Underh the broke-down wagon was a good hidey-hole. Plenty of room for Pretty to stretch out oummy and watch the market through the cracked boards. She could see in every dire except to the left where the wago blocked her view, and she was hidden from all the folks out there. She’d been absent a few days, holed up and sick, but nobody had taken her spot.

  The fine dy showed up about midnight, while the market crowd was in full swing. Shimmering like a pigeon in a stray dress trimmed with purple and green, she bought a small wedge of cheese and another apple. She strolled through the carts and stalls with her purchases, iing this and that, but nothing held her attention for long.

  Imagine having a different dress for every day like that—and being daft enough to wear them in the muck that bed Market Street.

  The dy’s eyes flicked toward the alley then away, so fast that Pretty almost missed it.

  Her heart jumped up to her throat before Pretty remembered she was safe uhe wagon. Nobody could see her there.

  The fine dy turned away and headed uphill. She disappeared around the er toward the promenades.

  Pretty breathed a sigh of relief aled in to watch for food opportunities.

  Folks came a, the savvy kind, who khe low streets and never dropped anything or left it unattended long enough for quick hands to grab it. Pretty didn’t mind watg folks when they couldn’t see her. It tickled her, seeing the way some got all ruffled up with each other or how others touched and talked and admired but never could settle on buying a solitary thing.

  Then something covered the gap she’d been looking through. The wagon wood creaked and groaned.

  Pretty tehe air trapped in her lungs.

  But nobody ripped the pieces of the wagon away to find her hidih.

  Someone heaved a weary sigh.

  Pretty almost giggled out loud when she realized what had happened. Somebody had sat down on the overturned wagon.

  She rolled onto her back to look up at the ftbottom. The gaps there were hair thin, the boards well fitted, probably to keep goods like grain from spilling out, but narrow strands of ghostlight filtered through in pces. Everywhere but right over where Pretty y.

  “It’s going to be beautiful for the ival of the Dead, the weather,” a woman drawled. “Think you’ll go?”

  Were two people sitting up there? Pretty couldn’t tell for sure. Maybe the speaker was standing there in skirts, blog her view into the market while the one being spoken to was sitting on top. The sweet st of flowers and spices drifted into the wagon.

  A rhythmic scraping sound came from above. Didn’t put Pretty in the mind of scraped wood, though.

  “I thought sure you wouldn’t e back, me. I never meant to scare you.” The woman had a refined way of talking, almost like a rich uphill dy, but there was a hint of low street there. “Hard to remember hhtening it be down here once you get away.”

  Something dropped into the dirt by the skirts.

  Pretty ed her o see it: a red, red apple peel cut loose like a snakeskin. She swallowed hard, her pulse pig up speed.

  “You’re a very beautiful child uhat dirt,” the woman said. “It’s a miracle you’re still alive down here by the riverfront. You must know, sooner or ter, yoing to get caught.”

  Pretty flipped bato her stomad scrabbled around until she could see the exit out the back of the wagon pile. Was the woman watg it? Was somebody waiting back there to snatch Pretty if she tried to run?

  But if she didn’t try, wouldn’t she get caught anyway?

  “Might be you already been caught.” Another snakeskin of peel dropped. The sound made Pretty flinch. “Might be that’s why you had the seo be scared of a stranger you something.”

  Pretty felt like she was going to drop her stomad wet her dress all at the same time. She was trapped.

  “It’s hard, looking into the future, especially when you ’t see far enough to find the meal, but you surely noticed there aren’t no women down in the Closes.” The crisp ch of a bitten apple. “You o get out before the little boys you run with dowurn into men and you ’t fit into them hiding spots you used to escape to.”

  Pretty was shaking, the quakes ing from deep in her belly and rattling her nerves all the way to her fiips and toes.

  “Might be you live the first time or three you get caught. Might be you don’t.” Another chy bite and a sigh. “Then you figure if yon hurt anyway, you may as well get paid for it. But you’re like to be mangled up enough by then that only the nastiest wh houses on the riverfront want you. A couple years filling beds down on the dockside and, if you aren’t mangled when you went in, you will be whehrow you out.”

  The woman wasn’t saying anything anybody in the Closes didn’t already know. But Brat had promised that they wouldn’t have to gh that.

  “We ain’t never gonna have no bad stuff again, us.” That was exactly what Brat had said. “I swear it on my everstin’ soul, may the orant strike me dead ireet.”

  Pretty scrubbed her eyes. She shoulda knowed. Nothing Brat said ever came true. Her chest bucked with silent, painful sobs.

  “I don’t want that to happen to you, child.” On top of the wagon, the woman’s voice was soft, with a sad note bleeding through it. “There’s another way out, but you got to be smarter and you got to be harder. A girl who won’t take a free meal just might be able to make it. I got out, me. Maybe you too.”

  It was a long time before Pretty scooted out from uhe wagon and into the alley.

  The fine dy sat there in her pigeon gray dress, slender, straight back toretty, face looking out over the market. The dy’s head cocked, the ostrich feather in her hair bobbily, but she didn’t turn around whey stood up. If she had, Pretty would’ve darted into the Closes.

  “I live uphill, me,” the dy said. “Fiownhouse oreet. I’ve dined with lords and dies, thrown masques the snoots all tripped over each other to get an invitation to. I’ve sat on the High Stand during the ival of the Dead—oh, must be near onto ten years now. Men have fought duels over me. Real, courtly duels with swords, not fistfights. Two died. From close-rat to the most coveted hand in Siu al, I do.”

  “Your dress.” Pretty swallowed. “It’s really something.”

  The dy ughed, a sound like a song. “You ought to see my cowns.”

  She did turn, then, slow and graceful like a willow waving in the breeze. Her face was fine boned and fwless, with the barest hint of wrinkles around her eyes when she smiled.

  “What’s your name, child?”

  “Pretty.”

  The dy rose to her feet and swept a deep, effortless curtsey. “Pretty, I’m Athalia, the Daylily of Siu al.”

  ***

  The Daylily of Siu al was the most famous courtesan on the delta. Of the two men who had died fighting duels for her, one was a married lord, the other the heir to the wealthiest bloodsve sacramental in the southern holdings.

  Gossip had it that the mortally wounded sacramental son had cwed his way to kiss her feet o time before finally giving up the ghost.

  It wasn’t true, but Athalia knew better than to tell anybody so. Mystique made a pin womaiful and a beautiful woman divine.

  She held Pretty’s grubby little hand as she led the girl uphill. The girl’s suspicious eyes immediately picked out the pair of bruisers with swords who shadowed Athalia from a distance.

  “Don’t be afraid, they’re mine,” Athalia said. “They won’t touch you, and they’ll make certain no one else does, her.”

  Most often, the visible threat afforded by the silent, hulking eunuchs was enough to turn away trouble before it started, in the low streets or uphill.

  “I’ve got eight of them, me.” She caught Pretty peering around, trying to find the rest, and ughed. “Not with me, child. They work in shifts. Whe bay townhouse, I’ll introduce you to the rest.”

  There were a lot of things she would have to introduce Pretty to before they were dohere was a lot more than street between the Closes and an uphill pt.

  ***

  A townhouse, it turned out, ace of brilliant colors and soft cushions. Everywhere Pretty looked were good-smelling bundles of cut flowers and dried herbs.

  “Ring up a bath to the blue room, Orika,” Athalia ordered the woman who met them at the door, “and send a ptter as well. Nothing too rich for now, I think.”

  The introdus to the sword-wielding monsters went quickly. They didn’t speak, just bowed in turhalia said their names. Pretty was too overwhelmed to retain muformation; their names slipped past her.

  “Not versationalists, them,” Athalia said, leading Pretty away from the huge warriors and up a flight of stairs to a room decorated all in blue. “They haven’t got no tongues, nor man-parts anymore. But for prote or retribution, a courtesan ’t hire er than the Silent Sisterhood. Ah, looks like your bath’s near ready!”

  Pretty had never heard of a bath. She panicked when Athalia told her she had to take her clothes off, thinking she’d fallen for the exact trap she’d been trying to avoid.

  In respoo Pretty’s blind terror, the Daylily calmly backed away until she pressed against the door, motioning her servants to do the same.

  “I won’t make you do nothing, me,” Athalia offered soothingly. “If you want, we’ll leave the room while you wash. Usually, I have one servant b oils into my hair and ao add hot water wheh begins to chill. You have all of that or none of it, as you like. Ths you’re wearing will have to be burhough. They reek, and they’re too small besides. Orika’s bringing you something and closer to your size.”

  Athalia held mostly to her word, having her servants bring out a tall s and waiting behind it while Pretty disrobed. But the little close-rat was happy they were still there wheried climbing into the bath and burnt herself. She’d never felt water hotter than a summer puddle before. Athalia had a servant add cold water until Pretty could stand it.

  Baths weren’t so bad after all. Pretty nearly fell asleep in it, but woke up when her hostess asked whether she’d finished washihat required definition and a quick demonstration.

  Much ter, when she was fihere were warm lio dry herself on and a long soft sleeping gown to put on and a ptter of cold ham and pickled vegetables to eat.

  Pretty wasn’t too sure she hadn’t died ht uhe overturned wagon; maybe the orant had takeo paradise.

  She didn’t have the ce to ask Athalia why she was doing all this.

  So instead she asked, “What do I gotta do?”

  “To get all this for yourself?” the courtesan asked, bing sweet-smelling attar into the girl’s wet, snarled hair.

  That was close enough to retty had meant. She winced as the b caught in a tahen nodded.

  Athalia’s eyes looked far away, down a street the girl couldn’t see.

  “Pretty’s a niame, better than most close-rats get. Me, I think it’s a sign of how much better everybody already knew you were than them. But to get the kind of security, the kind of luxury you see here, Pretty isn’t enough. Beautiful isher. You’ve got to be something more. Exotic, mysterious, otherworldly… Thetting closer.”

  Pretty looked into the mirror at the woman’s graceful curves and fwless face. She wondered what Athalia’s name had been when she lived in the Closes.

  “We’re going to make you something higher than any of that, us,” Athalia said. She gestured to Orika, who took over pinning up Pretty’s wet hair for the night. “Something these river boys and lordlings—nobody in the Kingdom of Night—never seen. That’s going to take time and work. You may hate me by the time it’s done, but when you’re lounging in your own townhouse with a half a hundred admirers and food oable every night and mifts and gold than you spend, you’ll thank me.”

  She stepped bad appraised Pretty, now free of dirt and rags and the smell of the street.

  “Flowers and jewels are all fine and good, but when we’re done, yoing to be something beyond that. A beauty from another world.”

  Athalia shifted the mirror so Pretty could see herself better. The light reflected off her pale skin and seemed to disappear int, dark eyes.

  “Seleketra,” Athalia said, “demon daughter of the strong goddess, the face that felled a thousand kingdoms.”