T he Modaini Smoking Club’s windows were Plangan plate glass cut into wedges and fanciful zoomorphic shapes. If you looked at the shapes in the glass, you could ignore the outside world completely, which was the point. If you looked at the shapes, you wouldn’t notice the bars on the other side of the window. Kylar stood at that window, staring through those bars at a girl down in the Sidlin Market.

She was bargaining with a vendor for produce. Doll Girl—Elene—was growing up, perhaps fifteen years old now that Kylar was eighteen. She was beautiful—at least from this safe distance. From here he could see her body, supple curves clad in a simple serving dress, her hair pulled back and shining gold in the sun, and the flash of an easy smile. Though he couldn’t make out her scars from this distance, through the colored glass, her white dress was blood red. The leaded zoomorphic whorls reminded him of the whorls of her scars.

“She’ll destroy you,” Momma K said behind him. “She’s part of a different world from any you’ll ever know.”

“I know,” he said quietly, barely glancing over his shoulder. Momma K had come into the room with a new girl, an east side girl, young and pretty. Momma K was combing the girl’s blonde hair out. The Modaini Smoking Club was very different from most of the brothels in the city. The courtesans here were trained in the arts of conversation and music as much as the arts of the bedchamber. There was no scandalous dress, no nudity, no groping in the public areas, and no commoners allowed.

Momma K had found out about Kylar’s excursions long ago, of course. You couldn’t keep anything secret from Momma K. She’d argued with him about it, and still made her comments whenever she happened to be here, but once she’d found out that he wouldn’t stop coming, she’d made him swear that he come into the smoking club and watch from inside. If he was going to be stupid, she said, he might as well be safe. If he went outside, sooner or later he’d bump into the girl and talk to her and bed her and fall in love with her and get himself killed for his defiance.

“Don’t be shy,” Momma K said to the girl. “You’re soon going to be doing a lot more while a man’s in the room than changing your clothes.”

Kylar didn’t turn as he heard the sounds of clothes being shed. Just what he needed. He was depressed already.

“I know it’s scary your first time, Daydra,” Momma K said gently. “It’s a hard business. Isn’t that right, Kylar?”

“It had better be. It doesn’t do much when it’s soft.”