"A real fairy!" mused Hale, as we walked through the almost deserted streets toward the palace. I was glad he had come with me, because I still didn't really know my way around the capital. "They say they only ever appear to people in need of their help."
"Yes, well, I have to admit his gift has helped me a lot," I said. "But it's a little embarrassing." Or it had been; I didn't feel particularly embarrassed about it anymore, I realized. Maybe it was just Hale's influence?
"Why?" asked Hale, blinking his huge eyes. "Ooh, is he handsome?"
"Who?"
"The fairy, of course! Honestly, Marcus, are you sure
you
'
re
really a man? I'm sure you must be the least depraved man I've ever met! And I mean that in a very nice way, but honestly—it's quite obvious that you've never had sex."
"Is it?" I asked in amusement. "You sound just like him."
"Who?"
"The handsome fairy, of course."
"Oh, he
is
handsome, then?"
"Yes," I admitted. "But in a strange sort of way. They're not quite human, fairies, I think."
"Aye," Hale laughed. "That is why they are fairies and not human. Right, here we are!"
I hardly recognised the palace: it was surrounded by brightly-coloured tents, and bustling with people and merchants selling their wares.
"Where do you suppose the king would be?" I practically had to shout to be heard as we pushed our way through the throng of people.
"Inside the palace, I assume," replied Hale, nimbly jumping out of the way of a few pedestrians, and then giving in and shoving them out of the way in the same manner that everyone seemed to have adopted. "Do you suppose we can get through the gates?"
"Yes," I shouted at him. "I can convince the guards … "
Hale cried out as he was almost dragged away from me by a particularly large group of people, who seemed annoyed that he had been in their way. He reached out a hand to me, and without thinking, I grabbed it and pulled him through, shoving the large woman who seemed to be at the head of the group out of the way with my mind. She glared at me, her big, bulging eyes ready to pop out of her crimson face, but as I hadn't actually touched her in any way, there was nothing she could do but grab the flailing arms of several of her children and drag them away.
"Oh!" gasped Hale. "Thank you! I thought I'd never see you again, Marcus!"
I laughed, and we made our way to the palace gates. They were closed, as usual, and the same two guards as before stood there, occasionally letting small groups of rich-looking people pass in and out.
I let go of Hale's hand and, with a wink at him, strode up to the guards.
"Hello," I greeted in a friendly voice.
The taller guard visibly blanched, while the shorter jumped and struggled to pull his sword from his belt.
"You!" he gasped, terror in his voice. "Don't come near!"
"Goodness," I said, fighting to keep from laughing at them. "Gentlemen, relax, I'm not going to hurt you."
"Oh, no?" He was still holding his sword out, pointed straight at me, as if it were going to help him. "Not going to hurt us? What about getting us fired? Excommunicated? Eh? Don't care about that?"
"Walter, please," said the taller guard. "Don't make him angry." He turned to look at me, his face a little calmer, but still wary. "Please. Don't make us let you in again. We were nearly fired the last time. The Wizard Dante threw a fit and told the head of security we ought never to work in the palace again."
"Never work in the
capital
again were his words," corrected the shorter guard. "And if we
ever
let anyone into the palace again without express permission, we might as well just pack our bags and leave the country." He was still glaring at me, his sword raised. "Doesn't matter if we're put under a spell or nothing."
"Alright," I said, holding my hands up in front of me in a gesture of surrender. "Alright, I won't. I'm truly sorry you got in trouble. I honestly didn't think anyone would find out."
"Didn't
think
, did you?" snorted the shorter guard. "Run along now. Use your magic tricks on someone less important."
This annoyed me, but the taller guard looked so apologetic that I couldn't help but feel bad.
"I'm sorry if it was something you really needed to get into the palace for," he said. "But no amount of wild nights with our wives will make them forgive us for being fired."
"No, I suppose not," I admitted. "There's no way I could … contact the king? Send him a message?"
The taller guard thought for a moment. "You could write him a letter," he suggested. "I'd see that he got it."
"What?" sputtered the short guard. "We're not doing him any favours! What, are you still under his spell?"
"No, no, it's alright," I assured him. "I'll just send the letter to the palace the old-fashioned way. Please, I'm sorry to have bothered you. I'll go now." Then, rather than face any more indignation from the shorter guard, I hastily retreated.
"Well, that went rather badly," I admitted to Hale.
"It did seem rather unimpressive."
"I shall just … " I sighed, "Write the king a letter. He'll get it, right?"
Hale blinked. "Well, yes, I suppose he would. That's rather clever."
"I don't have paper," I said after a moment. "Shall we buy some? I want to get a pen, too."
We spent the next few hours exploring the market, looking at all the various wares for sale in different booths and sampling the many different exotic foods on display. There were several different booths devoted to stationary, but I finally settled on some plain writing paper, envelopes, and a silver pen with a refillable ink well. Hale looked longingly at the sparkling jewels and fine silks on display, embroidered with golden cranes and fans and rivers, but he neglected to buy anything.
"I'm saving my money," he explained. "For when I travel."
When we finally arrived back at the Parlour, it was nearly nightfall.
"Well, that was a rather pointless day," I said, opening the door to allow Hale to go through first. "Ah, Hale! How long have you been holding my arm like that?"
"Eh?" Hale rapidly slipped his arm from mine, where it had been linked. "Ah, I think the whole way home." He blushed. "No wonder you were getting strange looks, Marcus!"
"
I
was getting strange looks?" I laughed. "You were the one acting like a woman!"
"I can't help it!" wailed Hale, but there was that familiar smile in his eyes. "It's a habit! I shall have to force myself out of it eventually."
He was still holding my hand, I noticed, his soft fingers leading me toward the stairs, and then he twirled and pulled me to him. My breath caught in my throat when I felt myself suddenly close to him, our bodies mere inches apart. He stared up at me, his eyes a dreamy green-blue in the orange light of the setting sun.
"I've changed my mind," he said, after a few agonizingly long breaths. His eyes flicked downward as he drew them away from mine.
"Changed your mind?" I asked, my voice a little unsteady. "About what?"
For a moment, I thought he wasn't going to say anything at all. For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. Then he shook his head and drew back. "About having sex with you," he explained, and backed away a little more, brushing a stray hair from his face and meeting my eyes again. "I'm rescinding my offer. I feel … it wouldn't be professional. Forming attachments … " For a moment, there was pain in his eyes, but then it vanished, replaced again by that sad little smile. "Well, it's not at all professional." Then he leaned over to place a small kiss on my forehead. "Goodnight, Marcus. Sleep well."
I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a long time, before finally climbing them myself to retire to my room.
I was in the midst of writing
a fifth draft of my letter to the king when there was a knock at my door. Before I could reply, however, the door burst open, and Muse flounced in, holding a yellowed envelope before her and grinning at me.
"It's from your family, I think!" she said. "How exciting!"
"Er, yes, Muse … " I took the letter from her, unsure how I should feel about it—excited? Nervous? Apprehensive? "Isn't it common whorehouse etiquette to knock before entering someone's room?"
Muse nodded. "Ah, yes, that's true. But you don't have any customers today."
"I could have been changing," I replied, ushering her from the room.
"I wouldn't mind!" she assured me, before I closed the door and went to the bed to read my letter. Yes, it was definitely apprehension I was feeling. How strange; I had been looking forward to that letter, hadn't I? Yes, definitely. Once I was back with my parents, I could tell them about Dante, and we could work to expose him.
Slowly, with a strange ringing in my ears, I slid the letter from its envelope and read it.
Dear Marcus,
It is terrible to hear that you were delayed on your journey to the palace! We had hoped that you would reach the king without much trouble. However, we are pleased to hear that you were able to contact the Wizard Dante and hope that you are now happily employed at the palace. Please write again soon and let us know of your progress!
Your ever loving Mother and Father
The ringing in my head grew louder as I reread the letter several more times. I had to stop myself from crumpling the aged
paper in my hands and hurtling it across the room. How could my parents possibly be so idiotic?! Had my letter really seemed that hopeful? Did they really not care that I was trapped in the capital with no money or connections? Were they truly that apathetic?
After angrily pacing my room for several minutes, I calmed down. After all, at the time of writing my letter, I had expected to be rescued by Dante very soon, so it would have been pointless of them to come all the way to the capital to rescue their son, who they had thought was only having an ill-timed adventure.
Well, I would just have to set the record straight. I sat down and wrote my parents a long letter, detailing my entire story, including the slave traders and my suspicions about Dante, and also informing them that I was now working as a whore at the Parlour. Maybe that would get their attention. I told them that first and foremost, we needed to get in contact with the king and inform him of Dante's suspicious behaviour. Then, feeling a lot better, I wrote my letter to the king, telling him the same story that I had told my parents. I then sealed both letters, stamped them, and went downstairs to mail them.
I never received a letter back from the king,
although I sent several over the next few weeks. There was no word from my family, either, but I knew that I couldn't expect it for a while still. There was a strange dichotomy in my looking forward to my parents' reply: I wanted badly to expose Dante (Draeden had visited me again and informed me that Dante was making plans to go and collect the boy he was targeting next) and knew that I couldn't do so without my parents help, but at the same time, I was (and I was almost afraid to admit it) rather enjoying my time at the Parlour. I had settled into a routine, servicing several women a day, mostly returning customers, but often new ones brought in by friends, and many of them knew me by name. We sometimes took tea in the garden beforehand, and they asked me about my life and my future, and gave me shiny coins from their pockets when I said clever things or smiled at them just so.
The girls were jealous of me and pestered me for clues as to how I managed to do so well for myself and for the Parlour. They all wanted badly to know what exactly I did to the women in my bedroom with the door closed, and once Ellie pestered me about it so badly, that I snapped and gave her a brief, but intense orgasm that left her collapsed on the floor in the middle of the sitting room.
"It's something like that," I explained with a grin, and swept out of the room while she was mobbed by the other girls, demanding that she tell them what I had done to her.
The girls all seemed to have much more respect for me after that, and began to treat me in a similar way to Hale, as if I were their prized pet who needed to be fussed over and admired. I didn't mind—after all, I was making close to the same amount of money as Hale at that point, although he worked less than me, and I was proud of what I could do. I was surprised at how close to the girls I became after a while, joking and flirting easily with them, although they all knew I was only interested in men. The fact that they knew and accepted that made me feel that somehow it was alright, and that there really was nothing wrong with me. It was an assurance I had never really thought I could feel.
The only thing that dampened my spirits was Hale. He hadn't really spoken to me or appeared as a man since the day of the market, and while we talked and flirted like normal, he treated me the same way all the other girls did, and for some reason, that didn't satisfy me. I wanted more than just his twinkling eyes and secretive smiles; I wanted the Hale who had sat next to me on his bed and told me of his plans to travel the world, and the Hale who had held my hands and looked up at me with his eyes wide and open and shining with the orange fire of the sunset.
But it was not to be, and by the time another month had passed at the Parlour, I had nearly given up on ever being as close to Hale as I had been, and settled on simply working hard and enjoying the life that I had.
I didn't notice right away when I descended the stairs with one of my clients (an older, pretty woman who declined to ever give her name) that we had a visitor in the sitting room. I was busy in conversation with the lady, who was rather flustered after the impressive service I had just given her. I was getting better at it all the time, and since she always tipped me well, I had made sure to make it especially enjoyable for her.
" … never felt anything like it before," she was saying. "You really are quite talented. You should put your skills to good use in the palace."
I laughed at that. "I can't really think of any practical applications, ma'am, but I'll think about it."