Page 32 of Grave Flowers
“Yes,” Sindony said hesitantly. “To replace Yorick.”
“Very good. Thank you again, girls, you may go.”
Uncertainly, they fled, always half alarmed by me. The door closed behind them, and I smiled. Yorick had officially switched to my service. It was nice to have an ally of my own choosing.
And, perhaps, also a friend.
Getting out of the palace undetected was no trouble. I donned a lightweight gauzy dress that had a hood attached to block out the sun and headed to one of the servants’ doors. I passed the theater, where the troupe Sindony had mentioned paraded around the hall. They were a traveling troupe, their colorful outfits featuring multiple belts, feathers, and slouchy hats. Usually, troupes had to scrape by in small villages, always under the threat of being run out of town by authorities who thought their plays were too raunchy. Now the monarch himself hadenlisted them, and it had quickly gone to their heads. They ordered the servants about as though they were royalty and posed in the mirrors in the middle of the hallway, making everyone go around them. Bemused, I joined the others in ceding to them, made my way to the servants’ door, and slipped outside.
Once there, I went to the stables. Since Radix’s livery was woefully lacking in staff (and often horses as well), I knew how to tack up myself. The Acusan horses were the finest in Minima—warm-blooded thoroughbreds, all several hands high—and the leather saddles were beautifully crafted with brass hardware. I picked a sidesaddle and quickly prepared a horse.
Delivery wagons rattled out of the courtyard and the palace grounds, and I followed behind, slipping by the guardhouse. Father had sent me with Acusan coin should I need it for bribes or weapons, along with instructions on how to get to the Oscura.
I rode briskly through Acus’s streets. Statues of the Family, primarily the Father, were at intervals, draped in fine red and gold silks and linens. Few in Radix left offerings, but the statues of the Family here were laden with flowers, jars of honey, loaves of bread, and even coin, likely given out of great distress or great thanksgiving. Monastictes would collect the offerings and distribute them to the poor. If offerings were ever made in Radix, they would certainly be stolen—and quite often by the monastictes themselves.
Soon, elaborate statues disappeared and buildings became simpler, which meant I was close. The Oscura was famous throughout Minima. Every kingdom had smugglers who brought items to sell to the royals and nobility for high prices. We paid them, eager for anything that might grant us the luster and novelty of Acus, despite the risks. Apparently, King Claudius had hated the Oscura and tried to shut it down repeatedly, but it would always come back, rising time and time again in all its debauchery. Its continual return brought Father pleasure, because as perfect as Acus pretended to be, the Oscura could never be vanquished.
I arrived. A five-story stone building with two smaller flanking wings stretched before me. It was as beautiful as any other building you might see in Acus, but closer inspection revealed oddities. Its façade was elaborate, with both spires and domes, and it was impossible to tell if it had been built as a cathedral or a palace or something else. Swathes of taffeta hung over the windows at intervals. Faces popped up in the windows sandwiched between the taffeta and the glass only to dive down and disappear. Doors screeched open and then slammed closed. No signs were posted, but I knew I was where I needed to be. Father’s smugglers kept him apprised of the changing passwords, and he’d told me the most recent one right before I left. If it hadn’t changed, I should be able to get inside.
I paid to keep my horse at a small market stable and walked up the steps. Then I pulled my hood down as far as it could go to cover my face. Two huge doors crowned the steps. A small slit was carved in the left-hand one. Anyone wanting to get in had to write a password on a piece of paper and slip it through. A long scroll hung down from a roll bracketed to the door. Next to it was an inked quill. I picked it up and wrote the two words:king’s bloomers.After tearing it off, I fed it into the slit. It was yanked in with great force. Clicks rang out, and the left-hand door swung open. I saw a hand with overly long fingers and equally long fingernails, but before I could see who they were attached to, they disappeared.
I entered. The smell of stone, damp, and must filled the Oscura, as though it’d been sitting immersed in cavernous cold for centuries. Other scents were present too, some tantalizing, like smoky cardamom mixed with black licorice, and others repulsive, like wet laundry left bundled for far too long. White bats flew against the windows, their wings battering against them as they tried to get out. Several littered the roughshod wood floor, dead. Purply tongues hung out of their mouths, and their pupilless red eyes stared.
Storefronts ran around the interior of the building. These foremost places, I knew, offered mostly legal delights, though at astronomical prices.
I paused to read the sign of the first shop. It was called the Prayer Sayers and offered prayers to the Primeval Family. They were written on tiny scrolls sealed with red wax. The prayers were organized by purpose. You could get ones for love, luck, health, or wealth.
The next one, Potion Pushers Co., had corked bottles filled with glittering purple liquid. According to a lengthy description beneath the name, the liquid could do all manner of wonders from curing diseases, to making your hair shinier, to enabling your windowsill herbs to thrive. It was beside another shop called Artiste Aesthetique Atelier, which featured oil portraits and moody landscapes in gold frames. A note said the paintings were by Pingere artists and tagged with Pingere’s motto,immortalize us,but if they were, their sale wasn’t authorized by the kingdom. I stared in fascination at the portraits. Gold mirrors, in every shape and size imaginable, were tucked among the paintings. The reflections were much softer and rosier than reality to entice buyers who might enjoy this version of themselves in their own homes. If you purchased a portrait, you could get a mirror for free (though unspecified conditions were noted).
Of course, since we were in Acus, the last two stores, Sew and Tell and its overcompensating competitor, Sewier and Tellier, had overstuffed racks of clothing with embroidery and appliqué samples pinned to the walls. You could pick a pattern for the sewist to embroider onto a gown or hat or glove. Handwritten advertisements boastedFine Gold ThreadandAuthentic Jewels,but I knew they would be fake.
As I passed, the sellists emerged from their shops and followed me.
“Lovely young girl! You’re a vision and so fair, but age comes quickly and brings wrinkles! This will keep you beautiful forever,” crowed the sellist with the purple liquid, waving it in my face. For someone who had the cure for wrinkles, she had a surprising amount. “And you can add it to your stews for extra flavor.”
“You need a new dress, don’t you?” the fashion sellist countered, hurrying over with an armload of gowns. He thrust them at me, and Ihardly managed to avoid the avalanche of chiffon, silk, and satin. “I have the finest fabrics and embroidery. They cost two thousand coin, but for you, I’ll do it for two coin—only if you buy a gown right now. Wait!” he cried, as I kept walking. “One coin!”
“Pray to the Family, and they will hear you!” yet another sellist hollered, coming after me and dramatically unfurling a prayer scroll. He was dressed in the vestments of a monasticte, but each piece was hobbled together and marred with food stains. “These scrolls are hidden prayers that aren’t taught in the common writ. They are full of true power.”
I kept going until I noticed a stall built entirely from bookshelves. It was called the Little Book and had a saying beneath its name: PAGE-TURNSGUARANTEED. Quickly, I diverted to it. I would get a book for Yorick. He was my only friend at court, and I wished to cement goodwill between us—particularly because I would enlist his help if Luthien indeed failed the test. Towering shelves formed a structure of their own, with shelves crisscrossing each other like eaves and tunneling upward to form a ceiling of books. Compounds of musty paper, camphoric ink, and oaky leather filled my nose. It was completely unlike our library back in Radix. I’d never known books, free of damp, smelled so good.
“Welcome, my sweet,” a woman said, coming from the back. She looked like a book herself. Her skin had the yellowish sheen of aging paper, and her back was as ramrod straight as an uncracked spine. Eyewear with five interchangeable lenses perched on the bridge of her nose. “Come in, come in. My books will be happy to meet you. Run your hand along them, and the right book will pick you. Perhaps you’d like some fairy tales featuring an element of magic, clearly defined good and evil, and a happy ending? Or some romances? I have star-crossed lovers, enemies turned to lovers, friends becoming lovers … whatever you want. And, of course, some that are very …” She put her hand up to her mouth, then whispered loudly, “Suggestive.”
“I’m not looking for myself,” I said. I frowned, trying to think about what sort of book I needed. “Do you have a tragedy, perhaps?”
The woman turned toward the shelves and walked along them, murmuring, “A good tragedy, a good tragedy, a good trag—aha!” She snatched up a black leather book and eagerly turned back to me. “This one is perfect. Full of characters with fatal flaws, irreversible destinies, and the culmination of sorrowful events in untimely deaths.”
“That sounds right. Thank you.” I held out my hand, and she put the book into it. Tucking it into the pocket of my cape, I paid her and left.
There was a red door at the back of the Oscura. A sewing needle was painted on it in black, and a drop of blood hovered at its tip, as though it’d just pricked a finger. Father said the truly unscrupulous enterprises happened underground.
I went to it and pushed my way through.
A gasp escaped me.
I found myself on a rickety platform suspended by fraying ropes overgrown with twisting vines. Stairs, even shakier than the platform, extended in different directions. Platforms formed plateaus at various points throughout a branching maze of stairs, which spread downward, to the sides, and up. Each was dedicated to a different activity.
On one platform, darkly hued velvet sofas formed a semicircle. People lounged languidly on them. Chalices, repurposed from the church, were set over small fires in brass cauldrons. Thin rubber straws snaked from the chalices, and the people sucked deeply from them. When they opened their mouths, white smoke streamed out and took on strange shapes in the air—images that looked almost recognizable yet not quite. I saw a cloud that might be a flower yet somehow could easily be a human face or a monster.
