“Where will you be going, Bitrane?”

“My uncle’s taking me to a Primævan reserve. He says there’s excellent sport there.”

“I see. Well, if all else fails, perhaps you can bag a native or two!”

Zephyrin blocked out the chatter of the surrounding nobles as he and the student body milled outside the lyceum, waiting for the transportation that would either render them home or convey them to the train station. Most wouldn’t leave the capital; Zephyrin remembered reading that aside from the lords of the province of Keltia, the nobles of pre-Imperial Gaulyria had primarily dwelt in the capital. A state of affairs that had only contributed to the growing estrangement between the high and low classes, as well as a building resentment…

One by one the students departed, until finally the trickle slowed to a crawl and Zephyrin found himself among the remaining few. He began to wonder whether Foudris’ guardian had forgotten about his request, when an elegant coach passed through the ornate gate to halt in front of the academy. The driver dismounted and spoke briefly to a master, who pointed in Zephyrin’s direction; a brief exchange was had, after which Zephyrin mounted the vehicle that he hoped would bear him to a place where more answers were to be found than questions.

They were making surprisingly good time traveling from the lyceum to the 11th District. Zephyrin soon identified the reason why: altogether transformed from their formerly slushy, mud-slickened state, the roads had frozen over in a matter of weeks, greatly expediting the journeys of travelers. What their condition would resemble after the first heavy snowfall was another matter, but Zephyrin thought there was a chance his return to the lyceum would precede the next precipitous drop in temperatures.

Looking out whenever there was a build-up of traffic, it seemed to him that the pinched expressions and leanness of the faces of passersby had aggravated in the brief interval between last month’s school outing and today. The city’s residents were clearly feeling the effects of the cold, and the situation outside large urban centers would only be worse. Zephyrin saw one young man stare at his coach with smoldering eyes, and had the uneasy feeling that the youth had identified him as a noble. Though he knew full well the situation wouldn’t degenerate for some weeks yet, he was still glad when traffic decongested and the youth’s haunting visage was lost from sight.

Within another quarter of an hour they arrived, though contrary to his expectations the driver did not slow down to stop on the streetside, instead continuing through a broad coach gateway. Passing through it revealed a plain, cobbled courtyard over which the creamy, limestone facade of a three-story apartment looked out.

Descending from the coach, Zephyrin waited a moment as the driver cursed and bent down on his knee by the vehicle to fumble with a loose futchel, before turning to face the young, clean-shaven footman who had come out to greet him. “Zephyrin dy Valensis?”

“I am he.”

The servant inclined his head. “Please follow me, young sir. My mistress is expecting you.”

Zephyrin followed the footman, sparing a glance for the buildings depending on the primary residence. To the right of the apartment was located a kitchen, and a short distance from it was visible a stone stairway leading downward, undoubtedly to a wine cellar. It was a configuration that likely occasioned a great many inconveniences for the servants, particularly in these freezing temperatures, but which immunized their mistress from the hustle and bustle of their daily tasks and guaranteed the tranquility of her repose.

Looking up past the footman’s back at the Elladoran columns framing the apartment’s doors, Zephyrin put his hand on the stone balustrade to keep from slipping as he followed the man up the half-dozen icy stairs leading to the entrance. The arched doorway was surmounted by the sculpted head of a siren, its lips parted in mid-song—a bit of self-referential irony that, Zephyrin thought, gave him some indication of its proprietor’s character.

The servant opened the door and stood aside, allowing Zephyrin to enter the abode that would be his home for the coming fortnight.

“Who’s there?! Who’s there?!”

Startled by the shrill cry, Zephyrin stopped dead in his tracks. Looking for the owner of the strident yet strangely scratchy voice—it couldn’t be the ex-courtesan’s, could it?—his bewildered eyes arrested on a caged prisoner, who returned his gaze balefully.

“Calm yourself, Pyriphlegetonymus. Jano, cover him up,” spoke a voice from the shadows. A valet stepped forward wordlessly to procure and throw a blanket over the parrot’s cage, which submitted without protest to the sudden and unceremonious onset of localized nightfall.

As Zephyrin’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the parlor, the curtains of which were drawn, he thought he made out a seated human figure. “Pay him no mind; he has quite lost his wits. I received him as a chicklet forty years ago,” said the dry voice by way of explanation, “from the poet Redanius d’Acheulea. Now, child, come closer so that I can see you.”

Half-sunk in a taffeta sofa, the elderly woman in a pigeon blue dress with her hair styled in gray ringlets gave off an aura of staid respectability that was only reinforced by the tasteful decor of her lodgings. A double-shutter armoire with brass-wire handles, a charming end table of occidental make, clearly imported at great expense from Xhida across the Great Ocean, blue faience lining the mantel of the chimney, a longcase ebony pendulum clock… the former courtesan’s preferences clearly gravitated to the classics, with only the occasional exotic flair. Had he not known any better, Zephyrin would have considered her an ordinary, if well-off Kosmæan matron.

“Closer, my child. Of late my eyes have joined the rest of my members in betraying me.”

Now Zephyrin could make out her features. Leathery and yellowed like old parchment and taut as if stretched too tightly over her bones, the flesh of her face was blotched here and there, the brown spots sometimes verging on black. Zephyrin had difficulty finding evidence of the century’s most famous courtesan. Vestiges were more apparent in her hazel eyes and voice, which retained a certain liveliness and testified, however faintly, to the vivacity which had earned her the admiration of her suitors. Though degraded from elegance to dignity her tone was pleasant; more than half a century in the company of Gaulyria’s glittering notables had smoothened out an accent that carried only the barest hint of lower class origins.

Though without apparent interest, Mlle. Huron appraised Zephyrin with clouded eyes that were not unkind. He opened his mouth to greet her; the voice to speak next, however, was not his own.

“And you were just done telling me, dear Nini, of your insensibility to the charms of youth,” said a smooth masculine voice from behind Zephyrin, causing him to jump. When had the man entered? And why hadn’t he detected his mana? Turning to acknowledge the speaker, Zephyrin saw that he was aged as well, perhaps even more than Foudris’s guardian. Though deceptively tall and proudly erect, with a red-leather rapier-hanger attached to his belt, the soldierly attitude of the white mustachioed gentleman could not entirely mask the effects of time on his physique.

The man smiled beneath his mustache at Zephyrin, then addressed Mlle. Huron once more. “I spoke of beauteous youth, but little suspected that all along you had made arrangements to obtain such a fine specimen of it!”

“He is here at the request of my young ward, not I,” replied the elderly woman. “But while he is here I will not disdain his company, to be sure.”

“See that you do. There’s nothing like youth vicariously enjoyed for our common affliction. It is the most potent tonic and remedy for old age nature has yet devised. One day you’ll have firsthand experience of that yourself, my lad,” he added, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he gave Zephyrin a genial smile, which entirely failed to set him at ease. “And before you protest that a cure should be whole and effective, my dear Nini,” he continued, turning now to the elderly woman, “recall that wrinkles themselves are praiseworthy, as evidence of long years of sober reflection.”

“A consoling thought. And yet, dear friend, if we are to speak of wrinkles, I cannot help but share the following verses:

If the Goddess had deigned grant me the grace,

To ask me where women’s wrinkles to place,

I would have replied, ‘Dame, upon my soul,

I cannot lie: they best befit the sole!’”

As the silver-haired man twirled the ends of his mustache with an appreciative chuckle, Mlle. Huron’s milky eyes traveled to Zephyrin. “Now, child, let us not put off the proper order of things any longer. You are…?”

“Zephyrin Calon,” replied Zephyrin, spontaneously and unthinkingly following an inspiration. The words that would next come out of his hostess’s mouth would gladden him to have done so.

“I am Nydalie Huron, and this gentleman,” she said after a pause, languidly lifting her hand, “is Viscount Everard dy Valensis.”