The hall was painted a strange shade of pastel eggshell blue. The blue walls contrasted sharply with the purple carpet and the brown of the various wooden ornaments that the Van Rozens had chosen to hang on a variety of hooks on the walls, at random heights and spacing along the hall. The carpet was frayed and, in some places, had become completely worn through, revealing brown wooden floorboards eaten by neglect and heavy use. The hall was small, narrow and crooked, and the floorboards creaked and groaned even as someone as light and lithe as Glorissa walked along them, carefully maintaining her balance as she found her footing through the tight twisty angles of the hall without placing all her weight on any one step she took for fear of breaking through the floor. Did they design this hall to be the main second floor hall of a residence house or an obstacle course for agility training? Glorissa thought. The Star Knights Academy’s obstacle courses weren’t this frustrating!
As she was walking down the hall, on her way from her bedroom on the third floor to the kitchen and dining room on the ground floor, she both saw someone come and heard them by the creaking of the floors at the same time. Yarid came into view, and he was holding a large wooden crate. The box was so big that he had to use both arms wrapped around it to carry it. As soon as he set foot into the hall, Glorissa jolted from the feel and sound of the floors groaning beneath the combined weight of Yarid and the crate he was carrying.
“Um, what are you doing, King Yarid?” Glorissa asked as the two of them approached the center of the hall from opposite ends.
Yarid put the crate down; the hall at that precise spot had just enough room to fit both the box and the fae man. Yarid’s body was dripping with sweat, which made the naked muscles of his shirtless body glisten and caused the gold blonde of his hair to shimmer as if on fire. He was also breathing deeply from exertion, causing his muscular chest to heave up and down with each breath. Must be a very heavy crate! He looks like he’s been working out.
“Rose had the brilliant idea of looking through the Van Rozen’s belongings to see if she can find things to pawn on the market for stolen goods,” Yarid said. “The Van Rozens have crates and crates full of random junk in the basement. They must have taken all the gold that they failed to spend on upkeep for this house and instead used it to buy weird and strange works of art which they stored in their basement. She selected me to bring it up to her room on the third floor for her to examine, one box at a time.”
“And she can’t do it herself?” Glorissa asked.
“I am a more muscular and physically stronger man than she is,” Yarid said. “I do not mind. She promised to give me a cut of anything she can sell.”
Yarid stepped closer to Glorissa, and suddenly Glorissa was aware of just how small the hall was and how close Yarid was to her. She could feel his breath on her skin and see the fine details of his alabaster-white skin, of his sharp aristocratic face with a pointy nose and long sharp ears, and of his naked pecs and abs and biceps, wet with his sweat and pulsating with the flow of his blood from having lifted the heavy box. She was close enough to even see the detail of the fae runes etched into the rim of his tiara-like crown.
He noticed her staring at him and he blushed, and she giggled, but she refused to step back out of embarrassment. She swept her gaze from the top of his head down to his toes, her eyes gently taking in his tight yellow leather pants wrapped around his strong muscular legs, his fancy yellow leather boots, and then back up, sneaking a peak at his groin where the leather of his pants fit tight against his crotch, before lifting her gaze back up to his face. When her eyes returned to his face, she saw that he was looking at her with a steady and knowing stare from his bright blue eyes, a wry smile on his lips but his face flushed pink with a bashful sort-of-embarrassed blush. He was tall enough that she had to look up to meet his eyes, but she angled her head up, and met and matched his stare with her own.
“I should be going,” Yarid said. “Rose is waiting for me.” He picked the box back up, and then Glorissa saw that Yarid intended to squeeze past her in this narrow hallway to get through. He lifted the crate and made his move, and their two bodies were pressed together as he somehow fit himself past her, holding the crate so high above himself that the large wooden box went over her head. She could feel his naked muscle press against her and smell the lavender scent of the perfume that he wore as he squeezed through. Then, just like that, he was past her, and he carried the box away.
Glorissa turned her head and stared at his back as he walked, watching his long blonde braid whip about as he went, the muscles of his back tense with the strain of lifting the crate. She paused, holding her gaze on his body for a moment. Then, knowing that she still could continue to look at him as his figure moved down the narrow and twisty but long hallway, and knowing that he would have no idea that she was staring with his back turned to her, she turned away, to face the stairs down to the ground floor, and she continued down the hall. What just happened? Well, nothing happened. Nope. Nothing happened. She reached the stairs and walked down in fast, precise footsteps.
Yarid put the box down next to the other crates on the floor of Rose’s bedroom. Rose did not even bother to look up; she was sitting in her bed, fully clothed and reading a book. She was wearing her mask, even while alone in her bedroom. I wonder why she wears her mask even while relaxing in bed. Does she hide from herself? Yarid thought.
“Rose, we must speak,” Yarid said.
“Speak,” Rose said without looking up from the book.
“I have something that I want from you. In return, I would be willing to give you my cut of the money from your sale of the Van Rozen’s crates full of antique garbage.”
Rose looked up from her book. “Really? Some of their stuff is worth something. If you say this, you must mean it: I won’t let you change your mind or renegotiate if you give me your cut.”
“Yes. I mean it. Love is worth more than money.”
Rose smiled. “To some people it is. Tell me more.”
Yarid sat down in the chair at the desk in Rose’s bedroom. The chair was built for a small human and wobbled beneath the weight of Yarid’s tall elven body. “I have a chance with the girl, Glorissa. I can sense it. I can smell her desire for me.”
“I literally don’t care,” Rose said. “I’m sure a fit handsome faerie man like you seduces boys and girls left and right. You elves have eternal youth and perfect beauty automatically, or so says the human stories about you elves. What do you need me for?”
“Glorissa is a ‘good girl’ who will want to be with someone whose love is pure and true and good, a soul as noble as her own pure soul,” Yarid said. “I know the type well. She will have had little or no experience with men, and if she senses something dirty or gross or disgusting about me, she will turn and run away and never look back. People who are innocent run when frightened, and they scare easily. To seduce a young girl into trusting you is no simple thing.”
Rose shrugged and turned back to her book. She continued to speak without looking at Yarid, her eyes glued to the pages. “I’m guessing she shouldn’t trust you.”
“You know of what I speak,” Yarid said.
“No, I honestly don’t,” Rose said. She turned a page.
“You are aware of what I have been doing with Nathan,” Yarid said.
“Oh, that?” Rose said. She chuckled. “Yes, Nathan does like to brag. He’s been paying you to have sex with him. I am not impressed by him sleeping with you, although the speed with which he managed to do it impressed me: he must have asked you as soon as we moved into the house. I think he has some sort of weird fetish for faeries; so many of the more sad and pathetic humans have that. The first time I heard him brag that he had slept with the king of the elves, I didn’t believe him. But he shared so many sordid and gross details about your intimacy with him that I realized he was telling the truth.” Rose chuckled again, a snorty laugh of disdain. “I had thought you would turn out to be a nice guy, Yarid. But you have sex in return for money, just like any dirty person on the streets. A high and mighty king—and a sex worker for scum like Nathan. I imagine you’re doing a good deed, though: Nathan is so repulsive that no good person would be with him for free. And Nathan does enjoy sleeping with you.”
“Your insults are completely unjustified,” Yarid said. “I am honor-bound to my people to raise an army to reclaim the fae realm. Every coin that I collect goes towards that noble and worthy cause, and that includes each silver coin Nathan pays me each time that I lay with him. I charge him three silver coins per session, which is a competitive rate. I have no regard for Nathan. But I do have regard for Glorissa.” Three silver coins is not that much money, Rose thought. Perhaps Yarid simply enjoys sex, even with Nathan, and the money is nothing more than his excuse for it.
Rose put down the book and looked at Yarid. “I suppose you’re right: your behavior is disgusting enough that it will scare an innocent girl like Glorissa away and end your chances with her. But I still don’t understand why you need me.”
“Glorissa must never learn that I am sleeping with Nathan for money.”
“Then lie to her about it.”
“I cannot. The fae are honor-bound to always tell the truth. The very magic in my blood will not allow me to lie. But you can lie for me.”
“You’re proposing that I tell Glorissa that you’re not sleeping with Nathan?”
“The fae cannot say something that is a precise lie, but we can say anything that is true. When Glorissa asks me if I am already with any other member of our team, as she inevitably will, I will simply tell her to go ask you to tell her what you know about my sex life. For me to tell her to go talk to you does not, technically speaking, itself tell any sort of lie. And for me not to tell Glorissa of my conduct with Nathan also does not explicitly lie, because I am not saying anything at all. Glorissa is not merely a pure and innocent soul. She seems like a smart girl with a mind as sharp as a blade. She will expect to hear, in no uncertain terms, that I have been with no others and that I am free to be in a romance with her. You will tell her that, in return for my share of your profits from whatever is in these far-too-heavy crates.”
“I’m surprised that you would surrender coins so easily to me for this,” Rose said. “You sleep with Nathan, a disgusting man, for money, yet you give up potentially a lot of coins, just to have your opportunity with Glorissa.”
“I like Glorissa,” Yarid said. “I really like her. I want to be with her. My motives and decisions are not yours to judge. I have offered you an agreement. You need concern yourself only with that. Do you agree, Rose?”
“I agree, Yarid. I had forgotten that you elves have your weird honor-bound rules or whatever it is you have to obey. You and I now have a fae pact: I will lie to Glorissa for you, and I get all your money from this stuff.”
“We have a fae pact,” Yarid said. “I agree to your agreement.”
“If there are more boxes of the Van Rozen’s trash in the basement, please bring all of them up,” Rose said. “I want to go all in on selling their filth now that all the money is mine. And I think I’ll consider you bringing it all up from the basement for me to have been part of what you and I agreed to. And you have to bring it all back down to the ground floor after I’ve looked through it and decided what I want to sell. I’m adding all that as an amendment to our agreement. A pleasure doing business with you, Yarid. This is my first fae pact; I hope it won’t be my last.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Rose gestured her hand at Yarid and then pointed towards her door. Yarid frowned but said nothing. He stood up and looked at Rose. She had buried her face between the pages of her book. He stayed standing, expecting her to take one last look at him. She calmly turned the page and continued to read. He could not tell if she was even aware of whether he was still there. He wiped the sweat from his crowned forehead and walked out of her bedroom.
Glorissa was sitting in her chair at her desk in the room she had chosen to be her bedroom. Her room was small, square, and every part of the walls and ceiling was the same shade of light tan brown as the desk, the chair, the carpet, and the bed and bedsheets. The Van Rozens had decorated the room and chosen the color. When Glorissa had met the Van Rozens with Sylis to rent the house, she had seen that the Van Rozens wore green, which meant that they were Green. But almost nothing in their house was painted green; most of their things in the house were either light brown or deep, ugly purple, although the Van Rozens also finished some touches with a glaring, tacky shade of light blue. My skin is sort of this same shade of light brown as this room, so I know how to make it work with white. I am of White, Glorissa thought. All my clothes are white—obviously. The contrast between brown and white can look really good on me. This room suits me!
Glorissa was sitting in her chair at the brown wooden desk in her room; her chair was pulled in tightly to the desk, so that her legs were beneath it and her upper body leaned over its flat surface. She held her lucky dagger in her left hand and had a sharpening stone in her right hand. She was rubbing the stone against the blade, again and again, making the edge as fine and sharp as she could get it.
Someone knocked at her door.
“Come in,” she said, without taking her eyes off the blade.
Yarid stepped in. Glorissa looked up from her knife.
“Oh! It’s you!” Glorissa said.
“Yes, it is I,” Yarid said. “How are you?”
“Good,” Glorissa said. She looked at Yarid and her eyes narrowed in puzzlement and suspicion, but she said nothing.
“May I talk to you?” Yarid said.
“Yes,” Glorissa said.
“You have very beautiful eyes,” Yarid said. “They’re a lovely shade of dark brown. Looking into them is like looking at rivers full of liquid chocolate.”
“Thanks,” Glorissa said.
Yarid paused, expecting Glorissa to say more. She said nothing. He noticed her gaze back at her dagger, as if she wished to return to what she had been doing. This is not going well, Yarid thought.
“You seem like a very special person,” Yarid said. “You’re very unique.”
“Um, everyone is unique?” Glorissa said. “You and I barely know each other. I expect we’ll learn that each of us is unique as we get to know each other during the next two months. Everyone always does.” She looked from the dagger to Yarid and then back to the dagger.
Does she not know that I’m flirting with her? I do not think she knows.
“You have very nice hair,” Yarid said. “I like the way you did it into straight braids in the front that fall in front of your eyes, but it flows free and curly down around your neck and shoulders. The effect is well done!”
“Oh my God thank you!” Glorissa said. Her eyes instantly lit up. “I wasn’t sure about it when I first tried it but my best friend Jaeny, well she’s one of my best friends anyway, she talked me into it, she said she heard about this hairstyle from a friend of hers who saw it on a friend of hers from the Southern Tropics and I was like, that won’t work on me but she was like, yes it will, so I tried it and it’s really nice and I like it a lot! I love it! It works really nicely. I’m so glad you noticed it!”
Her hair is her pride. I can relate, Yarid thought.
“Yes, I have noticed it,” Yarid said. “It frames your beautiful eyes and face perfectly.”
“Thanks! Your hair is pretty nice too, King Yarid. I had not noticed before, but I'm looking at it right now. Wow, that must take a long time for you to get that braid right in the back. With a lot of hair, you have to make sure it falls exactly where you want and moves the way you want it to or the whole look is ruined.”
Yarid ran his hand across his forehead, tucking his stray blonde locks behind his crown. “Yes, I do put time and work into it. Thank you for noticing.”
“You know, you seem like a fun person,” Glorissa said. “Do you want to maybe hang out some time? I bet we can find some local tavern or bar with a public dartboard and play darts again. I would be up for it.”
Yarid smiled. “Yes! I would love to go on a date with you!”
“Oh wait, you thought I meant a date?” Glorissa asked.
“Yes. Did you not?”
“No… but we can go on a date and call it romantic… if that’s what you want. I was not intending that, but I am okay with it. But that means, if we enjoy each other, we will be dating. And I have some ground rules about relationships.”
This is now going better, Yarid thought. “What are your rules?”
“If you and I are to date, I expect us to be romantic,” Glorissa said, “and I expect you to be monogamous and loyal. I’m only comfortable dating someone if they’re only with me and they’re not with anyone else while they’re in a relationship with me. I’m only looking for something serious. I’m not into casual hookups or meaningless fun or whatever you want to call it. But I know that you are into it, Yarid. You have this reputation as a horny fae elf lover boy. You told me that when we were playing darts at the Grateful Drunkard. Can you do this, Yarid? Can you be loyal to me? I’m not asking you to be loyal to me forever, obviously, but while we’re in a relationship together I’m going to need you to do this for me. I should probably ask: are you in a relationship with someone else right now? Are you, like, hooking up with anyone else from the team?”
“If you ask Rose, she will tell you that I am not currently in any relationship and that I can give you my full loyalty,” Yarid said.
“Okay,” Glorissa said. “I’ll have faith that you’re telling me the truth. You seem like a good person. Good people don’t lie.”
She has chosen to believe me, Yarid thought. And she does not seem to be aware of the fact that fae cannot lie.
“I will scout ahead and look for a tavern or inn where we can play darts,” Yarid said. “Let us plan on meeting and spending time together this Friday evening, after dinner. I will love for you to keep me company at that time.”
“Okay! I will!” Glorissa said. She flashed a big toothy grin at Yarid. Yarid smiled back with a sideways smile, and then he walked out of the room.
Glorissa turned back to her lucky dagger, but she just stared at it. She stayed that way, not moving, but looking at the shiny, sharp silver blade, which she kept polished so well that it reflected her face and eyes like a mirror while she looked into it. She reached her hand to her forehead and began to twist and twirl the braided brown locks of her hair between her fingers, looking into the mirror-like blade of her lucky dagger while she did.
Sylis opened the door of his bedroom and poked his head out. No one was there. He walked out.
“Hi, Sylis!” someone said.
Sylis jumped and turned around. Kylus was standing there.
“Oh, didn’t see you,” Sylis said. “Hello.”
“You seem upset. Anything wrong?”
“Yes, there is,” Sylis said. Finally, a friendly ear for me to complain about this! Maybe Kylus will care. “I’m kind of upset by the way the Van Rozen’s house is designed. Back on the farm where I grew up and lived my entire life, the bathing room was right next to the kitchen. So I could put a pot of water on the stove to boil, get heated water, and just take it one room over to pour in the bathtub so I could take a bath. Here, the stove is in the kitchen on the ground floor, but the bathroom is on the third floor! How am I going to take a proper bath? I’m not making it up two flights of those crooked narrow Van Rozen stairs holding a pot of boiled water without spilling all the water out. And I just know I would spill it all over myself as I went up, too. I’m starting to smell!”
Kylus laughed.
“I’m not joking,” Sylis said.
“I know! I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at the fact that you’re a farm boy and you’ve never lived in a real city before,” Kylus said. “The house is built like this because no one bathes in their house in a city. When you need to bathe, you go to one of the bathhouses and pay a few copper coins and take a proper bath. It’s what everyone does.”
“Oh,” Sylis said. Then his eyes went wide with realization. “That’s right! You’re from Leree but you must have lived here in Imperia while you were a soldier for the Order of the Servants of the Sword.”
“I was a soldier-in-training, never a ranked soldier,” Kylus said. “But, yes, I lived in Imperia for several years. I know a good bathhouse too, one that’s not far away. If you want, I can show you where it is. You’re right, you are starting to smell bad. No offense.”
“None taken. I’m just grateful to have you to lead me. Just give me one minute and then we can go. Casting all those duplication spells is a lot of work for me and it makes me sweat a lot.”
“Sure. Take your time. I have nothing better to do,” Kylus said.
Sylis poked his head back into his room.
“Mom, I’m going out. Be back later.”
Sylis and Kylus began to walk down the hall.
“Um, Sylis, who were you talking to in your room?” Kylus asked.
“Did you hear that?” Sylis asked. “One of the rats from Yarid’s fae song is, um, living in my room. Now she’s my pet rat. I have named her Mom.”
Kylus gave Sylis a sideways glance. “Okay. I believe you.”
Wow, I can’t believe that he believed me! Then Sylis heard Kylus giggle. Maybe he doesn’t but he’s just too polite to press me about it.
The two young men reached the front door of the Van Rozen house and emerged onto the streets of Imperia. Kylus swiftly turned right and marched down the street. Sylis had to walk quickly to keep up with him.
“Aren’t we heading north, deeper into the Fancy District?” Sylis asked.
“Yes,” Kylus said. “Why?”
“I was expecting this place to be in the Central District or Poor District,” Sylis said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Kylus chuckled. “I was paid a good stipend when I was in the Soldier Training Program. And the Serve-Swords Barracks is in the north part of the city, right next to the Temple of Light. The bathhouse I would go to back when I was a recruit, back when I served the Sword, isn’t the bathhouse most of the Serve-Sword cadets went to. It’s a little small, and not as fancy as some. But it’s nice.”
“I trust you,” Sylis said. “And I think your idea of small and mine are going to be different. Every building I walk by looks bigger than my entire farm. I’m still not comfortable with the idea of humans living anywhere other than a nice small friendly town. This city is so big! It’s huge! Gigantic! Enormous! I ran out of words to describe it. The buildings are huge, and the buildings are everywhere! How do you survive living in this place without going crazy? I mean, how do you make friends? I assume it’s so big that not everyone knows everyone else’s name and history and family, the way I had in Tamm.”
“Um, no,” Kylus said. “Each person here is a stranger to all others, unless you get introduced to someone by someone else you know. And if a stranger comes up to you and acts friendly, be super suspicious, or just run. It means the person probably wants to drug and rob you or pick your pocket or run a con on you. This is not the rural farm village you grew up in, Sylis.”
“Yes, I have figured that out,” Sylis said.
They continued to walk.
“Did you know that wizards have to keep their masks on in public baths?” Sylis asked. “My mother—I mean, the wizard who taught me magic—told me that fact, just in case I ever travelled to a city. I think it’s a stupid rule. But it is the rule. I have to wear the mask, even while in the bath. I’m sort of disappointed you won’t get to see my face.”
“Why would I need to see your face?” Kylus asked.
“I don’t know. To see if you think I’m cute?” Sylis replied.
“Why do you or I need to know if I think you’re cute?” Kylus asked. “It’s not relevant to the heist.”
“I guess you don’t need to know,” Sylis said. “And I guess neither do I.” He said nothing else.
Kylus led Sylis to a low, squat building made of huge blocks of white marble propped up in places by thick round white marble columns. Kylus walked up to the entrance, where there was a door with a window. The window was open, and a face poked out from within it.
“Three copper coins,” the face said. It stuck out a hand.
Kylus dropped three coins into the waiting fingers. The door swung open, revealing a person, to whom the hand and face had belonged. The light was dim, and Sylis could not clearly see him. The person handed Kylus a small bronze key and said: “Room twelve. One hour. Do not leave behind a mess. Do not have a sex worker in with you. Penalty if you break the rules is one silver coin, or we report you to the City Guard.”
“Agreed,” Kylus said. He walked into the building, and Sylis crept in behind him. They passed by narrow halls that were full of clouds of hot water steam. Sylis saw a door marked: Room Twelve. Kylus put the key in and turned it. The door opened. Sylis and Kylus entered.
The room was a small rectangle lined with white ceramic tiles. In the center was a very large bathtub, almost as big as a small pool. It was full of water which frothed and steamed with its obvious heat. A few random bars of different-colored soaps, some towels, sponges and brushes for scrubbing, and jars full of small pink rock-like things that looked like pink pebbles had been gathered at one corner of the tub, near the towels. Maybe those pink stones are bath salts? I have heard of them, but I have never seen bath salt before, Sylis thought.
“Well, this is it,” Kylus said. “Let’s go.” Kylus began to undress, without hesitation and showing no trace of modesty for Sylis seeing him naked. Sylis paused for a moment, and then slowly began to unlace his wizard robes.
Sylis focused on removing the many layers of his blue clothes, so he didn’t notice as Kylus got undressed. Sylis finished unlacing his blue wizard’s robes, pulled both sleeves from his arms, and threw it to the ground, proud of the achievement of having gotten it off. He looked up. His eyes became as wide as the moons, and his mouth formed a huge round O. When he could speak again, he said only this:
“Kylus! You’re a girl!”
