It turned out, being held prisoner by evil mages wasn't all that bad. Boring, yes- Nicholas was starting to feel stir-crazy, which said a lot coming from someone as inactive as him. Normally when he had nothing to do, he could write. He preferred it that way. But recent events had made thinking of his story markedly bitter, and besides, it wasn't as if he had anywhere to put his thoughts down. He was used to turning to his laptop when inspiration dawned, or his notes app, or a document on his work computer, or a sticky note from someone else's cubicle. He was not above scribbling on a napkin. In the infirmary, his best option would be to carve words into a bandage with a scalpel. With his hands cuffed. It hardly seemed worth it.

At least he was in the infirmary. For the first few days, he had braced every time he heard the lock, sure he was about to be moved to a dungeon. Aside from some burn scars and scabs, his injuries were healed. Even his ankle had mostly stopped twinging. But the door opened to Yasmin or Cairo bringing a meal every time, and Nicholas was left to his own devices.

The bodyguard and the counselor were the only people he saw. Never any of the other castle staff, and never the king.

He spent most of his time in the bed farthest from the door. It wasn't any comfier than his own, but it was by the window. It had been the middle of the night the first time he'd approached it with the brilliant idea to climb out and make a run for it. Considering the infirmary was on the bottom floor, he had been reasonably shocked when he'd peered down at the ground outside and instead found a long, long drop into still water.

There was a strip of clifftop between the castle foundation and the plunge to Lake Charlatan more than wide enough to walk on, but Nicholas would be one strong breeze away from splattering like an egg yolk on the lake's twinkling surface.

He opened the window sometimes for fresh air. Those winds were no joke.

Still, he liked to stay by the window. The natural light made him feel a little less like he was decomposing, and the Caldoran night sky glittered unlike anything he'd ever seen in Seattle. Even the Montanna countryside never got so starry. Nicholas yearned to draw it.

The breeze was nice, too, from safely inside. All things considered, he could have been much worse off.

"Hiding? Boo," said Cairo from somewhere past the row of curtains. Nicholas could have sworn it had been daytime just a minute ago, but the sky outside was dusky purple. Imprisonment was making him concerningly good at dissociating.

"I'm here," he said, making his way back to the first bed. Cairo grimaced when he saw him. "Right, yeah, thanks."

"Do I have to say it?"

"You really don't."

"Should I say it?"

"No, it's okay, honestly."

"You look like a prolapsed-"

"Oh my god?"

"Sorry, too much. Perhaps you are overdue for a bath?"

Nicholas perked up. "Really?" He hadn't asked for one (he wasn't in much of a position to ask for things), but it had been a week. Though Cairo carried a tray of food, the state of Nicholas' skin took precedence over the growl in his stomach. He felt the way he assumed fish tanks did when their glass was taken over by biofilm, or like a ship hull covered in barnacles. That wasn't the writer in him exaggerating. It was alarming that he couldn't smell himself. Maybe all the sweat and sebum had clogged his nasal passages. He was willing to suffer another boiling if it meant he could be clean.

Cairo threw a black cloth onto Nicholas' face, then took a hopping step to the door and held it open, sweeping his arm across his front like he was ushering a valued guest. It helped that he was dressed even nicer than normal, head-to-toe sleek indigo satin, though the effect was ruined when Nicholas bumbled blindly past and he said, "Wow! Can't say I've smelled that before!"

It was hard to tell blindfolded, but the path Cairo took to the bath was different than Nicholas remembered. The song on Cairo's tongue hadn't changed, at least. He butchered the lyrics all the way there.

Nicholas stopped in place once Cairo's footsteps ceased. The cuffs around his wrists fell away and a door closed behind him. He took his cue to remove the blindfold, expecting to find Cairo looming over him. Instead, Nicholas heard his muffled voice through the door. "Farewell, my sweet prince! Duty calls. I'll be back to fetch you as soon as I've checked on things. No funny business!"

He locked Nicholas in. "Wait," Nicholas called, but Cairo's footsteps were already skipping out of earshot. Nicholas blinked dumbly at the scene before him.

Seven naked people blinked back.

This was not the same bath as last time. For starters, it was the size of a swimming pool, flat to the ground and framed by columns. Then there was the open ceiling. And, of course, the five ladies and two men watching him with mild disdain. They were possibly the prettiest people he had laid eyes on.

"Oh," said a girl with sepia skin and dripping hair. She looked Nicholas up and down. "Did you...get lost on your way here?"

A woman much older than the rest rounded one of the columns. She had sagging skin, bulging hips, and a face plastered with makeup. As the only other person in the room wearing clothes, she received Nicholas' full focus.

"Oh!" she echoed, which he was starting to take offense to. "Well the king does have acquired tastes, doesn't he."

A boy with the smallest waist Nicholas had ever seen on a guy clasped his hands beside his jaw and said dreamily, "I sure hope so."

"Come, then, let's get you cleaned up," said the older woman in a curling accent. "You must have had a long journey here."

"Really long," mumbled the same boy, and the girl next to him snickered.

"Stop that," the sepia girl chastised. She approached Nicholas, who stood with his back to the door long after the older woman beckoned him closer. "What's your name?"

It took a second to find his voice. "Nicholas."

He was staring resolutely past her, so he didn't notice her reaching until her hands touched his chest. A mortifying sound left him as he jumped away from her, except there was nowhere to go, so he ended up slamming the back of his head into the door and spooking her back several feet. It worked, in a way.

"I was just..." She tried to smile placatingly, but her eyes said that Nicholas was very strange. "Your shirt. Unless you want to bathe in it?"

She didn't sound sarcastic. Just perplexed, and haltingly supportive, as if Nicholas might genuinely be some freak who bathed in full linen.

"I can take them off myself," he squeaked.

Another girl, pale as marble and just as smooth, filled the space beside her, forcing Nicholas to turn his eyes to the ceiling. "Is this your first job?" she asked. "No- no one could be so lucky. Ah, is prudish your schtick? Men do love a virgin."

"How modest!" teased sepia.

"How demure," said marble, swaying with each syllable.

"I think there's been a misunder-"

He was cut off by two loud claps. "Do not waste my time, ladies," the woman crooned. "Get him in the bath; I have my work cut out for me."

"I don't think-"

"Hurry, okay?" said marble. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Madam Bashar is mean when she feels impatient." She made claws with her hands, and Nicholas eyed the woman's nails. They looked like they'd hurt.

"Turn around," said sepia to her friend. "Have some decorum."

Giggling, they both gave him the minimal privacy of turning their backs. Nicholas deliberated slowly, weighing his options.

"What's that smell?" She sniffed the air. He hurried out of his clothes.

At least everyone else had lost interest and resumed bathing. A pair play-fought with their towels until the woman, Bashar, snapped at them.

If Nicholas forgot about the seven other people sharing it, the bath was pleasant. He took to a corner and immediately dunked beneath the warm water, cutting off any stray eyes. He tuned in to the feeling of tiny bubbles budding from his skin, taking with them days of grime. He focused on the pinprick tickles they left behind, on holding his breath, on anchoring his body downward even as it yearned to go weightless. The chatter from above was distorted, and he liked that.

"Saints," said sepia when he resurfaced. Marble was behind her, washing her hair with a foamy orange bar of soap. "Thought you'd somehow drowned in four feet of water." She held out a second bar. "I assume you'd prefer to do this yourself?"

Nicholas flushed at the prospect of onlookers watching him bathe, but she closed her eyes seconds later, humming gratefully as marble massaged suds into her scalp. Marble was too focused to pay him any mind.

Soon, he was the only one left in the bath. Everyone else milled about naked, robed, or toweling. A girl with coily hair approached from behind as Nicholas contemplated the best way to climb out with his dignity, startling him so bad he splashed her.

"Good grief, you're jumpy," she said, sitting at his back with her legs bracketing his shoulders. Something brushed the back of his neck and he splashed her again. "I actually wanted a second bath, thank you," she said dryly. "Relax. I'm combing your hair."

A towel patted over his head. "You, um. Don't have to."

"It will go faster if I do it. Now shh."

Something sweet drizzled onto the back of his hair, cool against his scalp, followed by graceful fingers rubbing it in, then a comb raking through his curls. It felt so nice, he quickly got over the bare body behind him.

She took her time detangling and didn't bother with small talk. When the job was done, she left wordlessly, like that had all been very normal. The marble girl came to Nicholas with a towel that he wrapped around his waist. Everybody was situated on stone benches past the columns now, holding small mirrors with one hand and powdering their faces with the other. They shuffled about helping each other, and Nicholas saw that easy contact and unrequested aid were normal to them. He couldn't imagine being that comfortable with anyone.

Bashar's wide hands on his back made his skin crawl. She draped a robe of blue silk over his shoulders and ushered him over to the benches, grumbling, "Count yourself lucky I always pack extras. Honestly, not even a warning! I'll have to redo the entire arrangement. What House are you from, anyway?"

Nicholas inelegantly tied the robe around his front and shimmied out of the towel. "Ma'am, there's been a mixup, or- I'm-"

"Tsk," she clicked her teeth, "You take too long. And it's 'madam.'" Her plum-colored dress and the feathers hemming her robe mopped the concrete as she whisked away to a far bench. She was back a moment later, holding what looked like a hundred strings of crystals. She clicked her teeth again. "Foolish boy, I have to take measurements."

She reached for the tie of his robe. Nicholas jumped away. "You've got the wrong idea."

The madam's whole chest lifted with an aggravated huff. "You are testing my patience."

"I'm sorry, madam, but-"

"If you have complaints, take them up with whoever sent you here."

"I don't think he meant to." The moment he heard the words in his own voice, Nicholas realized he had no grounds for them.

When Bashar reached for his robe again, Nicholas' knee-jerk reaction was to swat her hand away. Her expression turned hideous. "Touch me like that again, boy," she dared, malice on her tongue.

"Sorry! Sorry, I just-"

"You will be ready in fifteen minutes, or you will walk on your toes onto the dais." She threw the crystals at his chest. As she flounced away, she hissed, "You had really better hope that fits."

Everybody on the benches stared at him.

"You're selfish, you know?" said the boy with the waist. "Now we all have to deal with her mood."

"I've waited years for this night," snarled the other boy. "If you ruin it for us-"

"Who the hell hired you, anyway?" The girl who spoke said you like she hated its taste.

Another girl, who looked like she didn't want to be there any more than him, angrily said, "We're all fucked if you make us late. Unlike you, the rest of us have to go home with her."

It kept coming from all sides, their berating and their glares. Nicholas's mind resorted under their onslaught to its usual defense mechanism for situations such as these.

Ever the opossum, it shut down.

The marble girl took pity on him. "Why don't I help you with your makeup, first?" she offered, nodding toward a far bench. Nicholas followed her, compliant and unspeaking. He kept his eyes open as she poked around them with kohl even though it burned.

After a few minutes, sepia knelt on the floor beside the bench. Nicholas saw that the strings of crystals were actually supposed to be a costume, one that left very little to the imagination. He felt lightheaded. Had Rayan ordered Cairo to trap him here? If his move was to break Nicholas' spirit and make him talk, public dehumanization was a strong first step.

"It really is your first job, isn't it?" marble asked as she brushed through his lashes. "Chin up, love, you're very fortunate. You've reached the apex at record speed. The king's personal courtesan. It's the job we all dream of. Those of us who choose to be here, at least."

"You won't have to do much," said sepia. "Just pose around the throne, and if a man asks you to dance, dance. We'll be right up there with ya."

"I find it so peculiar that His Majesty allows his courtesans to be swept away by other men. Doesn't look very kingly."

"Look again, dear. It is a flex of his station." She puffed out her cheeks and her chest. Tightly-strung crystals shifted precariously over her breasts. "You may have them for a dance, but I'll have them for the night."

"The night?" Nicholas croaked.

"That's the idea," said marble. She leaned in close. "But Fatima's served at his birthday three years, and she says the king has never bedded even a single whore. He must be very discerning."

"Birthday?"

"What an honor it would be to earn his fancy," sighed sepia.

"Forget honor. Have you seen him?" marble fanned herself with her powder puff.

"What did Madam Bashar mean?" Nicholas asked softly. "About walking on my toes."

"Ah." Sepia's smile wavered. "She can't punish us where bruises or cuts might be visible. She'll slice the soles of your feet if you cross her."

Marble thumbed Nicholas' bottom lip away from his teeth and patted red over it. "Do you see?" she diverted. "Your only job is to sit up there and look pretty."

"I'm not..."

"You, my jewel, are very pretty."

That wasn't what he'd meant.

"What are your names?" he asked the only people who had shown him kindness since his world had flipped inside out.

The sepia girl answered Mariam, and the marble girl called herself Khadija.

When Nicholas did the mental math, it was in fact the twenty-third of July. And the king's birthday was an event that called for a ballroom.

It also apparently called for every noble Caldora had to offer. The massive room was well-filled, and everybody filling it looked expensive. Late into the night, the party was an afterimage of decorum; from what Nicholas could see, tucked into the shadow of one of the many archways lining the walls, the crowd was rowdy. Ties and updos were coming undone as esteemed guests romped to a dark, upbeat tune soaring from the orchestra on stage. Every hand seemed to hold a flute of champagne or a body.

The ballroom itself, with its ornate silver boiseries and the saints carved in metal into its ceiling, was so beautiful Nicholas normally would have stopped to wish he'd drawn it himself. His mind was a bit occupied, though, with the despair that hadn't left him since Madame Bashar herded them out of the bath through a backdoor that had been there the whole time, and the feeling of exposure that gnawed on his skin. He was fully dressed but felt more naked than he ever had.

Most of the colorless crystals hid against his hips under flowy ivory pants, but the fattest chain of them was visible. It sat beneath his navel, within the strip of midriff exposed between the pants and the matching sleeveless shirt that dipped low whenever he leaned too far forward. There were more crystals strung along his torso, and several set into silver cuffs around his upper arms. It wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't been filled in on how the night would proceed, with layers discarded every hour until every bead was on display.

Mariam and Khadija had frowned long and hard at the burn scars on his abdomen before tracing them in silver glitter. It'll just make you all the more eye-catching, they had placated, as if that made him feel better.

Servants emerged from the archway across from them to lay four large purple cushions on the steps of the dias surrounding the empty throne. A murmur went up. Nicholas was going to be sick.

The girls and boys from the House of Jasmine strode confidently onto the stage with a poached stray in tow. To distract himself from leeching eyes, Nicholas searched for Rayan in the crowd, packing a Yasmin-level glare.

He spotted the bodyguard's striking burgundy suit first, the tail of her waistcoat flowing around her legs like a beta fish's fin. As was her role, the king was close, but not too close. He stood in a corner talking to Cairo, reminiscent of an antisocial teenager at a party. He glanced up as cheering welcomed the courtesans' entry, but that was all. A glance, quickly disinterested once he recognized the reason for the noise. He returned to his champagne, raising the glass to thin-pressed lips. Nicholas noticed his left hand was devoid of rings. Nobody in the ballroom seemed to be wearing any, even though the noble class was made mostly of mages.

Cairo, on the other hand, surveyed the dais with mild curiosity. He did a double take, stopping mid-sentence as his face rippled with shock, sputtering something Nicholas couldn't hear from the stage but could tell was an expletive. Rayan followed his eyes. Cairo whipped a handkerchief from his coat pocket, raising it in front of the king's face just before Rayan choked on his sip.

The courtesans sank to their knees, two to a cushion, so Nicholas followed suit, dropping down next to Khadija. Rayan shoved Cairo's hand from where it wiped at his chin and started for the stage with his shoulders at his ears, but Cairo reeled him in and muttered something to him. Rayan straightened his posture, slowed his gait, and approached with all the grace expected of a king.

The crowd parted down the middle for him. Nicholas bowed with the others, hands clasped behind his back. He chanced a look and saw the king bending at the waist to his courtesans with his back to the crowd. He hadn't fully bowed his head. He was staring at Nicholas with burning eyes.

As soon as the other courtesans raised their heads, he shifted his gaze to his throne, and he walked past Nicholas to take it as if nothing was amiss.

Nicholas watched the way the drunken men in the crowd leered at the dais and wondered how the people around him, some clearly younger than him, could do this. They sat at the center of attention with unwavering grace, seemingly at ease despite the constant performance they were putting on, curving their spines and pointing their toes to elongate their legs, fanning their lashes with playful smiles. Poised unremarkably on his knees with his hands in his lap, Nicholas didn't know whether to admire them or fear for them. Then he remembered that he was right up there with them, under the same lecherous gazes. He fought the urge to let his shoulders curl forward. At the very least, he could fear for himself.

The first admirer approached the dais within a few minutes. He bowed deep and asked Rayan for 'the dark-skinned girl' without offering her so much as a nod. Rayan waved a dismissive hand, and the red-faced man led the girl who had combed Nicholas' hair into the crowd.

"You know the rules, Lord Rashi," Yasmin snapped from the edge of the dais before they got far. "Where we can see you."

Nicholas looked at Rayan, searching for answers he wouldn't find on the king's blank face. Seated on a tall throne two steps above, backed by a stained glass depiction of a fire-breathing bird, he was imposing as ever. Rayan was long, lithe, elegant in a threatening way. He had the same olivey tones as Yasmin and Cairo, but they were nearly lost on his pale skin. Tonight, the image of the Fogus warmed the moonlight, drawing out his complexion.

Rayan caught him staring. "You forget your place."

Nicholas turned his attention to the ballroom.

It went that way for some time. The first girl returned after three songs, and two more were led away. Khadija winked over her shoulder as she took a proffered arm. Nicholas hoped he would go unnoticed, surrounded by such beautiful people.

He was gripped by instant, clotting fear when a graying man stopped before the dais, poised in front of Khadija's cushion even though she had yet to return. He licked black-rimmed teeth and asked Nicholas about his evening.

"Fine," Nicholas clipped out, not at all sexy. He did not know these dances. He did not want to dance.

He was going to run. He could face the consequences later.

The man took his hand, and Nicholas stilled. He had never been good at running. Out of fight and flight, his body always chose freeze. He hated that about himself.

"If our king allows it," the man started to say, drawing Nicholas' knuckles toward his mouth. Instead of kissing them, he drew furthur to deeply breathe in the jasmine dabbed onto Nicholas' bangled wrist. "It would be my great pleasure-"

His hand was snatched away in a black-gloved grip. Rayan crouched beside Nicholas, holding the man's wrist.

"He isn't dancing."

The man's throat bobbed. Around Nicholas, the courtesans looked at each other. A clock chimed - the turn of an hour. The band switched to something lively that rapidly crescendoed, urging, and nobles hollered as Khadija kicked off her skirt. The rest of the House followed suit, though their confused glances persisted, sometimes chased with envy. Rayan dropped the man's wrist and took Nicholas.' Someone whistled at them from the crowd.

"Come with me." He tugged Nicholas past an exasperated Yasmin and underneath an archway. Howling followed them out, as well as the scandalized gawking of the entire House of Jasmine.

He didn't stop until they were far enough that the band hardly reached. Then he rounded on Nicholas with fury simmering in his eyes, and said, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"