Ahead, the peak of a blackened-grass-hill looms a shadowy mansion. The Place of the Daemons. Since the Daemons don’t visit the Capital much, the haunted mansion is abandoned, save from the howls and cries that echo out from it at nightfall.

  I rewrap the caramel stick and stuff it into my pocket. Best to have both my hands ready to defend myself in these parts.

  Down a particularly dark and damp lane, I find the shop I’m looking for. It looks like a house from the front, with its bolted door and curtained window. But the wood sign hanging from chains at the mouth of the door gives it away for what it is.

  ‘Amran’s Apothecary’, the sign says.

  I don’t try the door handle. It never works.

  I rap my knuckles on the solid wood frame and wait a beat. On the other side, I hear the light thumps of footsteps draw nearer. Then, the door creaks ajar and a man looks at me from the shadowy gap. A lumpy black coat drapes over his hunched back, more like an outdated robe from the Scholar Square, with holes and tears decorating it. Amran tries to spruce up his baggy, dated look with a deflated top-hat that sits at a slant on his oily grey hair, about ready to slip off.

  He considers me in the dim light for a moment. “Ah,” he murmurs when he recognises me. He pulls the door open, then curves his ringed and bony fingers to summon me inside.

  I slip through the slight gap and, before my eyes can adjust to the orange glow inside the shop, the door bolts shut behind me.

  Gas lanterns are propped up all over the place. It’s a mess in here, reminding me of my father’s study desk, and the orange glows from the lanterns illuminate the dust flittering in the air.

  I swat a fly that dares get too close to my face, then shadow Amran to the glass case in the middle of the shop.

  I stop at the glass case, but he walks into the shadows at the rear of the shop, and riffles through the sturdy shelves. Boxes scrape against wood, glass tinkles, and Amran’s faint murmurs carry over to me as I wait.

  I look down at the glass case in front of me. Smeared with dust, I can barely make out what lies protected inside the glass coffin. But I’ve been here enough times to know that the dust is left there for a reason. This is not a place to browse, where the merchandise is on-shelf for all patrons to see. The people who come to Amran must know what they are looking for before they set foot inside.

  “The usual?” Amran calls from the back of the shop.

  I lift my gaze to his shadow that lurks in the darkness. He tackles boxes, lifting the lids, then tossing them aside. Guess he keeps my regular order hidden well enough that he struggles to find it now.

  “Yes. And I’ll have a coffee while I’m here.”

  I run my finger over the glass case, taking away a smear of dust on my fingertip. I wipe it on my skirt and inch closer to the glass to peer inside.

  Amran asks, “With a side of what?”

  I think on it.

  At Amran’s Apothecary, the coffee isn’t ordinary. It’s brewed with aniel essence, much like my remedy, and supposedly blessed by the Gods.

  I could have my coffee with a sprinkle of health, and feel the natural flush on my cheeks, feel the strength return to my heartbeat. But it will fade by tomorrow, and it’s not much more than what my remedy will do anyway.

  Then there’s always charisma or luck, but what use are those to me?

  For the ball tonight, I decide, “Vitality.”

  He murmurs something under his breath, then disappears through a heavy curtain to another room. While he’s gone, I study the inside of the glass case. Can only see the faint silhouettes of some jewels—the ancient-looking sort. Maybe stolen from the Palace of the Gods, because nothing in this shop is ordinary. Must have some healing properties—or the opposite. Perhaps filled with poison, knowing the sort of folk who come to this shop.

  And if this is the sort of thing on display, I shudder to think what’s hidden in those boxes on the shelf or in the back room.

  Amran returns with a small cup of my vitality coffee and my order. I pay him upfront, giving him four golden coins, and four bronze for the coffee. He cuts a golden coin in half, then hands me one for my change. The two bottle-green phials of remedy fit neatly in my pocket.

  I down my drink in one gulp. Best not to linger in these parts, not for longer than I have to. Besides, I have thirty minutes to meet the carriage driver at the fountain in the Lost Square and, to me and my weakness, it’s a forty-five minute walk.

  Amran says nothing as I leave, diving back into the darkness of the Shadow Quarter.

  With a kick of vitality coursing through me, I make it back to the fountain in time. The driver is pulling the reins of the horses, ready to leave, when I come rushing out of a narrow lane.

  I flag him down, sweat sticking loose strands of hair to my cheeks, and my chest heaving from the hurry.

  I toss him his two bronze coins and jump inside of the carriage.

  Unlike earlier, it’s stuffy and hot inside. I’m forced to run a handkerchief over my bosom and face, just to rid myself of the sweaty sheen that clings to me. I loosen my hair from its bun and comb my fingers through the damp strands—that seaside heat has turned my hair all frizzy. At least the Sun Season puts some colour in my otherwise pale face.

  The carriage ride back is longer now that it’s nearing midday. I peek out of the window to see the streets crowded with clumps of people and rushing carriages. An older man just manages to dodge getting hit by a carriage, but he stumbles and drops a white box with a black ribbon—a cake, I suspect. He’s shaking his fist and hollering intelligible words at the carriage driver when we turn into the Merchant Market.

  I get out on the fringe of the market. This far down, the stalls are mostly second-hand fabrics and spices and cheap dresses and shoddy tailors and seamstresses. I make my way through the crooked lanes until I’m advancing on the hub that’s overlooked by a massive marble clock. It ticks a few minutes after midday as I rush to it. It’s where I always meet Mikhael on our sneak-aways.

  He’s here already, sitting on a marble bench that’s carved into the wall. A slight shadow drapes over him as he’s hidden from the blaring sun that beats down on the market.

  I slow to a wander as I approach him. “Taking up all the shade?”

  He looks up and his fallen face lifts into a bright, crooked grin. Blue eyes gleam like the sea at me.

  “Someone’s got to stop all those oldies from hogging it.” He pushes up from the bench, but seems to think twice. He hesitates, looking back at the bench, then at me. “Do you need to sit for a moment first?”

  “Um.” The bench does look welcoming. And I just raced from the edges of the Merchant Market to reach him in time. A guilty smile takes my mouth. “Just for a minute.”

  He sits beside me on the bench.

  “I have to admit,” I start, “the shade is nice.”

  Mikhael leans back against the solid marble wall. “On a hot day like this, I would prefer the shade of a willow tree.”

  I hum. “The gardens are so far away,” I complain. “Maybe one day.” When we aren’t supposed to be hiding our friendship, when we can visit exposed places like the gardens together.

  Maybe one day, but not today.

  “What colour are you wearing tonight?” he asks, a flush darkening his beige cheeks. “I was thinking about wearing white, but I don’t remember if you have a white gown or not...”

  I smile at him. Warmth spreads through my chest.

  He wants to match. That’s a statement, yet one that we can play off as happenstance.

  “Black,” I confess, a flush of my own creeping onto my cheeks—though mine is one of shame. Black, brown and grey. Those are the colours I wear, and not out of choice. Then, I remember my newly acquired ribbons. “And purple.”

  I fish out my stick of caramel and take a bite.

  “Purple,” he echoes, his mind churning behind his eyes, like clockwork behind the face. I offer him the caramel, and he takes it, though he doesn’t take a bite. “I believe I have some purple gloves and maybe a cravat. Though, I’m not sure how well the shades match.”

  I snort. Just like him to worry about matching shades. To me and my minute wardrobe, purple is purple, no matter the hues. If the colour matches, then that’s as good as I can hope for.

  “Olivia’s wearing red,” I tell him and my eyes side-study him.

  His face falls slightly. “Oh, she told me. She told me all about her new dress. And the gloves to match, and the hair clasps, and the necklace she’s going to wear.”

  My mouth turns up at the corner. He doesn’t sound nearly as pleased as Olivia would hope. And that just thrills me.

  It’s not that I want Mikhael. My belly doesn’t shiver whenever he’s around, my hands don’t tremble with the need to touch his soft skin, and I don’t suffer that lust-fuelled tingle on my mouth as though I ache to feel his lips on mine.

  I mean, I think that is what lust is supposed to feel like. I only read about it in pocket-books that I steal from Mother’s room on my quieter days at home, and whatever scraps of detail Olivia has thrown me over the years.

  No, what I feel for Mikhael is far from desire.

  I’m comfortable with him, in our friendship, I know and adore him, but I don’t love him. Though, that doesn't mean I have no use for him. I think he might love me—that’s what matters. That’s all I need for him to figure out some way to propose to me, to marry me.

  Marriage is my only escape from my life. It’s a way out of my home and into a new, better one. It’s a way for me never having to worry about the price of my remedy again or a tear in a dress.

  Marriage, no matter who it’s to, is my escape. And it’s all I have to dream about at night.

  Mikhael tells me about his recent trip to the Spa Square and the new baths that have been built with sculptures of the Gods dotted all around.

  As I listen, I run my gaze over the market. Midday brings the rush, and that’s clear in the chaos in front of me. But it in the blur of market-goers, she stands out. An aniel if I ever saw one.

  The gleam of her skin sets her apart from everyone else. That’s how we spot the aniels—their skin always seems to possess a faint glow, as if a hundred tired moonglobes are pressed just beneath the flesh to illuminate them ever so slightly.

  Mikhael’s still chatting beside me, but I can’t take my eyes off the aniel. She prowls through the packed stalls, as though she’s searching for someone to play with. Or perhaps that’s just my fear of aniels sneaking into my thoughts. I wish they would all just live up the bone-hill in the Palace of the Gods, away from us vilas.

  I cut Mikhael off, “Do you see her?”

  He traces my gaze to the aniel slinking through the marketplace. “That’s Fox,” he tells me. “Princess Monster’s aniel. She just started at the new temple.”

  I give him a look that asks ‘How do you know that?’, but then I realise he must have found out from his father. Mikhael is set to take Mayor West’s position in a few years, so he would be learning alongside him in his duties. Meeting the aniels of the temples is one of them.

  From the shallow alcove, I study the aniel. Her hair is ashen, like the shade of her skin, and her eyes gleam a shade of green that summons gardens to mind. Now that I really look at her, the resemblance to Princess Monster is uncanny. Well, I don’t know exactly what Princess Monster looks like (other than she has curved bone-like horns) in person, but I have a rough idea from the new statues of her around the Capital.

  “Princess Monster has only a few aniels that she got when she killed Phantom, and one from Prince Poison I think as a gift,” he says. “But she—” he adds with a pointed look down the marketplace “—is the first one Princess Monster created. She must be a powerful aniel.”

  That’s how it goes. The first ones are always the strongest.

  “Hmm,” I hum, suddenly losing interest, and I shift around to face Mikhael. “Want to get some cinnamon hot chocolate?”

  Midday is leaving us too soon, and I don’t have long until I have to be home to give Mother her remedy refill.

  Mikhael smiles brightly and practically leaps off the bench. His hand outstretches for mine, all wrapped in leather.

  As he helps me up, I notice that the aniel has disappeared into the crowd, and the marketplace again seems packed with only mortals.

  I loop my arm through Mikhael’s as we wander into the crowd. He keeps me close to him—closer than what is proper between two unmarried folk—but I don’t mind. It gives me some support under the beating sunbeams that assault us from above. Though I’ve had a shot of vitality with my coffee earlier, I don’t want to risk it wearing off sooner than the ball can come. So I take all the support Mikhael offers, even if it earns some aghast looks from those who recognise us.

  Before we sit ourselves on wood chairs for our hot chocolates, we browse some stalls of ribbons and silks and boots and slippers. If I had the extra coin to spare, I would have purchased a new pair of slippers. Cheaper ones from the outer rim of the Merchant Market, but all the same. Most of my slippers are torn from my weekly trip to the Shadow Quarter.

  As we sit by the stall’s little table, the sunshine hits us hard. I squint against it, and feel the beads of sweat start to roll down my back. Good thing my dress is high-backed, or Mikhael might notice.

  The hot chocolate doesn't help me any. I have to blow on it a few times before the heat is tolerable.

  Mikhael does the talking for us both. He must know I’m leaning towards the tired side of midday, because he tells me all about his morning and what the Head Worshipper talked about in Trident’s temple.

  Still, halfway through our hot chocolates, an awkward silence drapes over us. In it, I stir a stick around my palm and look around the market.

  Mikhael shifts on his chair. “My father wants me to propose to your sister,” he finally says.

  I look up at him, my face like stone.

  I’m not surprised. How can I be, when their forced early courtship has been shoved in my face for years? Frankly, the only thing I can claim to be surprised about is how long it took Mikhael to fess up to me.

  “He wants to start negotiations with your father,” he tells me. “But he can’t do that until I bite the blade and offer her a ribbon to wear.”

  That’s how we propose in Scocie. Not sure if it’s the same around the other isles, but if a man gives a woman a ribbon to wear, and he wears a matching one around his wrist, that binds the pair—it announces to everyone that they are spoken for.

  I roll the wooden stick around my palms. “What did you tell him?”

  He shrugs, loosely cupping his mug of hot chocolate with one lazy hand. “That I have my sights set on someone else.”

  My insides tickle. But my excitement is cut down before it can really get the chance to soar.

  “He insists on Olivia. Said that she’s the perfect match for me—we are both educated in the Gods, both the children of the mayors, and ...”

  “She’s healthy,” I finish lamely.

  His thin mouth flattens into a grim line. “Something like that.”

  Before I can speak, a shrill cry splits the air around us.

  My eyes widen and my heart jumps with a start. I swerve my gaze to the crowded stalls, where a familiar woman stands wild-eyed, clutching a long drape of silk. Her crazed stare is on Mikhael and I, and my heart sinks to my bum when I see her.

  Gertrude.

  Mikhael’s cheeks are aflame. “Mother,” he whispers, mortified, and his grip on the mug tightens dangerously. “What is she doing here?”

  Whether he’s asking me or himself, Gertrude hears him as she marches over to us, abandoning the fabric on the stall she was stood at. “What am I doing here?” Her echo is a shrill shriek. “What are you doing here, boy? You are supposed to be at the library!”

  I bite down on my lips and bow my head.

  “And you—” she seethes, turning her wild eyes on me. “—Shouldn’t you be on your sickbed, girl? Or at home, where a young woman ought to be!”

  I cringe from her awful voice. It’s like fingernails scraping over a rough stone and the sound of it prickles my skin. But I cringe for more than the awful noise she makes—I cringe because I know she will not keep this discovery a secret. Finding me and Mikhael together in the Merchant Market is bad enough as it is, but she will tell my father, and then I’ll be in a cauldron of trouble.

  Not only is it not proper, it’s wildly inappropriate since they want to latch Mikhael onto my sister for marriage.

  Mikhael shoots me a look that says ‘sorry’, then slips out of the chair. He follows his mother away, his head bowed as Gertrude’s shrieks rise up over the noise of the marketplace.

  I finish the hot chocolates—that are now almost cold—before I leave the Merchant Market. It’s a long, hot walk back to the Textile District, and when I’m climbing the stone steps to my house, my dress is stuck to my back with sweat, and strands of hair cling to my temples.

  I’m not in the door a moment before my heart sinks to my gut. Father is waiting for me in the lobby, a furious Olivia by his side. She throws her hands up when she sees me and dives into a livid babbling rant about me and “that boy”, she calls him. Funny how she dismisses him so quickly as “that boy”, when only this morning she was practically fawning over him.

  Father is silent. He watches me through unfriendly eyes. There’s a crumpled letter in his fist, and I don’t need a second guess as to what the letter says. No doubt a detailed description from Mayor West all about what Gertrude stumbled on today.

  I try to get ahead of the fight. “I saw Mikhael at the Merchant Market,” I explain. “He joined me for a hot chocolate.” Not sure what story Mikhael told his parents, but I can only hope mine matches.

  Father raises an eyebrow. “And how did you have the time—or coin—to visit the Merchant Market?”

  “I didn’t. I mean, the carriage dropped me off there coming back from the Shadow District, because the streets were full. I stopped when I spotted him in the market.”