch those on the Plaza just below it.

The wafting mist touched Adelina’s coat and netted Leonoa’s dark hair with silvery, moist fuzz as they entered. Showy and pointless, so very like Alberic, the Duke who commissioned it.

Inside the building, bulbous paper lanterns threw blue and gold light over a late-night crowd—Nobles and the wealthier Merchant heirs that the first group battened on.

A guitarist was plinking out a song in one corner. Come home to the marshes … he crooned, eyes focused on his instrument. Gods, that old thing, Hearts of Tabat. What a sappy song. Why are love songs more popular when they are maudlin? And then, Yanyapri, when did I get so old? Am I truly already three and a half decades?

They found an opposite corner towards the back, quieter than towards the front. Adelina nodded at the server, who hurried over with cups.

The teahouse was spacious, but constructed to create a feeling of coziness. Low screens surrounded each table, creating isolated islands in which conversation could take place. Fish scales of paper rounds made up the screens, the fluttering circles strung together on wire and fastened into a framework that could be moved around to create rooms within rooms. The scales moved in every breeze, an effect that Adelina thought charming during the daytime.

But now, in the late evening, with the corners of the teahouse abandoned, they created an eerie effect, as though the room they were moving through was breathing. Adelina found it unsettling.

Much like thoughts of Bella.

Leonoa looked around, rubbing her hands together. Bella always insists on the Duke’s teahouse, she said. This place seems much livelier.

Do you think she’ll ever settle down, start a family? Adelina asked, curious.

I don’t know that she’s ever found anyone. And Merchants have so many contracts when it comes to weddings and alliances.

You sound as though you’ve investigated it.

Leonoa shrugged. Adelina studied her. When Bella had described Leonoa’s latest love affair, she’d spoken as though it was a temporary, flimsy thing, but this meant Leonoa had thought to make the arrangement permanent.

Bella had said the latest partner had wings, as though she was a Beast, and claimed it the result of a curse. How can someone who can be mistaken for a Beast deal with legal contracts and satisfying them?

They would perpetually be in a terrible situation, miscategorized. Perhaps the woman that Bella had described, Leonoa’s odd lover, had simply given up and embraced it, pretending to be a Beast simply to get along? A very dangerous pretense, given that Beasts have no rights. Only their owners have rights.

An unsettling thought curdled her stomach. Does Leonoa pretend to be her lover’s owner? That would be just as bad, surely. People fucked Beasts, certainly, but they did not form relationships with them. That would be like forming a relationship with your bed or your chal mug.

Leonoa’s paintings had said differently.

She thought about how to raise the question of the lover that Bella had mentioned. Did she prompt Leonoa to paint things so treasonous and heretical? Were Leonoa’s sympathies somehow twisted by the lover’s presence? What was the best way to bring up such a question, without seeming as though she was meddling?

You’re frowning, Leonoa said, raising an eyebrow.

I am thinking that sometimes there are questions that one simply cannot ask, and that is such a one, if you were to ask it of Bella, Adelina said.

Leonoa simply nodded and they let the conversation lapse into comfortable silence, letting the gentle noises of the room, the clink and clatter of chal being served, the muted throb of talk all around them, take the place of speech. The comfortable silence of old friends. Adelina relished it in the place of the constant chatter that had filled the gallery, so full of people trying to play games with each other, with words that could be read in a multiplicity of ways.

She said, Shall we lay wagers whether or not she’ll show up? I’d lay coin she expects us to simply go home after we’ve been waiting long enough.

I think that is farther than she would have thought it through, Leonoa said tartly.

They caught each other rolling their eyes simultaneously and laughed. While Bella had been the bond that had initially tied them together, a strong friendship had developed over the years independent of the Gladiator. Adelina had persuaded her mother to commission the portrait of Adelina and Bella that hung on her wall and, on more than one occasion had hired Leonoa to provide the pictures of Bella from which the black-and-white illustrations used by Spinner Press were derived. Bella’s exploits were the engine that had driven the Press to profitability. Adelina would have hired anyone to keep her pleased. Luckily Leonoa was very talented. Perhaps even a genius.

The question that had circled in her head all the time they were fleeing through the darkened streets surfaced again. She blurted, "But why, Leonoa?"

Leonoa did not pretend she hadn’t understood the question. She said, I don’t entirely know. I had been thinking for a while now, though, that art should do something more than preserve an Age and show its costumes and customs. Its appurtenances. It should be more than a mirror—it should ask questions, because it can ask them in a way that people will heed.

Did something prompt this path?

Every few luncheons, I ride a tram up the hillside in order to sit in the Plaza here at midday and listen to the speakers. At first I simply went with a sketchpad. I thought, this is the changing of an Age, and someone must record these moments. Then I started listening, and the more I listened, the more I realized that the world was opening up, that wealth of possible changes hover waiting for us to reach out, to wield them.

Her voice’s throaty timbre gave Adelina pause. Had some spell been cast on the artist to enrapture her so, or was this simply a soul’s enthusiasm for what it believed to be right? Leonoa had always been given to deep passions, the sort of commitments many saved for their partners, and which Leonoa gave, unabashedly, to the causes that moved her.

The sorts of passions Adelina had not seen since school days, when they had all given themselves to one cause or another, in the way that children of the privileged had throughout the centuries. Most of them had laid aside their loves when they returned to the world outside university life, but Adelina had been allowed to nurse her passion for scholarship. And now she feared Emiliana was going to choke that off.

Maybe she was being overly suspicious of her mother. The woman was busy, head of the Merchant’s Guild and on the board of two separate banks, not to mention managing the Merchants’ Political Party right now in a constant round of rallies, balls, and fundraisers. It was a wonder that her mother had time enough to eat and breathe. She would have no moments to spare thinking about her errant daughter.

But there’d been something in the way Emiliana had looked at her as she had come down the stairs to meet Bella earlier that evening. An appraisal that assessed her as carefully as a balance sheet, a column of numbers representing strengths and weaknesses, her affiliations to the Trade Gods of Gregarity, Capital, Determination—scads of others, a complicated astrology that only sworn officials of the Gods could work out. Her mother was trained in these things, and somewhere in her mother’s office was a chart, labeled with Adelina’s name at the top, predicting her talents and weak spots, mentioning the moments that she should watch for throughout her life.

Adelina suspected that her scholarly inclinations were clearly spelled out in the horoscope and that this—rather than any particular fondness or feelings of indulgence—had reconciled her mother to her child’s dependence on the world of the written word. If she knew Adelina had gone even further into it, she’d be furious.

What would it mean if the charts were cyphering out some other path for her now? She knew that there was no such thing as fortune telling, but her affiliations to the various Gods of Trade and Commerce would indicate general directions and which would advantage her more than others.

Lost in thought? Leonoa asked, and Adelina’s attention came back to the moment of the table.

She said the first thing that came to her, as though she had been woken from sleep. I wish that Bella were here. I know she’s fine—she always lands on her feet—but it would be good to know that for sure.

Leonoa and her reflection both stared at her in mute sympathy. Adelina felt a desire to protest, to say, No, I don’t think of her as much as that sounds, I’ve grown accustomed to the friendship, but knew enough to stop herself before those words spilled in turn.

The second night bell sounded. She wondered again where Bella was.

Leonoa tilted her cup to consider the dregs of her chal. I am tired enough to go home, though. And my friend will be waiting.

Friend? Adelina asked, trying for an encouraging tone that might draw out details of Leonoa’s lover.

She achieved something much less subtle than she hoped for, judging by Leonoa’s expression, the dark eyebrows like sardonic pen marks as the artist regarded her in silence for a moment. But after that period, all that Leonoa said was, Good friend. And drained the last of her chal.

After a hesitation into which no words settled, Adelina scraped her chair back across the blue and gold tiles and stood. Come, I will find cabs for the two of us, she said. It is far too cold and late to walk. This hour of the night, footpads might be about.

She paid the bill for both of them, despite Leonoa’s protest. If Bernarda ponies up the money for your works, then you may buy the next meal, she said. She was well acquainted by now with the manner in which a painter’s daily funds might fluctuate.

I don’t know that she will, Leonoa admitted with a sigh. She has always been prone to take advantage. If she can claim she was disaccommodated by my work, and, therefore she should not pay for any of it, I am sure she can find an advocate willing to bring it to the Duke. And do you know his plan for the Peacekeepers, after the elections, whether or not he should win?

Adelina raised an eyebrow. More rumors. Alberic was said to be coming up with all sorts of plans in the time before the elections, so much that it was reaching the point of parody.

He will bill whoever’s trouble caused the Peacekeepers to be summoned, Leonoa said.

What if they cannot pay?

Then their goods will be sold to pay what can be paid, and they will be thrown into debt-slavery until the rest is settled.

Adelina blinked as the idea collided with her Merchantly sensibilities. Unheard of, to deal in people as though they were Beasts. What? That is possible by law, but no one pursues it nowadays.

There is a reason they call him cheese-paring, Leonoa said.

The ideas that people have of Merchants, he puts them all to shame. Adelina scowled into her mug’s cooling dregs.

Ah, I do not know, Leonoa said. When a Merchant sets their mind to saving coins, they can do it with grace and ease. But most of them pay their due to appearances and make it seem a lesser effort than it truly is. Alberic is just not skilled in that thing to the point that he should be, in order to call upon the Trade Gods to the degree that he does.

I won’t argue anymore. Adelina glanced up and down the street.

Leonoa said, You would think there would be cabs enough here.

They will be by soon enough, Adelina said. Most know this is an easy fare. There’s a pair right now, two so we will not have to quarrel over who should take precedence over the other until a second arrives.

Leonoa said, Thank you for being a good friend, Adelina.

Adelina paused at the abrupt change in tone, but recovered quickly. You are welcome, she said, always welcome when it comes to such things. You know that you can call on me for your own sake, and not just for my friendship with Bella, you know that by now, do you not?

I do, Leonoa admitted, and I know I should be better about asking for such things. It is just hard, after being told all my life that I was not capable enough to earn a living on my own and that I would be indebted to the House forever. After that, it grates me hard to put my hand out for help.

But such a pleasure to take such a talented hand and assist it, Adelina said in a smooth tone, echoing Bella and one of her seductions, making them both laugh. They were still laughing as they waved to each other and got into their respective cabs.

Chapter 3

Where to?" asked the driver, a young Minotaur, and she gave instructions.

At first the pools of light along the streets were cast by aetheric installations. Farther from the Plaza, the gas lamps’ buttery glow and the occasional flickering of a torch outside a doorway or carried by a pedestrian too poor to afford a sheltered lantern supplanted the more brilliant illumination.

As they trundled along, fireworks spoke and bloomed overhead, still colored to echo the red, white, and purple Moons. The Temples are spending a lot on their rallies. Same as everyone else.

Icy grit crunched beneath the wheels as the lights ebbed and waned, and Adelina found herself drowsing, thinking about Bella. How like her, not to show up at the teahouse. I should be outraged. Or worried. I would have been once. And now I have seen her extricate herself from worse hundreds of times. Another accrual, this indifference? Or a diminishment? Which Trade God oversaw that particular transaction?

The cab shuddered to a stop in front of the Nettlepurse gates. The driver stomped his hooves to clear them of accumulated slush and huffed out steamy breath. She fumbled out three coins and put them in the wooden box on its strap around his neck, the lid sealed with a wax disk. She held out a fourth coin but he shook his head.

That is illegal, Merchant, you do know that.

Small illegalities are overlooked by certain Trade Gods, she said and pressed it on him. Diahti will forgive us both. It is a cold night, buy yourself something hot to warm your stomach.

He took the coin with no hesitation this time and put it away in his belt, bowing. As courteous as any Human youth could ever wish to be. But they are always polite when domesticated. She nodded in return and entered the gates, passing through the barred moonlight that striped the path.

When she came in, the majordomo was there and waiting for her despite the lateness of the hour, helping her slip off her coat and boots caked with sidewalk slush.

A lean, fox-headed Beast, he’d seen her leave, and winked at Bella as they left. But once again he was seeing Adelina come home alone.

At the thought, uncustomary impatience surged through her. Surely I am done with all this sadness and ill feeling. Bella and I worked it all out long ago. That’s why we can be friends now. We made that contract, sold love for permanency.

But isn’t there always, in every relationship, one person who cares more? Even in friendship, I take second place to whatever toy has newly chanced to catch her eye.

Nettlepurse ancestral portraits stared down at her as she went down the hall, the plush carpet swallowing up every sound.

She knew each and every one from her earliest days. Beyond reading the history of the House (her mother was her only rival in the depth of such knowledge) she had led a lonely childhood in which imaginary conversations with a number of them played a prominent part. Her namesake, the first Adelina from a century ago, had been a favorite. She looked at that Adelina, the sympathetic, resolute painted smile, as she passed and squared her chin in imitation.

Bella is Bella, and there is no changing her. I take her as I find her. She has never lied and promised me more.

As she reached the head of the staircase, Emiliana’s bedroom door cracked open.

Come in and tell me about your evening, her mother called. Her tone was determinedly cheerful. She’d been irritated with Adelina earlier, and they’d ended with a fight in which Emiliana had told her she should stop dangling after Bella.

Adelina hesitated. She