“Agreed. Now—the girl, Salma. She was one of yours, uni?” Kasim sat forward, cupping one fist in the other. “I need to know who she was, her friends, who visited her. There’ve been no leads in our investigation thus far. Your tavern may provide us with the first clues.”

The sultry madam reclined in her armchair, crossing her legs slowly, and glanced between them. Luscia heard her breathing grow shallow as her eyes narrowed at some internal debate.

“Bolaeva.” Luscia’s voice cracked. “Please, help us find who is behind these atrocities. For all of Boreal, I beg you, please help us.”

Several minutes passed before Salma answered.

“Her name is—was—Wren. The girl only came to us last year. No family.”

“Little songbird,” Luscia murmured the meaning behind the northern name. “But how did she end up here, in a…” She trailed off, too embarrassed to continue.

“…a whorehouse, Lady al’Haidren?” the madam pointedly finished. She laughed without humor. “In my experience, it is never the high and mighty who protect the cross-caste or the breakaway. Ano, it is the underworld. Even our Unitarian king refused to grant us a voice in the Ethnicam.” Salma swept a mass of curls to the side and tilted her head. “I know what you are thinking—looking down on us, our family, yeah? What you do not realize, my lady, is I can only provide my family with food, shelter, protection, whatever they need because I am willing to feed Bastiion’s wolves—” Two fingers pointed to the tavern underfoot. “—what they hunger.”

“Meh fyreon, I do apologize. I meant no disrespect to your…household.” Luscia grimaced, unsure how to navigate the path between etiquette and conviction.

Kasim glared at her. “Just stop talking.” Inching closer to the short table, either to angle toward Salma or distance himself from Luscia, he asked, “How old was Wren? What was her role here at The Veiled Lady?”

“Sixteen, perhaps? She never said, I never asked.” Salma shrugged, and Luscia’s stomach knotted at the confirmation of her youth. “Wren went straight into night-business—papyon. She wanted the money. And she gained popularity, fast. Eh, novelty always does.”

“Who called on her, habitually employed her services?” Kasim pushed.

“You know yancies prefer cross-castes, something normally off-limits. Members of the Peerage made up the majority of her clientele. Oh,” she added, tapping her lip, “and the other alpha—the harsh one, with the scar.” The madam pouted at him. “Your friend takes advantage of our amenities, even if you won’t. The girls don’t like him as much as they’d like you, Jaha.”

Luscia’s forehead wrinkled as she glanced toward Kasim, confused at his lack of patronage. He’d suggested quite the opposite.

“Can you think of anyone who’d want to harm Wren, or ever tried?” the southern al’Haidren rushed on, nostrils flaring, clearly irritated by Salma’s mention of the other alpha.

“Ano zà. My house indulges these men to protect our family from who they are in the outside world. My clients know such behaviors are never tolerated inside.” Salma rubbed her slender wrist in her lap. “The desires we pacify are just shadows, Jaha. Desire is erratic, tied to so many things. Outside, men allow desire to turn ugly, violent.” Her eyes flashed to Luscia. “At least, in the world of a lowly cross-caste.”

Luscia met her gaze levelly. “I am well aware of the things you speak.”

Salma’s eyes dropped to Luscia’s bare neck and the ugly tale etched into her skin. “Uni, I see you are.”

A chasm reopened in her chest as she maintained eye contact with the matron of The Veiled Lady. Loss, pain, and anger were equalizers; emotions that crossed class or territorial boundaries on a map. Behind an unspoken yet recognizable sadness, there was strength in the other woman’s eyes. It rimmed her earthy irises in a green aura of defiance.

What an odd sensation it was, for Luscia to suddenly find herself coveting something in Salma, the owner of a brothel.

“Did you see anything else, hear anything else that night?” Kasim interrupted.

“Ano, Jaha. As you know, I was with you.”

“Uni.” He stood and rubbed the back of his neck. “Then we should go, before questions are raised about my maid. We’ll leave the way we came. Business as usual. Shàla’maiamo, Salma.”

“Tadöm, truly. Boreal thanks you for your candor,” Luscia said as she covered her hair, resembling Mila once again, and followed Kasim out the office.

“Zaethan,” Salma called his given name when they reached the end of the hall. “Remember Owàa’s fate.”

Luscia didn’t understand her farewell, but Kasim seemed unconcerned by the madam’s ominous message.

As they descended the rickety steps into the ruckus of the tavern, Kasim went rigid. She watched his shoulders roll back to embody his full height. After a breath, he marched to a corner gaming table shrouded by a throng of dancing women.

“I can see why your pryde disappoints, Wekesa.” Kasim glowered at a Darkaian alpha lounging at the table, dice in one hand and empty glassware beside the other. “Get up.”

Roughly his al’Haidren’s age, the alpha’s arrogance was palpable in his delay to fulfill Kasim’s order. Plucking unseen lint off his navy tunic, he rose from the chair and strutted to stand in front of Kasim. Bone beads swung in his braids, though they only hung from one side of his scalp. The damaged flesh of the opposite was gruesomely uneven.

“Is this why you’re so obsessed with my investigation, Alpha Zà?” He sucked his teeth and scanned Luscia’s assets, on full display in Mila’s poorly sized dress. “Ni yeye ràtomdai na wewe?”

The alpha posed the Andwele question to his superior, but fixed his overconfident smile on Luscia.

“Ano,” Kasim answered in an amused voice. He then repeated himself, emphasizing the final syllable. “Ano. Zà.”

Astounded, Luscia careened toward Kasim. Her furious stare glided like darts into his cinnamon skin. Kasim stepped aside and gestured obligingly in her direction. Before she could object, Luscia felt a sweaty heaviness land on her hip, urging her forward.

“Yeah, you want some real papyo—ahh!” The other alpha screamed when Luscia crushed his knuckles in her hand. Thrusting her thumb into a pressure point, she twisted his wrist mercilessly. “Y’siti bitch!”

“The y’siti bitch belongs to herself!” She bent his wrist further and threw his hand back. “And she does not want your papyon!”

He cradled the injured hand to his chest and swung his good fist toward her face, but its impact was thwarted by Kasim’s grip on the alpha’s dark, corded forearm.