Dark Secrets

by Shona Husk

  She nodded and smiled as if understanding exactly why I’d hired him. Was she expecting me to die or flee? Neither filled me with cheer. This was my home, but I couldn’t live here with Anisa. “I know, and he was telling us about what he saw on his way in.”

  I raised an eyebrow but kept eating.

  “I have to go past the Decihall to get here, since I live across down Miner Road.” Jawbreaker glanced at the table, as if admitting that he lived on a back lane was embarrassing. “Lawman’s got a carpenter making frames.”

  I forced myself to swallow the lump of bread in my mouth and almost choked. “He’s planning a hanging.” So fast?

  “Ten of ’em.”

  I rubbed my jaw that was in good need of a shave. “Guess that means he’s upgraded from whores to Rogue Arcane.”

  “Word is he’s turning over every rock to find some after the Arcane Union Master busted his bollocks.” Immediately Jawbreaker flushed crimson. “I didn’t mean to cuss in front of the women folk.”

  “’Sokay. We’re used to bollocks.” Korene smiled and tried to put him at ease.

  I appreciated his concern. He was going to fit in fine.

  “And the post attached to them,” Noromon added.

  The girls had a giggle at Jawbreaker’s obvious discomfort at the discussion of such intimate parts. It was nice to see yesterday’s rough handling hadn’t damaged their spirits. Or maybe, like me, they were too busy thumbing their nose at everyone to examine the hurt that couldn’t be seen.

  But it was there. I felt it. Simmering quietly. It would take longer to fade and couldn’t be fixed by any healer.

  Closing the doors for more than one night would admit we were wounded. And while I’m sure everyone had appreciated the evening off after the excitement of the morning, we had to open for business as usual—that and I no longer had the savings to support a closed lust house. I could probably pull together another two gold coins in silver and tinnies, but if we weren’t working we’d go through that pretty fast, and I didn’t want empty coffers. I couldn’t leave Korene with nothing.

  Besides, if clients noticed that the burns were healed so soon, all that would mean was we had the coin to pay and hopefully our standing would go up. Or it would piss people off that a bunch of loose-skirts had that much coin. I gave a mental shrug. People were always judging us rightly or wrongly.

  I drank the last of my milk then stood. “Right. Jawbreaker, you’re with me. You need new colors. The rest of you get ready to reopen tonight.” We’d find out how the kind folk of Reseda felt about us.

  “You’re going to check out the frames,” Korene accused.

  I was, but only as part of my other business. Taking Jawbreaker to the seamstress had given me the opening I needed to see Anisa. “I’ll have to go past to get to Weaver Road.”

  “Don’t go buying trouble.”

  “I got no coin to spend.” I smiled, but already I knew I was going to be borrowing. I had to hear it from Anisa’s lips whether she wanted to stay or flee. The letter gave me a reason to hope, but in daylight it was casting a long shadow. Brixen could have forced her hand. It could be a trap. But there was only one way to find out.

  Waiting outside on the street was the boy from yesterday. I nodded to him and he followed. Walking past the half-constructed frames chilled my blood and made me shiver. I was glad I wasn’t wearing a scarf around my neck—another month, and the cold would settle and I wouldn’t be leaving my house without one—since already I could feel my fate tightening around my throat. Every day I lingered, the noose drew tighter.

  The Lawman had gone to the outskirts to round up suspects to weight his ropes. I hoped a truth-seeker would be there to question the men and prove he’d gotten it wrong and had once again failed, but I doubted that would happen. The Union needed this show of power as much as Brixen. Men who refused to adapt to change broke. I wasn’t going to be one of them, but even though I’d known this day would come I still hadn’t planned for it. I’d expected the solution to appear. Maybe it had, in the form of Anisa.

  If not for her, would I be so keen to act?

  I left Jawbreaker at the seamstress, who got all my trade. I’m sure the wealthy ladies of town who got their dresses sewn there would be thrilled to know my loose-skirts had the same finery. I sent the boy on an errand…well, the seamstress sent him on one. He was going to tell Anisa that the red fabric had arrived to be viewed with the Mistress Spool.

  Maybe it was too vague and she wouldn’t come. But I couldn’t risk being more open. I didn’t know how closely the militia were watching her in Brixen’s absence. There was no point in me waiting around; plus I wanted the militia following me to see me leave, so I went to fulfill my other errands, praying to the Hunter I’d put out a strong enough lure and that I wasn’t baiting my own trap.

  With my hands in my pockets and my hat pulled down low, I slipped down Farmer Road then cut along one of the ring roads that wrapped the ten spoke roads spreading from the Decihall. The further out the ring roads got, the wider the spacing. At the fringes were the abattoirs, big workshops, breweries and small farms—what you found depended on what road you took.

  I took a circuitous route, picking up a few small things. Fresh paper and red wax for letters. Herbs to keep the babies away, all the while hoping that militia man trailing me would get bored when he realized I was about a whore’s business. When I was sure the man had stop following me I meandered back to see Mistress Spool. I slipped in the back, my heart bouncing high in my chest.

  Sure enough, as I walked into the cloth room I saw her, moving between sheets of fabric hanging from rope strung across the raised celling. She was gazing at the colors and delicate patterns. Back home we couldn’t have afforded anything of this quality. She probably couldn’t now. She touched the edge of a sheet of red shot through with the palest of greens. As much as I liked it, it didn’t suit her. Neither did the white she was wearing.

  In a few days she’d aged. Fear had pulled her lips into a line where I was used to seeing a smile, her hair was drawn tightly back without a ribbon in sight and her eyes were never still, as if even here she couldn’t relax.

  “I think this would suit you better.” I held up a corner of deep blue.

  Anisa spun. Her eyes widened and for a moment there was something other than wariness there. I wanted to put my arms around her and swear everything would be all right. But there was too much between us.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” She moved closer.

  I took a couple of paces to the next lot of cloths and pretended to examine them. “I have business here.”

  “So do I, apparently.” She kept her gaze on the fabric. “Someone might see us talking.” There was a catch in her voice that made my heart ache.

  “You came here to talk.” I moved to stand next to her. “I got your note.” Even now I was waiting for a militia man to burst in and arrest me.

  She nodded. “And you ignored it. This is too dangerous. You ran away once. Turn away again now.” Her words were sharp. Then she glanced away, unable to look at me.

  “Give me a chance, Anisa. I’ve grown up.”

  “So have I. I don’t have time for the boy who ran away and broke my heart.” She turned her back on me as if to leave. Her posture was too rigid, as if she was fighting to say the right thing instead of doing what she wanted. Once she wouldn’t have cared. Now she was trapped. She had duties and obligations because of her marriage to a Lawman.

  “You prefer the man who breaks your body?” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. They were too harsh.

  She flinched, but stopped walking. “He found the ribbon. Even if I want to see you, I can’t.” She looked over her shoulder. “Even here.”

  “I know. He gave me the ribbon back. I know what he did to you.”

  Anisa turned around. “He called you a…” She stumbled over the word and settled for something safer. “Loose-skirt.” Her blue eyes searched my face as if hoping for a d
enial.

  I had nothing to say except for the truth. If I’d imagined going home and saying I’d failed to get in to the Arcane Union was hard, this was like pulling out my teeth. Once out, they couldn’t be put back in, and nothing would be the same again.

  I slowly unbuttoned my coat, then the top two buttons of my shirt. I pulled the fabric aside. “He did this yesterday. I was one of the whores getting branded.”

  I wondered what Brixen had told her. That she shouldn’t talk to whores in general, or that she shouldn’t talk to me? Had he told her that he’d brand me as punishment to keep me away?

  Her gaze flicked between the scar and my face. “You paid a healer?”

  Everyone knew how much that cost. That I could afford to do that was going to be a slap in the face for some.

  “For all of us.”

  She reached out and touched the smooth scar. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not anymore.” The memory of the brand still made me wince and the memory of the healing made me want to throw up. Now I couldn’t feel a thing. The skin had lost all sensation and I was numb to her touch.

  “What happened to you?”

  I gave her a sad smile and covered her hand with mine. “You can’t guess? The Union turned me away. Told me I had nothing to give.” I looked down at our joined hands. She was the only person I could tolerate touching me. The only one who had ever touched me in kindness. Her thoughts didn’t try to force their way in, and I didn’t need to know what was in her mind. I wanted to know what was in her heart and that kept me safe. My love for her hadn’t died, even if she no longer loved me. “I couldn’t come home. I needed to prove myself.”

  “You sold yourself.” She pulled her hand away, not out of disgust but out of caution. Her gaze flicked to the doorways, even though we were alone out the back of the shop.

  “No.” If I told her the truth, she could tell the Union or her husband, but death was no longer fearsome. Some days I’d have welcomed it into my bed. “I sell my mind.”

  She frowned, her golden eyebrows lowering.

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever been with.”

  Understanding parted her lips in a silent gasp. “You’re Rogue?”

  “Not officially.” Not if I could help it.

  “Accidently?” The smile I knew was back, glinting in her eyes for just a moment. “Does Brixen know? Is that why he hates you?”

  I shook my head. “If he knew, I’d hang.” I paused, not sure what I could tell her without hurting her, but it was better all the bitter truths were out instead of left to fester. “Do you know where he goes once a ten-night?”

  She shook her head slowly, as if realizing even as she denied knowing.

  “He comes to see me in the Red Lust House. I know the desires that fill his mind and I know what happened to his first wife. And what he does to you.”

  Anisa lowered her gaze to my boots. “You know him better than me.” She crossed her arms as if fighting off a chill. “He seemed like a good man when he came to town. My mother was impressed with his manners and charm. She convinced me to give up hoping. But once I was in his house…” She lifted her chin and glared at me. “I waited and waited. After my father died, my mother married me off to the first well-positioned man who came looking for a wife.”

  “I’m sorry.” I could apologize for the rest of my life and never make it right.

  “You should’ve written.” She slapped my arm. “You should have sent for me.”

  I caught her hand before she could slap me again even though I deserved it. I should have written, if only to break it off and not leave her waiting. But I hadn’t even been able to do that. I’d needed to hold on to the dream that she was waiting for me. A selfish dream that had come true and didn’t taste as sweet as I’d imagined. “I was living on the streets for months. Then in a tavern with more rats than customers. I could barely feed myself. I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

  “But you own the Red Lust House.” Again the frown I wasn’t used to seeing, but she hadn’t pulled her hand free of mine.

  I let my fingers slide over her smooth skin. Being near her, I was more alive than I had been in years. Maybe it was the danger or maybe it was because buried beneath too many years of separation the love we’d had still survived. Dormant, not dead.

  “I woke up one morning and decided if I was going to use magic to screw people, I was going to do it my way and live somewhere nice. Four years ago I bought the business, and every day I sat down to write to you, and every day all I had was a blank piece of paper. Would you have come to me? To live with a whore beyond the grace of the Lords?”

  She closed her eyes, her pink lips pressed together. “Haidyn—”

  “You want to say yes, but you know you wouldn’t have. Your father would’ve forbidden you from leaving with me if I didn’t have a Lord.” My words were quiet. It was the truth and I’d known it back then. Anisa had been lost to me the moment I turned from the Decihall and chosen to walk a different road, no matter how much we wished things could’ve been different. I released her hand and let my fingers trail up her arm to brush her cheek. “I never stopped thinking of you. I never stopped loving you.”

  “It’s too late now.” She sighed, but turned toward my touch. Her skin was warm on my palm.

  “It’s never too late to make things right.” I could find my way back to the Lords’ grace.

  “I made vows.”

  “I know. I saw you leave the Decihall.”

  “If I leave him, he’ll kill me—and you.”

  “If you stay, he will kill you.” I knew it as sure as I knew my name. And Brixen would take his time doing it, breaking her spirit long before her body.

  “You can read minds. You know what I want.” She looked me in the eye. There was none of the bright girl I’d once known. She was older, harder, and there were scars.

  If I’d gone home, she would have been safe. But she was still my Anisa. I saw it in the tilt of her chin and the way she was here, even though she knew the danger. She’d never been one to shy away.

  “I don’t need to, Anisa.” I cupped her cheek, leaned in and placed a light kiss on her lips. She tasted sweet, like the last of summer’s berries. Her mouth opened, but I didn’t press my luck. Instead I drew back just enough so I could feel her sigh on my lips. That small pleasure traced over my skin, the way I remembered her hands. I longed to feel her again in my arms. And I knew that was what she wanted as she pressed closer. My hand slid across her hip to keep her there.

  When her fingers brushed my shoulder, I lowered my head to kiss her again. Properly this time. The way I once had.

  She moaned and pulled away too soon. “I could never resist you. I should have ignored my father and run away to join you.”

  “No. Never that. You don’t know how bad it was. Knowing you were safe kept me going.” I trailed my fingers through her golden hair. She’d never be safe here, yet to get free would mean risking everything. I had to know how far she was willing to go. “If you choose to stay and keep your vows, I’ll walk away.” Even though every step would kill me. “If you choose to take a chance with me, I’ll make it happen.”

  “He will hunt us down,” she whispered, as if hoping the Lords wouldn’t overhear us plotting.

  “I’ll find a way.”

  Her lips brushed mine in sweet temptation, but we were already on stolen time. I hugged her closer anyway, unwilling to let her go now that I held her. She pressed her cheek against mine. Her breaths were shaky and her tears burned my cheek.

  I closed my eyes. I had to be fearless for both of us. We’d only get one chance. If I got it wrong, we’d be lucky to get away with a simple hanging.

  “Can you really do this?”

  I didn’t know. My magic had never been tested beyond the bedroom. “I won’t fail you again. I’ll swear to any Lord who will have me, to give you an honest life.”

  “Any life, Haidyn, will be enough.”

  We drew apart
. She wiped her cheeks while I re-buttoned my jacket.

  She touched the red silk. “You made a good life.”

  “I did.” I’d worked hard, taken risks and lived on the edge of the law and Lords. And I’d paid for it. I wanted my mind back; the only person I wanted in my thoughts was Anisa.

  “You’d give it up for me?”

  I nodded. “I’d give up everything for one more chance.” For one more night in her arms.

  “I prayed every night I’d see you again. Maybe the Lords listened.” With trembling fingers she traced my jaw. So soft, no demand or expectation. For Anisa, I was just Haidyn.

  “Then pray that we find a life together away from Reseda.” I would pray to the Hunter for a way to trap my quarry and buy us the time to flee.

  “I will.” She touched her fingers to my lips. “Be careful of my husband.”

  I kissed the tip of her finger and took her hand in mine, pressing a coin to her palm. “I know. Now choose some cloth so you have reason to come back when the clothing is made.”

  She glanced at the rainbow of fabrics surrounding us, her lips curving up at the corners. She came alive when surrounded by color. Her skin glowed, and I found myself smiling as she ran her hand over the cloth and held pieces out to check the color and weave. For a few moments I watched, glad I could give her hope. I’d learned long ago that hope was worth more than gold. A man could live without gold but not hope.

  I hoped the Lords would wrap around us and protect us. Would they really care about two oath-breakers? Maybe the Hunter would join the chase and revel in the danger and threat to survival; if His support was all I could count on it would have to be enough.

  “I’ll get a coat in Brewer’s amber.” She touched a bolt of orange with a fine lilac stripe. “In memory of my father.”

  And in a nod to my profession. Glassmakers, alchemists, herbalists and brewers all fell under the care of the Brewer. While glass was now used for things other than bottles, like windows and lightning boxes, the trade still fell under the Brewer, who’d first used glass to contain liquor and tonics. He was also the only Lord to ever be seen with a woman. A whore in taverns and a fainting lady at herbalists.