Michael Sullivan - The Crown Tower

“What did they do with him?”

“I don’t know. He was taken out of the school. Surprisingly, he wasn’t made a spectacle. None of the students were even aware of it, I don’t think. He was executed on one of the nearby hills. I asked after his body. They refused to tell me even that much, maybe because they were taking it to show Angdon’s father.”

Arcadius sat down, bending over his desk and lowering his head into his arms. “I’m so very sorry, Hadrian.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when I first arrived?”

“I had planned to, but you were in such a state about Royce leaving you. I thought it best to let you have a decent night’s sleep.”

“Thanks for that,” Hadrian said. “And I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t your fault.”

The professor nodded. “I suppose this means you aren’t going to finish the job with Royce. Now that I’m no longer of any use to you.”

“Of course I’ll do it.” Hadrian let his palms glide over the sword pommels. “You held up your end of the bargain. You got Pickles enrolled. It wouldn’t be fair for me to back out now just because…”

Hadrian’s throat closed up unexpectedly. He swallowed several times, trying to clear it as tears welled up. He struggled to keep his breathing even, clenching his teeth.

“Thank you, Hadrian,” Arcadius said. “And for what it’s worth, I honestly believe that everything happens for a reason.”

“What possible reason could there be in Pickles’s death?”

“Perhaps that remains to be seen.”

The old pile of decay was gone from the end of Wayward Street. In its place was a beautiful new building with windows, dormers, and a fresh coat of paint-mostly white with accents of powder blue along the trim. White came cheap; blue was expensive, but Gwen remembered the house in Gentry Square and wanted at least a splash of that spirit, and that made all the difference between being just another building and something special.

The porch was just framed out, visitors still had to climb up crates and walk across planks to enter, and the interior had a long way to go. Gwen focused all the early effort on the outside, confident that a good exterior would get customers in the door. After that, she figured the girls would keep them there. She was right. People came from as far away as the Merchant Quarter to see the oddity going up at the end of Wayward Street. Gwen hadn’t the money for a sign, and just about everyone simply called it the House.

Gwen was proud of what they had accomplished and stood smiling as she took Inspector Reginald from the Lower Quarter’s merchants’ guild on a tour. She tried to keep him to the finished rooms, but he insisted on exploring off the path , into the sections that were filled with excess lumber, sawdust, and tools. Normally the house was filled with the sounds of hammering, but Gwen had shooed the carpenters away for the duration of the inspection. However, she couldn’t do anything about Clarence the Roofer and Mae, who were conducting business in the “grand suite.” Mae knew to keep quiet, but she had no control over her client, and Clarence was a grunter.

“Two weeks…” the inspector repeated as they strolled through the parlor.

He had been saying that a lot, and to Gwen’s dismay, it was just about the only thing he had said. The man was hard to read. His expression remained flat, the tone of his voice so consistently dull as to make silence jealous.

“How did you pay for all this?”

As if on cue, overhead Clarence went into a staccato series of pig imitations. Gwen merely smiled and looked up.

“Yes, yes, I understand the nature of your business,” Reginald said. “But this is a lot of expense”-he peered at a doorframe-“and very good craftsmanship. And it has been only two weeks.”

“We attract customers from the Artisan and Merchant Quarters, so we can charge more.”

“This isn’t the only brothel in the city.”

“But the services we offer are of better quality.”

“I’ve seen your stock, and while I would exempt you personally, I’m afraid your girls are no better looking and, in most cases, not as attractive as those found at other establishments.”

Stock . The word shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. To him this was an enterprise like pig farming, and Clarence wasn’t doing anything to dispel that idea. Overhead the bed had shifted and the headboard was starting to bang against the wall. She made a mental note to have the frames secured to the floor and the joints oiled.

“Appearances matter to a point,” she told him. “A pretty girl turns heads and attracts visitors. I imagine those other businesses get a lot of first-time traffic, but we benefit from repeat business and word of mouth.”

“So what’s your secret?”

“We aren’t slaves, and we get to keep all that is made. For many of us, this is the first time we’ve ever been in control of our lives, in control of ourselves. You’d be surprised how motivating that can be. I guess you could say that these women try harder to please than at other brothels. Customers must like that, because they keep coming back.”

She led him back out to the parlor.

“As soon as I can afford a stove, we’ll offer food and perhaps drinks. I hope this is just a stepping stone. We’re all working here for a chance to improve. Maybe one day this won’t be a brothel anymore. It’ll be a lavish inn like it once was.” She sighed, knowing that sounded naïve.

Gwen followed the inspector out and down to the street, where he turned and looked back at the place. “You’ve done an amazing job here,” he said, standing with his thumbs in his belt and nodding.

“So you’ll approve the certificate?”

“Absolutely not.”

“What!” Gwen was certain she hadn’t heard him correctly. “Why?”

“Because you’re smart and I believe you could make a success of this place. What kind of message does that send? What if women started demanding apprenticeships in guilds? You are a foreigner, and that’s not the way things are done here. It’s my job to protect this city from dangerous ideas like yours.”

He turned to walk away.

“No, wait!” She couldn’t let him go, not after everything they had accomplished. She grabbed the inspector by the hand. “Please, no. You have to change your mind. You can’t just shut us down.”

“It’s not my decision. I only give my recommendation to the assessor. Of course, in twenty years he’s never overridden any of my recommendations, but maybe this will be the first.”

She refused to let go of his hand. She turned it, opening his palm, pulling it into the light. He twisted and pulled free, but not before she had seen what she was looking for. He glared at her and wiped his hand as if she carried disease, then mounted his horse. “I have three other surveys to make, one all the way out in Cold Hollow, so I expect you have until tomorrow before the assessor orders you out.”

“Grue put you up to this.”

She saw a reaction on his face that looked like shock. “As I said, you’re smart-too smart.”

He wheeled his horse and trotted up Wayward Street, leaving her alone between The Hideous Head and the House.

Gwen watched a carriage roll by the office of the city assessor. White with gold trim, the coach was spotless, as if the owner’s servants polished it daily. Along the streets of the Gentry Quarter, men in capes and doublets escorted ladies dressed in stunning gowns whose ground-sweeping hems remained pristine. The colors were shocking: reds, golds, yellows, greens. The spectrum was not limited to the clothing. Banners, flags, streamers, even the awnings of street vendors whipped in the breeze, adding brilliance and spectacle. And of course there were the buildings. As she and Rose waited once more for their chance to enter the little administrative office, the two faced the beautiful house across the street. Powder blue. What had been a beautiful building to her the last time was now a marvel. With her newfound experience, she understood the price of each balustrade and windowpane. Medford House was but a shadow, and yet it was theirs-their home, their dream. She couldn’t let Grue take it away.