They sharpened the lines of my cheekbones into beautiful knives, and shadowed my eyes into deepest night. I began to look like someone else—like a stranger—and then Chenda reached for Zara’s package.

It was just a powder, bronze in color and sharp on the eyes, but when Chenda dipped a damp brush into it and began to paint across the dips and swells of my right cheek, I understood.

“Tattoos are individual,” she murmured, still working. “Not all Bophans have them, of course. It costs money. Most people think that the different pigments signal different class levels, and in some ways, that is true. But it has more to do with what people can afford. The white pigment a lot of people use, for example, is fairly inexpensive.

“You are going as a lady of wealth and importance,” she went on. “You’d have a higher-quality pigment, something chosen to complement your skin tone. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for an actual tattoo today—”

“Not to mention she’d be stuck with it for the rest of her life,” Zara muttered from the doorway.

“I like my face the way it is, thank you.”

“Even if there were someone who could do a real Bophan tattoo here, it would need time to heal. But I think I can create a reasonable facsimile for tonight. It should stay put as long as you don’t go rubbing your face on anything.”

When she dipped the brush into the pigment again, I said, “I’ll try not to turn into a house cat while I’m there.”

Ilina smirked.

“What do the patterns mean?” I asked, before Chenda touched the brush to my face again. I couldn’t see all the details because her body was blocking the mirror, but every now and then I caught a flash of bronze against brown, bright swirls against dark cosmetics. It was a striking contrast.

Chenda tilted my face sideways; the touch of her brush was soft but deliberate. “Different lines suggest different meanings, but there can be more than one interpretation of every tattoo. It’s individual to the person, and sometimes private, with only a suggestion of pain or joy or some other feeling associated with what the tattoo actually means to the wearer.”

“What are you putting on Mira’s?” Ilina asked, though she must have been curious about Chenda’s tattoos now. Like me, she’d grown up reading The Book of Love and wouldn’t ask for personal information that wasn’t offered.

“Dragons,” she said. “Hope and power and voice.” She pulled back and smiled at her work. “I would have liked to draw something completely misleading, to add to the disguise, but that would be tempting the Deepest Shadow. To wear a lie is to poison oneself with other falsehoods.”

“It’s not a permanent tattoo,” Ilina said, “just a drawing.”

“Perhaps, but why risk it?” Chenda shrugged. “Besides, no one will be able to read all the true meanings. Bophans will respect that, and outsiders won’t ask.”

As we were finishing, the suite door opened and two pairs of footfalls came in: the even cadence of Hristo’s long stride, and the angry thunder of Gerel’s.