Page 50 of Up in Smoke

I scowled, and Sandro replied with a slight shrug.

How many times did he have to play the same game with Mansfield just to maintain some pretense of privacy? “All right. That made it perfectly clear that Mansfield really doesn’t like it when someone is not under his complete control.”

“He really doesn’t. I’m used to it, and he expects me to deactivate his little bugs the instant I come back from an errand. He does it to prove he can, not because he thinks he’ll get any information out of me.” Sandro shrugged. “It doesn’t help him that I’ve refined my magic for this enough where the intent is truly anything that might record our activities. I’m as worried about you as I am about myself.”

“Will that hit anything else in Asylum? Batbayar and Brent are being monitored, too.”

“I really don’t know, and I don’t dare step out of my home with that poem. However, anything that’s my property will be influenced. I made that change after you told me about the exterior recorders. I’m going to need to be a great deal more careful moving forward.”

We both needed to be careful. “Do you think he has more to cover than just the choirs in the South?”

“Knowing Mansfield and his obsession with power and wealth he doesn’t have, I expect this is just the beginning. Asylum is deep enough to withstand just about anything from the surface—and if he has enough innocent lives above him buffering Asylum, few would want to take the broad-scale assault route unless he’s doing something especially heinous. Now, if he’s murdering scryers to keep them quiet, that might count. We need to find out what has happened to those scryers. If he’s holding a lot of people hostage, this mess will be even more complicated. It’s one thing to wipe out his pawns in this storm game he’s playing, but it’s another if he is holding hundreds of lives hostage. Or thousands.”

I gestured around the room. “Isn’t he already holding thousands of lives hostage with his scheme here?”

“In a way, yes—but everyone who is here has chosen to be here. That said, I don’t know how the courtesan auctions worked out and if people were forced into the system. The lure of coming to Asylum would convince a lot of people to throw away their rights.”

“A little like I threw away my rights because I understood I couldn’t escape the auction. If I found a way to leave, I probably would have died, and I valued my life more than I valued freedom. I can’t win back my freedom if I’m dead, but it turns out that the courtesan deal was a pretty good one for me. I have money, I have a half-decent man, and I like my new parents. I’ve decided your parents are my parents now, and you’ll just have to deal with that. Just thinking about mine pisses me off. They wanted to sell me into slavery.”

“Worse, they wanted to sell you into prostitution, take your children, and rinse and repeat until you hit menopause,” Sandro grumbled. “I’m not a fan of your parents, so you can share mine. I honestly hadn’t been aware of my mother’s obsession with foxes, but it has worked out in my favor. That said, I haven’t been interested in all foxes. I’ve been interested in you.”

“I’m still coming to terms with my fox’s newfound dedication. She’d try any man once if given a chance, and right now, she’s only interested in you. That’s a little strange to me. I enjoy not having to fight her tendencies, though.”

Sandro chuckled, and he targeted me with a sly smile. “She probably loathes condoms right now, too.”

“I don’t think she’s really figured out what condoms and birth control are for, and in winter, she’s so determined to get some action she doesn’t really care as long as I help her get those itches scratched. I think she’s figured out she will not have problems this winter, so she’s happy.”

“In a way, it disturbs me that fox hybrids are so driven during the winter, but I am also very much looking forward to seeing what you’re going to do to me when winter arrives. At what point does your fox decide it’s winter?”

“Usually, she gets hot and bothered in late November or early December, sometimes a little early or later depending on the weather. When we were in the West, she got really confused during the winter; the weather didn’t get all that cold, so she was a lot more mellow than normal. It was a nice respite, though. Before, I tried to find some half-decent man who is aware of what condoms are and become his friend for a while. By a while, I mean however long it took to get him into bed and slink off after he served his purpose. Sometimes, I’d bar dive and see who came calling. Whatever got her off my back for a while. But I was a most devout worshipper of all things birth control.”

“And you definitely did a good job of dodging diseases. You were tested before the auction. Everyone interested in you was also tested.”

“Really? That surprises me. Why would everyone else be tested? Were you tested?”

“I get tested every six months and give my mother the records. That makes her feel better, and because I’m her heir, my general health is a family matter. She also wants to make sure I’m cared for properly when I am home. So, usually every six months, but sometimes every three months. It depends on my mood. My latest health record had been sufficient for the auction house, apparently. They don’t want to sell an uncontested courtesan for top dollar to have her get sick because of some randy bastard. And there are some pretty hefty penalties if I were to have gotten you sick with an STD. You are valuable. I am not.”

Like hell he wasn’t valuable. “I feel like I hadn’t paid enough attention to that whole mess.”

“You were sick and tired. That’s how the auction houses get a lot of people into the system; they take advantage of those circumstances ruthlessly, dress it up to be better than it is, and ultimately give the new courtesan a choice: gain health but lose liberty or lose it all.”

I winced, as I could understand why someone would make that choice—including myself. “Sick me wasn’t all that stupid, I guess.”

“When you were sick, you understood you weren’t getting out of the system, so you tried to make the most of a bad situation. And I’ll work hard to make certain you don’t regret that. I would have rather bought you myself, however. I meant to keep my word.”

“Your mother’s way was better,” I admitted. “She’s crazy, but she’s a nice crazy, and I like her. I like your entire family. Everyone seems kind.”

“That’s something my family has tried to cultivate in the matron and patron of the line. Dad balances Mom, and Mom brings an unhealthy amount of being nice and sweet to the table. Dad is the sense. Mom’s ruthless when she wants to be. I’ve definitely inherited my mother’s ruthlessness, so you’re bringing the nice, sweet, and sensible to the table. I have other good traits, but they usually get sidelined due to my tendency to roam. Dad secretly suffers from wanderlust, too, but he understands if he leaves my mother unattended, she’ll do many things he’ll regret. He does get to travel, but he doesn’t get to travel as much as he’d like.”

“Oh! Is that why your family has so many houses? It lets your mother move your father around so he feels like he’s able to roam a little?”

Sandro chuckled and nodded. “I think so. He’s going to get quite the surprise when it’s time for Mom to hand me the reins and they have their last baby, assuming they have one. Once the older brats can handle it and I’m ready to take over the family, she’s going to run away with Dad and explore. She is going to give him his ideal retirement because she got her ideal life as a mother running the household.”

“That’s so sweet.” I couldn’t imagine either of my parents doing that. At best, they’d be neutral and make it so they could tolerate each other. When I thought about it, I determined love had nothing to do with their situation.

In a way, I pitied them.

“Dad’s a softy, and from what my mother likes to say, he was a quiet softy who never had the courage to chase after her. She does the relentless chasing because she loves flustering him. Then he gets in a mood and chases her, which shocks the entire family and usually results in a new sibling on the way. Despite being involved in the courtesan system, they love each other and always have. Mom was freaking about your auction because she couldn’t afford to leave you running loose. Someone else would have bought you after forcing you into the market, but she didn’t want to ruin my chances with you, understanding it was a one-way street when she bought out your bounty from your parents.”