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“Does my Aunt Berna know you’re here?” I asked, my chest still heaving, the rage taking its time leaving my body.

“She does,” he answered with a nod. “She’s aware that I visit the Painted Empress on occasion with food and coin for the women.”

“And you’re not a patron,” I repeated back to him.

He let out a boisterous laugh. “Saints, no.”

I nodded, quickly leaning down to replace my dagger, but my eyes caught on something like tiny rubies on leather. “Is that blood on your boots?”

Castemont looked down, flexing his foot, the fine leather creaking in the cold air. “There are some rather, I’ll say,violentpatrons that we run into from time to time.”

I stared at him, my brows furrowed. “I heard a woman from outside,” I murmured, trying not to wince. Her voice was clear in my mind. “She was pleading.”

Tyrak’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes darted in the direction of the brothel. Lord Castemont’s lips thinned, his eyes closing momentarily. “We have little say in the matter of what is…allowedat the Painted Empress, and some patrons…” His brown eyes found mine, the sorrow that lined them almost palpable. “They have desires that can only be acted upon within the confines of an establishment such as this.”

I knew enough about sex to know that it wasn’t always what Aunt Berna had told me — between two people that were in love, and preferably married. I knew it was often outside those bounds. But what I’d heard coming from inside, the anguish in that woman’s voice…

“Did you help her?”

Lord Castemont inhaled thoughtfully, as if measuring his words to shield me from the horrors behind that shoddy door. “She was given coin, yes.”

Tyrak’s expression still hadn’t changed. It did little to calm the storm that churned within me, the all-too familiar discomfort toward Castemont rearing its ugly head.

The Lord shot a hand out, clapping a palm against my bicep, a cheery smile on his face. “Why don’t you join us for a drink?”

“I’m sixteen, my Lord,” I answered, returning to the normal formality of our relationship. I’d come so close,so closeto driving my dagger through his chest. A part of me still wanted to.

“And I’m a very well-connected man,” he answered, his arm wrapping around my shoulders as he led me up the street, Tyrak close behind. “You’re going to try the best mead in Eserene.”

? ? ?

‘Tis said a lass, a bonny lass, with hair of golden yellow

With perky tits, an ample ass, ne’er said yes to a fellow

To find the truth, come early June, I walked down to the tavern

I drank my fill and paid my tab and asked if I could have ’er

The bonny lass was no’ impressed wi’ the ring upon my finger

’O she told me to leave her be, and that I needn’t linger

So one spring eve, I took my leave, left my wife for the tavern

Instead I hoped the bonny lass would fin’ly let me have ’er

I look around and up and down, I search the drunken faces

Looking for my bonny lass, fin’ly in her good graces

The barkeep said she’d shock me dead ‘cause much to my alarm

Who’d ’a thought that I’d’ve seen my wife upon her arm

The pub erupted in laughter and applause, mugs clanking together as their contents sloshed over the sides. Even Tyrak broke the façade of a Royal Guard to smile when the song ended.

The three of us sat at a table with uneven legs in the middle of a dusty Sidus pub, Lord Castemont steadily sipping mead as Tyrak eyed the tavern’s patrons. Even though it was early in the day, the place was filled to the brim with drunkards, mostly men with shaggy facial hair and dirt under their fingernails.