The slave slipped out of the door like a shadow, leaving us alone in a sitting room that—like all of the building I had seen so far—lacked windows. The furniture was hard wood, polished until it shone, and a tapestry woven of rich colors in abstract shapes warmed one stone wall. There was no fireplace, but there were runes above the main doorway that resembled those that warmed the stream in the greenhouse. Was this the kind of magic that Mistress Jeshickah thought I might be capable of? If I was, it would mean that people like Lady Brina wouldn’t need to hire the unreliable cretins Lord Daryl complained about. On the other hand, why would people like Malachi feel so threatened if my magic was meant to be used for comfort and cosmetic things like this?
There were two other doors, but both were closed.
“Where are we?” I asked Jaguar.
“You don’t know?” he asked. As if to himself he added, “I suppose you wouldn’t. You’ve always been in Midnight, but now you’re in Midnight proper, as some people call this building to distinguish it from all the lands and properties that make up Jeshickah’s empire. Jeshickah had planned to bring you here soon, but the debacle with Obsidian and the market hastened our plans.”
“So … I’m going to stay here?”
Twin emotions warred in me. Lady Brina didn’t want me in her greenhouse; Mistress Jeshickah wanted me here. Was she here? Obviously Taro was. But this place was so different from what I was used to. There was no sunlight, no scent of fruit trees, no twittering of birds above.
“I had intended to tell the boy gently,” Taro chastised Jaguar as he emerged from one of the back rooms. He shut the door firmly behind him and twisted a bolt to lock it in place.
“I think you underestimate him,” Jaguar replied. “He doesn’t seem to need coddling. Do you, Vance?”
Put in the middle of the two men, I wasn’t sure how to respond. I wanted to agree with Jaguar, but I could see the disapproval on Taro’s face already.
“Why Mistress Jeshickah thinks you will be a good influence is beyond me,” Taro sighed, before turning to me. “Mistress Jeshickah thinks—”
“I’ve already informed the boy of Jeshickah’s plans,” Jaguar interrupted, with a sidelong glance at me that convinced me he was intentionally baiting Taro. “You can think of me as a confidant, Vance.” He stretched out on one of the long sofas in Taro’s sitting room, much to Taro’s obvious annoyance. “For example, you can ask me all those pesky questions that our mutual friend here would say were presumptuous or offensive, like ‘Why is the sky blue?’ and ‘Why does Mistress Jeshickah occasionally smell like a stable?’ ”
A startled laugh escaped from my throat. I clapped a hand over my mouth, only to realize that Jaguar was looking at me with a conspiratorial smile. Even Taro looked more resigned than horrified.
“The answer, by the way,” Jaguar said, “is that Jeshickah is diligent about caring for her horses and does much of the work herself, despite having plenty of slaves to help. It is not wise to point the odor out to her, or to get between her and her bath. The woman does not tolerate filth, on herself or anyone around her.”
This time I couldn’t help but laugh—partly in horror, yes, but partly because I had never met anyone like Jaguar. Despite my first impressions, and my better judgment, I was starting to like this bold newcomer to my life. A confidant, he had called himself.
“Very well,” Taro said, shaking his head. “Vance, you are always welcome to visit me here if you have any questions that this irreverent fool isn’t able to answer, but you are officially Jaguar’s charge from here on.”
Malachi’s words about Taro came back to me unexpectedly, giving me a chill: They call him the gentleman trainer, because he can be oh-so-polite while he strips an individual of all hope and dignity. He is careful and methodical, which I’m sure is why they assigned him to you.
If Taro was the gentleman, what was Jaguar?
“Come, Vance,” Jaguar said with a smile. “We should let Taro get back to his work, and I’ll show you around the building.”
I glanced at Taro, anxious at the idea of being sent away so abruptly, but he gave me a gentle smile and waved me off. “You’ll be fine,” he assured me. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
The slave who had gone to get me breakfast returned just as we were walking out. Jaguar handed me a pastry from the tray and informed me that I could eat while we walked. The light fare wasn’t filling the way the squirrel stew had been, but that was actually comforting. It meant no one was expecting me to trudge through snowy forests for hours.
“This is the west wing,” he explained, gesturing to the hallway outside Taro’s room. “All the doors on this side go to the trainers’ apartments, so that is where you will find Taro, me, Jeshickah—if you were idiotic enough to visit her without being summoned—and others who are not so friendly.”
“Like the man I saw you with earlier?” I asked, curious. “Nathaniel?”
“Nathaniel is a mercenary, not a trainer, but yes. You are young and impressionable and should ignore him at all costs, or else his morals are likely to corrupt you. This,” he said, moving on smoothly to a door on the opposite side of the hallway, “goes to the courtyard. Do not go there. Jeshickah keeps a pet leopard, and it likes live food. This is … also none of your concern,” he said as we passed the last door on that side of the hall, “because it will always be locked. This is a working building, Vance. You understand that some areas will be off limits, so that others may do their work, right?”
I nodded, wondering what work was done here. Jaguar had referred to himself, Taro, and Mistress Jeshickah as trainers—the same word Malachi had used with venomous hatred. I wondered how Jaguar would define his profession, but I was still too dazed by his glib narration of our journey and didn’t feel able to summon big questions, much less understand their answers.
There was another archway at this end of the hall, and another guard, but the door was closed. “Beyond this,” Jaguar said, gesturing to the door without opening it, “is the south wing, where the humans go about most of their tasks. You won’t need to go there often, but if you ever need to find, say, the kitchen or the infirmary, this is where you should look. You don’t strike me as the domestic sort, though.”
“What do I … strike you as?” I asked. I knew how to tend Lady Brina’s orchard and help her with her paints. I didn’t know what kind of person that made me, especially in this world with no windows.
“I THINK WE’LL find out what you are together,” Jaguar answered. “As it happens, I remember being your age, and am of the opinion that a young man’s full potential is rarely obvious at this point in his life.”
Two responses warred in my mind. I wanted to agree with him, and promise that I did have value, no matter what Mistress Jeshickah thought she had seen. On the other hand, his words had also challenged one of the most fundamental facts in my knowledge.
“But … vampires don’t age,” I protested. That was an inarguable fact. They didn’t age, and they couldn’t die, so how could Jaguar possibly remember being my age?
“We aren’t born vampires,” he replied. “I told you before that my mother was Azteka, though she left my human father to raise me. Jeshickah chose me, gave me her blood, and made me a vampire centuries ago.”
“Was she always a vampire?”
“As far as you and I are concerned, yes,” Jaguar answered. “Rationally, she must have been born something else, but the mistress’s history is another subject that is hazardous to one’s health.”
“I would never—” I broke off when I realized he wasn’t mad at me for asking. I went back to another, safer subject anyway. “Why did your mother give you up?”
He looked at me, his expression suddenly serious. After a quiet moment he said, “That isn’t the question you want to ask.”
I took a deep, shaky breath. Every hint of irreverent humor had left the air. “Why did my mother give me up?”
“We don’t know for sure,” he
said. “Azteka are strong, but they aren’t immortal, and the world out there is harsh. Your mother may have been hurt or even killed. All we know is that we found you, apparently abandoned, in the woods. Did the pochteca tell you anything when you met her?”
“She was friendly at first,” I said, “but when she realized where I came from, she …” I trailed off, remembering the way the Azteka woman had dragged me toward the market after I said I wanted to go home to Lady Brina and Taro. “Why were they so mean to me?”
“Vance, look around!” Jaguar said, sharply enough that I flinched. “What do you see?”
I obediently examined the hallway, though I wasn’t sure what Jaguar’s point was.
Thick, richly patterned carpet like I had seen throughout the building. White candles flickering in iron holders set into the walls. Magic runes etched discreetly into woodwork.
“You are warm and dry, safe, and have no fear of starvation,” Jaguar said. “Your clothes are new, made of Chinese nankeen and tailored just for you. Take a moment and compare what you have to what you know of life in the outside world. Then you tell me why they hate you.”
He leaned against the frescoed wall and waited for me to respond.
You were raised with every luxury, Malachi had told me when I asked about his dance. You never struggled. Never questioned. Never triumphed, or feared failure. You never hungered, or wondered if you would see tomorrow.
“You mean,” I ventured, “that I have things other people don’t have. They don’t like me because they’re jealous.” I knew about jealousy, though I had never had much cause to feel it. Lady Brina’s stories of the gods were full of jealousy, and the anger and warfare caused by it.
“That’s part of it. The other part … How to explain? You’re familiar with the serpiente, right? Your friend Calysta was a snake.” Her name made me flinch, but Jaguar continued as if he hadn’t just poked a raw wound. “Serpiente say they worship freedom. They don’t think anyone should rule anyone else, except their own king. They use Midnight like a cautionary tale, a fable to scare children, but the reality is they need us. They use our markets to trade, and our laws to protect them from groups who might otherwise threaten them. They even use us to get rid of criminals who would otherwise be executed, because we can give them a second chance. That’s how Calysta came to us.”
“Calysta killed herself,” I said softly, pointing out the flaw in that logic. What kind of “second chance” had we actually given her?
“Calysta was part of the Obsidian guild once,” Jaguar elaborated. “I gather her suicide was preceded by a visit from Malachi. I don’t know what relationship they had, or what memories seeing him may have brought up.”
Another reason to dislike Malachi—as if I needed another one.
“So the serpiente trade with us, and send criminals to us, but they don’t like us?” I said, trying to understand the bigger picture. I remembered how Hara, the serpiente princess, had acted, and that Malachi had told me she would kill me if she found out who I was.
“They feel that we take away their freedom to live and die as they choose.” Jaguar’s tone was nonjudgmental, as if he were leaving the final decision to me.
“And the Azteka feel the same way?” I asked.
He nodded, and added, “The Azteka homeland is far to the south of here, so we only see their traders—the pochteca. They have had unchallenged magical dominance for a very long time and do not like the fact that Midnight expects them to follow the same rules as everyone else.”
I thought about everyone I had seen in the market. It seemed like a lot of people thought the same thing, judging by the looks I had received while waiting for Taro. “If we’re doing the right thing,” I asked, “then why do so many people hate us?”
“Maybe we’re not,” Jaguar answered with a shrug, as if the question were irrelevant. “That’s something you will need to decide for yourself. You could be like Malachi Obsidian. He is welcome in these walls but chooses to live in the woods like an animal instead. He had his reasons to leave, just as I have my reasons to stay. His reasons, and my reasons, and those of people like Brina or the pochteca, may not be your reasons. You need to discover those on your own. Now come on. I want to show you something.”
He started walking again, as if the previous conversation had been an inconsequential thing, easily brushed aside. I continued to ponder it while we stopped at my room and he instructed me to put on my heavy outdoor clothing and then led me through the broad front door of the building.
After so many hours inside without a single window, I blinked against the afternoon sunlight. Momentarily blinded, I tried not to stumble as Jaguar explained, “This is the only door in or out of Midnight. Spells keep my kind from appearing inside the building, so even we must go through this door if we wish to enter.”
A wide path led from the building through the surrounding forest, but Jaguar did not lead us that way. Instead, he guided me down a smaller path, which brought us around the back of the stone edifice known as Midnight proper and to a large wood-and-stone construction.
All around us people were working busily—slaves, judging by the dull colors of their outerwear and the collars wrapping their necks. One was using a shovel to sprinkle gray ash over the path, which was slick with ice. Another was leading a beautiful horse.
The slave paused and half bowed, showing respect without relinquishing the bridle. I had seen horses in Lady Brina’s paintings, but I had never realized they were so big! This one was a ruddy chestnut brown, with a sprinkling of white like snowflakes across its flanks.
“That’s Dika,” Jaguar said. At first I thought he was introducing me to the slave, but then I realized he was talking about the horse. “Jeshickah’s Palouse lines are her pride and joy. Welcome to the stables, Vance. Lead the way, Felix,” he added, prompting the slave leading Dika to continue escorting his charge inside.
“Felix is the stable marshal,” Jaguar explained, “which makes him the highest-ranking slave in Midnight. He has permission to speak freely at any time and even give instructions to my kind or yours, when it is necessary for the performance of his duties.” With a shake of his head, Jaguar added, “As you have probably gathered, every beast here is more precious to Jeshickah than you or I. Fortunately, they need exercise and company to stay healthy, so Jeshickah has given me permission to teach you to ride.”
“Me?” I squeaked. Between my awe at just standing before these beautiful creatures and Jaguar’s very clear description of Mistress Jeshickah’s fondness for them, I hardly dared breathe in their presence.
“You don’t want to spend your whole life at Midnight proper,” Jaguar added. “Learning to ride will give you access to places like the market, or nearby properties like the di’Birgetta estate, should you need to visit there. If your lessons go well, perhaps you could even make it to Kendra’s yuletide ball in a couple days—I see that interests you.”
Sometimes I wished I were less transparent. “Could I really go?” I asked, my excitement almost eclipsing my nerves. Kendra’s ball was the event of the year, attended by everyone who mattered in this world. I tried to picture myself among them, not as “little Vance” the quetzal or Lady Brina’s greenhouse boy, but as a fellow guest. Someone Lady Brina might respect.
“Of course, if you choose. I’ll speak to the tailor about having proper apparel made. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Felix!” The slave looked up from his charge. “Vance here is going to assist you for a while.” To me he added, “Riding is a privilege that must be earned. No one touches Jeshickah’s horses without knowing their proper care. Hard work will also put muscle on your bones and help you grow into your height. The next time Jeshickah sees you, she won’t even recognize the scrawny, fragile child from the di’Birgetta greenhouse.” He patted my shoulder hard enough to make me stumble. “Make us proud, Vance.”
Yes. That was what I wanted. I would prove to Mistress Jeshickah that she was wrong. Maybe I could even convince L
ady Brina that I wasn’t useless clutter.
That was what I held on to as Felix put me through my paces.
He immediately put me to work on Dika, who needed to be dried off and cooled down after her recent ride. Every time I completed a task, he showed me a new one. Once Dika was happily stabled, my work had only just begun.
Weren’t humans supposed to be weak compared to shapeshifters? Every slave in the stables seemed to be able to lift more than me and carry their burdens longer. When I paused in the middle of fetching water, trying to catch my breath, one of the slaves noticed my distress and took the heavy buckets from me with ease.
No wonder Mistress Jeshickah thought so little of me.
If Jaguar meant the day to be humbling, he succeeded, but I was determined to rise to the challenge. In the greenhouse I had never encountered a task that wasn’t easy for me. Here, I had something to prove—myself.
At the end of the day, Felix assigned a slave to help me back to my room. I was so tired I could barely see straight, but I forced myself to bathe anyway. Mistress Jeshickah did not tolerate filth, and a day working in the stables had left me far from pristine. At last I collapsed on the bed, closed my eyes, and disappeared into the void of sleep.
I was alone in the forest, and I had lost the path. It was so dark I couldn’t even see the hand I waved in front of my face. Snow swirled around me, driven by wailing winds.
As I struggled forward in the darkness, the slushy flakes became needle sharp. They pierced my clothing and my skin as they landed. Rivulets of hot blood trailed down my body, scalding me where they flowed over flesh and hissing when they fell into the snow at my feet.
My own violent shudder woke me. I jumped to my feet and turned up the lamp, needing light to dispel the darkness of the nightmare. I didn’t know what hour it was, but I knew it would be a long time before I wanted to shut my eyes again.
When I opened the door, Rose looked up from where she had been kneeling just outside.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked.