The Black Prism
Page 42

Liv was going to go way out on a limb and guess that the fan was available for a small additional cost.
Now that she was looking, she realized the greeter was herself a superviolet drafter, her pupils bearing the halo barely a third of the way through her irises. No wonder Liv hadn’t noticed right away. When a superviolet drafter got much further along, the color in their eyes began to bleed over into the visible range, lending a slight violet tinge that was difficult to see in brown eyes and made blue eyes astonishingly beautiful—not that Liv was ever going to get that, with her bland browns.
“Actually…” Liv said. She turned her cloak so the woman could see the back. It was common for superviolets to weave some extra pattern into their clothing so that other superviolets could identify them.
The greeter’s pupils tightened to pinpricks in a heartbeat as she glanced at Liv’s cloak. “Very finely done. Superviolets are welcome to draft their own muting, just let us know you’re going to be using muting when you visit so our servers don’t make any mistakes.”
The woman took Liv to a table by the windows on the south side where she could get sunlight through open windows. There was plenty of sunlight here in the clerestory—the arches and flying buttresses supported all the weight of the roof easily, so the second story had windows from floor to ceiling—but one of the downsides of being a superviolet was that thick windows like those used here interfered with light collection. Any skilled drafter could still use magic, but it took longer and gave some drafters headaches.
Liv sat and watched how the staff worked, weaving effortlessly between tables, giving a wider berth to those surrounded by superviolet shells. A slender young serving man with short kinky hair and a gorgeous smile came to her table, pausing just outside where her bubble would have been if she had already drafted one. He was probably only a few years older than her, and devastatingly beautiful, his jacket expertly tailored to a leanly muscled body.
Somehow, she managed to give him her order. Just a kopi. Which would doubtless cost a full danar. When he brought it back, steaming hot and dark as hellstone, and gave her a long smile, Liv decided the kopi was definitely worth a danar. Maybe more.
Her good mood died at the sight of Aglaia Crassos climbing the stairs with her butt-puckered gait. The twenty-something-year-old Ruthgari was, as best Liv could tell, the youngest daughter of some important family. She had the prized, vanishingly rare Ruthgari blonde hair, but other than that, she was no beauty. She had the blue eyes that were wasted on non-drafters, a long, horsey face, and a huge nose. Stationed at the Ruthgari embassy to get some political experience before she married some fiancé she hadn’t met back in the city of Rath, she had always acted like she was too good to handle Liv. She’d even told Liv that being assigned Liv’s case had been her punishment for some indiscretion with the Atashian ambassador’s son. Mostly, she handled bichromes and polychromes and real spies.
Catching sight of Liv, Aglaia came right over, giving a little wave to a few patrons and a wink to one.
“Aliviana,” Aglaia said, coming to stand before her table, “you’re looking so… active this morning.” The pause said it all. The searching expression, as if she was really trying to find something good to say. From some women, it might have been an accident.
You want to play it like that? Fine. “Such a pleasure to see you, Aglaia. You wear petty malice so well,” Liv said. Oops.
Aglaia’s eyes widened momentarily, and then she faked a laugh. “Always were a sharp instrument to handle, weren’t you, Liv? I love that about you.” She sat across from Liv. “Or is it just that you’re too stupid to understand your situation?”
My father told me not to come here. Sharks and sea demons, he said. I should have listened. I’m antagonizing the woman who holds my future.
“I…” Liv licked dry lips, as if a little lubrication would help her force submissive words out. “I’m sorry. How may I be of assistance, Mistress?”
Aglaia’s eyes lit up. “Say that again.”
Liv hesitated, clenched her jaw. Forced herself to relax. “How may I be of assistance, Mistress?”
“Draft us a bubble.”
Liv drafted the muting bubble, complete with a fan.
“Such a proud girl you are, Liv Danavis. The next time I have a party, I’ll have to remember to have you come serve the food. Or perhaps clean the chamber pots.”
“Oh, I love cleaning chamber pots. And I love telling all my friends who haven’t yet signed contracts how well the Ruthgari treat their drafters,” Liv said.
Aglaia laughed. She really did have an unpleasant laugh. “Well played, Liv. That was an empty threat, and I deserved to be called on it. You’re from Rekton, aren’t you?”
Liv was instantly on her guard. Aglaia had let an insult pass? Liv would have expected that after being called on an empty threat, Aglaia would lay out a real one—and she had quite a few possibilities at her disposal. That she didn’t should have made Liv feel better. It didn’t.
“Yes,” Liv admitted. There was no reason to lie. Nothing came from Rekton. Besides, Aglaia would have a record of where Liv was from. It was on her contract. “It’s a small town. Inconsequential.”
“Who is Lina?”
What? “She’s a serving woman. Katalina Delauria. Takes odd jobs.” An addict, a disgrace, and a nightmare of a mother. But Aglaia didn’t need to know that, and Liv wasn’t going to say anything bad about the folks back home.
“Any family?”
“None,” Liv lied. “She settled in Rekton after the war, like my father did.”
“So she’s not Tyrean?”
“You mean originally? I don’t know. Some Parian or Ilytian blood, maybe,” Liv said. “Why?”
“What’s she look like?”
Too skinny, with bloodshot eyes and bad teeth from smoking haze. “Tall, short kinky hair, mahogany skin, stunning hazel eyes.” Now that Liv thought about it, Lina had probably been a real beauty once.
“And Kip? Who’s he?”
Oh, hell, caught. “Uh, her son.”
“Oh, she does have family, then.”
“I thought you meant does she have any people around Rekton.”
“Right,” Aglaia said. “How old is Kip?”
“Fifteen now, I suppose.” Kip was nice, though it had been obvious the last time Liv was home that he was terribly infatuated with her.
“What’s he look like?”
“Why do you want to know all this?” Liv asked.
“Answer the question.”
“I haven’t seen him for three years. He probably looks totally different now.” Liv threw up her hands, but Aglaia didn’t relent. “A bit chubby. A little shorter than me, the last time I saw him—”
“For Orholam’s sake, girl, his eyes, his skin, his hair!”
“Well I don’t know what you’re looking for!”
“Now you do,” Aglaia said.
“Blue eyes, medium skin, not as dark as his mother’s. Kinky hair.”
“Half-breed?”
“I guess so.” Though Liv couldn’t have said what Kip’s halves would be. Parian and Atashian? Ilytian and Blood Forester? Something else? Probably not simple halves, whatever he was. “Half-breed” was a mean description, though, and completely unfair. The finest families and all the nobles in the Seven Satrapies intermarried far more often than commoners, and they were never called half-breeds.