Chapter 6

I stared. All of us did, including the ones who’d been led on this same journey before. I gathered that not every exit from Mannerly Hall was the same, and perhaps this one was new to them, too.

Beyond the doorway lay a broad corridor, slanting ever so slightly upward. The floor here was inlaid with emerald tiles and speckled with what looked to be gold paint, or perhaps even gold itself.

Maiden Threwon stepped forward through the archway without so much as a backward glance. Like a trail of ducklings, we all filed on after her, many of us admiring the architecture of this brand new place. It wasn’t any more impressive than the Hall, maybe even less so – but it was new.

“I think we’re headed east” Dornell whispered from behind me.

I turned to him in shock. “How can you tell?”

“Look at the floors.”

I did so, squinting. Nothing stood out to me right away. “I’ve been looking at them, thank you very much! What am I looking for?”

Dornell rolled his eyes and pointed. “See the tiles? They aren’t perfectly square; they’re shaped more like diamonds. The vertices always point north-south. Wherever there are diamonds anywhere in the Estate, they always point north-south. That means this way is either east or west, and I’m pretty sure it’s east.”

“How do you know they point north-south?” I demanded.

He rolled his eyes again. “I look out the windows.”

I shut my mouth again pretty quickly after that, feeling stupid. Our convey continued on its way, moving slowly upward. Occasionally we would pass by another door on the left of the right, these ones normal sized, and leading off to who knows where.

“I never noticed that diamonds had any special meaning here” I murmured, feeling deflated.

“It’s ok. You know how I am with things. They were always like that even in the Ward, too.”

“Really?”

Dornell nodded. “You just have to look.”

I felt that we must’ve climbed almost a hundred feet and walked several times that distance before maiden Threwon stopped and turned around to face us.

She gestured to a wooden door on her right, a more ornate one. “Through this doorway await your clients. Madam Dro will also be in attendance, so be extra certain that your best manners are on full display, even while you enter. I can’t be held responsible for what the lot of you do with the years of training I have given you; only, know that you do not want to be reprimanded by the Mistress, or by myself, for that matter.”

Near the back of the line, Mylannes stuck up her hand. “Maiden, if you please – what are we going to be doing for these clients? Are we going to be judged in some way?”

“You’ll learn what you’ll be doing in a moment” Threwon responded crisply. “But you will do whatever it is that is asked of you, regardless. Do not worry; Madam Dro is not unjust, and she will have measures put into place for your protection, should they become necessary. As for whether you’re going to be judged – you can most certainly assume that you will be.”

I felt the palms of my hands beginning to grow clammy. Protections? What kinds of protections? And against what? What could a group of teenagers in the middle of the aristocracy possibly have need of protection against? And in the heart of the Estate itself!

“This doesn’t look good” whispered Dornell from behind me, and there was a note in his voice I didn’t like the sound of at all. It almost seemed… resigned.

Maiden Threwon didn’t wait for any further questions. I doubted she’d expected to have to field any in the first place. Without further ado, she raised one arm – clad loosely in gray silk, like all the maidens wore – and rapped her knuckles lightly upon the wooden door.

I held my breath. Beyond the door, sounds could now be heard of something stirring. I could even make out what sounded like a few claps and an excited whoop of some kind, the latter of which was definitely from a human.

My chest relaxed just a little bit. I don’t know what exactly I’d been expecting, but people, I could handle.

The door was slowly pulled open from the inside, and Threwon stepped carefully through it. She stopped in the middle of a rose-colored carpet and addressed an unseen assembly of some kind: “Lords and Ladies – Madam Dro – I now present to you a group of young ones that are quickly becoming among the Estate’s finest! Please, be harsh in your critique but kind in your manners, as for several of these it is their first time. Mistress?”

I still couldn’t see anyone beyond the doorway as no one else was within my line of sight, besides Threwon. But still I felt it: that gentle, lilting raise of her hand, draped only in the finest velvet, as she waved the maiden aside and bid her to admit the rest of us. That aroma, an almost aching perfume that clamped down upon the muscles while simultaneously rendering you more relaxed than you’d ever felt in your life.

I was reminded, for the first time, of a Lamia – a creature with the head and torso of a woman and the lower body of a snake, who’s alluring gaze would gull you into coming even closer for a kiss, just one pretty kiss… and then her fangs would strike you. Before you even became aware that her coils were unraveling and winding themselves across your entire body, binding you, the enchantment carried within that kiss would render you adoring, and fully within the Lamia’s control.

But then, I’ll bet a man wrote that story. Perhaps that man had been thinking of Madam Dro.

Threwon bowed gracefully and slipped backwards out of the chamber. She stood with her back to the doorframe, one hand raised, silently beckoning us in.

Slowly, with Torvis in the lead – probably regretting that choice – we all filed into the chamber that lay beyond, exchanging wordless glances with our maiden as we passed her by. Her face had become a strange and placid mask, not unlike those worn by the maidens who had watched on when Madam Dro led me back to the Ward all those many years ago; or like the faces of those who would call me handsome, and sing my praises even when I was a little boy. There was something behind that mask, something hidden; if only I could find out what it was.

As I passed through, maiden Threwon’s face changed ever so slightly, becoming one that I somehow both recognized and that felt strangely foreign to me. I realized with a start that it was more like the face of the Threwon I had once known, who had led Dornell and I to the Hall, and who’d taught all of us some simple songs and wished us all pleasant dreams every night at bedtime.

I felt a knot twist in my stomach – and suddenly, there were years of questions, years of feelings, that all came rumbling up upon me at once. I wished that I could have just one evening to talk with maiden alone Threwon as she now was – not as a teacher and her student, but as friends, or whatever we might otherwise have been were it not for this wretched Estate which had governed our lives since birth. I realized that I wanted to know who my parents had been; whether they were still around, and if Threwon had ever met them, though there was no reason to think that she would have.

And worst of all, I felt like there was something just behind the light within Threwon’s eyes that made her seem no different now from any of the rest of us, merely a little older. I wanted so badly then to know what secrets about this place she might’ve uncovered.

I wouldn’t have to wait long.

Our mild procession stopped once all of us were within the chamber, whereupon the door slowly shut behind us, leaving me to behold the strange people which now occupied the room.

There were six – no, seven other people here, including Madam Dro – and all of them sat on raised ledges which spread outward from the rug and almost to the walls of the room, leaving a circular space in the center about fifteen feet wide. The chamber itself wasn’t huge; certainly nothing compared to the Hall. But it still carried with it a sense of weight, perhaps owing to the almost tribal layout of the ledges, or to the people themselves which occupied some of them.

They were all adults, of course. Not all of them looked to be too old, but only a couple appeared to be maiden Threwon’s age or less, somewhere around thirty. Each of them possessed attire that left no doubt as to their societal importance or, even more obviously, to the wealth they presumably had waiting at home.

They were all colors, all sizes, all… well, some of them at least looked a bit more sinister than others. Some of them looked downright villainous, and their gazes made my skin crawl. I bit down gently on my tongue as Zaevia had recommended.

And of course, right there in the middle of them all with her eyes trained on us like a hawk, sat Madam Dro.

“Welcome, children” she said with a sprawling tone full of majesty. “Ladies and Lords, as the maiden has already stated, I present you now with some of our finest young family members. Children, please greet our esteemed clients with the appreciation I know you are all feeling.”

There was barely a moment’s hesitation before all of us spread out and genuflected in one form or another, each acting in symmetry with a coordination that would’ve impressed me even if I’d been expecting it.

“Yes, please” we all said in unison, our voices dripping with honey.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Madam Dro positively beaming. It did not escape my notice how lovely she looked with her arranged auburn hair, wearing a gown of the deepest violet I had ever witnessed and looking like a queen all to herself. I felt my cheeks begin to redden, and I fought with all my self control not to let any of my thoughts show upon my face, or… elsewhere.

‘I remember you’ I thought to myself. ‘I remember you from all those years ago, out on that balcony. I remember it as if it were yesterday. You’ve invaded my dreams more than once, Lady, when I should have been dreaming about someone else, someone I truly love. Why do you do this to me? To any of us? Who even are you, Lady Dro? What is it you really do here, and what is it you want from any of us?”