“Okay, good. Let’s hope for that.” I peeled off my damp black shirt. “And what if the guy is a creep?”
“You stay in control. In fact, once you get him tied up, you can tell him you’re making him wait. As soon as the coast is clear, we can do a swap.”
“You’re truly a lifesaver, Zahra.”
“And if he gets really aggressive or does anything you don’t like, that’s what the guard is for.”
I slid off my trousers and underwear, and I folded everything up on the table. Zahra dropped a pile of clothes next to my own. Delicate underthings, with crisscrossing straps that would go over my hips and breasts. The sheer material was embroidered with writhing snakes. Beautiful, really.
I started sliding on the underwear, trying to get everything in the right place. “How do I tie someone up? Like a sailor’s knot?”
“There’s too much for you to learn right now, Lila.”
“I’m sorry, Zahra. I couldn’t think of anything else to get away from them. I was between the guards’ guns and the Rough Boys’ daggers.” I slipped the complicated, crisscrossing camisole over my head.
Zahra brought out a pair of five-inch heels, which I had no business wearing. Stepping into them was easy enough, but when I stood I nearly toppled over. I gripped the table, muttering to myself. “You can do this, Lila. Just get through the next fifteen minutes, and the Rough Boys will probably give up.”
Zahra handed me a sheer black robe.
As I pulled it around me, she cast a look up and down my body. “If all else fails, take off your robe. You’ve got the perfect body. Gorgeous tits, fit waist, nice arse, strong legs. His jaw will drop when he sees what you look like, and his mind will turn to jelly. So just take your kit off, tie him up. Whack him with a whip a few times, tell him he’s naughty, and you’ll be good as gold. I’ll come save you when the coast is clear.”
I nodded. “Seems simple enough.”
“Wait.” Zahra pulled out a tube of red lipstick, and started painting in my lips. “You do look gorgeous. Almost a shame you’ll be covering up your face with a mask.” She stepped back again, narrowing her eyes at me. “Turn around.”
I turned as instructed, only wobbling a little in the heels. Zahra started twisting my hair behind my head.
“You know what I’d like to do some day?” I said, “I want to work on the top floor. I could be a librarian among all the book stacks. And when people asked me for recommendations, I’d pull out the perfect novel for them. And when I was done with work at the end of the day, I’d come down here to dance. Much better than pilfering from the ships.”
She was tying my hair into some sort of knot behind my head. “Hmm … You’ll have to learn to read, probably.”
“I know.”
“Turn around.”
As I spun to face her, her face brightened. “Gorgeous. Fine, I’ll teach you to read. I can even teach you a bit of Clovian.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Not sure I want to learn the language of our oppressors.”
She held a mirror up to my face. I blinked at the glamorous new person staring back at me, and tilted the mirror down to look at my whole body. I usually tried to hide in the shadows as much as possible. Now, all I had to cover me were the straps of the complicated underwear. The curves of my breasts, my exposed stomach and bare thighs were on display. My blood-red lips looked like pure sin.
Maybe I kind of liked the seductive look for a change. And the best thing about it was that my tattoo was in view—the raven tattoo on my right bicep that all Albian women got at age eighteen. “I am Lady Zahra tonight. Seductress, enchantress, femme fatale.”
“Simmer down, enchantress.” Zahra turned, rifling through a drawer, until she pulled out one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.
A smile curled my lips. I’d seen angel feathers before, but never one this pretty: golden, blending to burnt umber at the tips. In the dim room, light seemed to radiate from every downy fiber. I took it from her fingers, twirling it before my eyes.
“Now this alone is worth paying a courtesan for.” Marveling at its perfection, I ran my fingertip over the edge of the down. A tingling warmth spread through my finger, up my arm. It swirled into my chest, and my skin started heating. “Now I understand why they don’t care about sex.”
“You believe in angels, right?”
“Of course I do.” Some people in Dovren believed in angels; others thought it was tosh. But when it came to magic and things not of this world, I was more open-minded than most.
“Right well, there’s a trick us courtesans know that most people don’t. Angels elicit sexual desire. Like the rest of their bodies, feathers contain that same thrill. So use that on him, and he’ll be yours to control. But don’t forget to give it back. It’s the best tool I have.”
I stroked it up my forearm again. Now, the delicate fabric of the robe felt deliciously sensual against all the bare skin. “Amazing.”
“Stop stroking yourself and move your arse, seductress.” She held out a black, feathered masquerade mask, and I put it on. “Just try to make it through ten minutes without doing something weird.”
“I would never do anything weird. You’re thinking of my alter ego, Skin-Monster Trevor.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my God, Lila, just be normal for ten minutes.”
She spun me around so I faced the door. I concentrated on staying steady, balancing in the high heels. In the corridor, the bass drum from the music hall pounded through the walls, and the sound of horns carried through the air.
How and why did Zahra walk in these heels? Ridiculous. Humans hadn’t evolved to walk on little spikes. I steadied myself with one hand against the wall. When I reached the last door on the left, I knocked.
A guard opened the door—kindly-looking, with a beard and dark eyes. He smiled and motioned me into a cramped vestibule of dark wood with a door on the other side. There was nothing else in it but a bench, and a candle guttering in a sconce.
The man scratched his beard. “Zahra. I was wondering when you’d show up. Name’s Jack. First night. Bit nervous. Not that I have to do, uh … what you do. As it were.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said wistfully. “Lady Zahra has full faith in you.”
Oh, good. I was already failing at the “don’t be weird” instructions.
He loosened his collar, his face looking red and strained. He nodded at the next door. “I’m supposed to warn you before you go through there. We’ve got someone important coming tonight. Apparently he’s never been here before. He’ll be coming up the secret staircase. And it’s very important that he have a good night. I believe our lives may depend on it.”
A chill skimmed over my skin. Bollocks. “What are you talking about?”
Jack pushed open the next door, revealing a room with a silky bed and a velvet sofa. And along with that, furniture I did not recognize: the kind with straps and chains and appendages that looked distinctly uncomfortable.
Zahra’s job really was complicated. And this was, perhaps, not a good time for me to take over. “Do you think I could come back in a few minutes?”