Page 15 of The Isles of the Gods
“I usually work at Ruby Red,” she replies, reaching under the counter and producing an envelope, then sliding it acrossto me. “A girl left this for you.” Our fingertips touch as I take it from her, and her gaze flickers up to meet mine and tell me it wasn’t an accident.All right, then.Maybe when I get back.
“Lorento taking a night off for once?” I ask as I break the seal, pulling out the single sheet inside.
“I heard he retired,” she replies casually, and I go still, my gaze flicking up to her. In our business,retirementdoesn’t mean a place on the porch with your grandchildren. But Lorento? After all these years? What could he possibly have done, and why, for Ruby to…?
“Huh,” I make myself say, glancing one more time at the bar, picturing him standing behind it in one of his embroidered waistcoats, telling me wild stories about the way the gangs ran when he was a kid. I let myself have that moment, that memory. Then I pack it away and turn my attention to the letter in my hand. I can’t be distracted today.
It’s a report from inside the Alinorish ambassador’s office—confirmation the prince has kept to his plans. I tuck it into my waistcoat and lift my gaze to the girl behind the bar. I’m twisted up inside—anticipation fizzes alongside the knowledge that everything rides on this. I need to release a little of it, find a way to blunt the edge.
“You know,” I say, “I think I’ll have a glass of champagne before I head in.”
She reaches under the counter once more, and produces a cut-crystal glass with a sugared rim, setting it in front of me. “Let me make you something new instead,” she says, getting to work. “You’ll lovethis.”
“I’d love champagne more.”
“I’m sorry, but Ruby…” She shoots me an awkward, apologetic glance as she mixes up something pink and full of bubbles.
Ruby said she doesn’t want her little sister drinking booze, is what she means. And that’s exactly why tonight matters so much. After I pull this off, I won’t be anyone’s little anything. For now, I pretend my cheeks aren’t heating up, and I shrug like it doesn’t matter much either way.
She slides the drink across. I take a sip, bubbles tingling on my tongue, and taste peaches, though it’s not the season. I try to think about that luxury, instead of the petty humiliation of her embarrassed refusal.
Never stop enjoying these things,Ruby always says, and she’s right.
She and I know what it’s like to be hungry. We know what it’s like to live on someone else’s charity. It’s been years, but no matter how I go to sleep, sprawled out with my arms and legs reaching for every corner of the bed, I still wake up in the morning exactly the same way. Every morning, crammed in against the wall, right over on one side of the mattress to make space for my mother and my sister in the same bed, even though nobody’s been there for years.
Some things don’t change. Even here in the club, inside, Ruby and I are still the girls who watched Mama leave to go up the coast, north to Nusraya.
I’ll send for you as soon as I’ve made a place,she said, and Ruby had to peel me off her while I sobbed my tiny heart out. I think I knew already it was goodbye.
None of Ruby’s people know where we came from, where we were before we worked our way up. That the very buildingthis club occupies used to be a boardinghouse, and the two of us used to huddle in the cheapest room they had. We keep that between us, one of the thousand things that bind the pair of us together.
Sometimes it feels like I’ll always be the girl who watched Ruby getting dressed to go out at night, braiding back her hair, slipping a knife up her sleeve.
Stay home,she’d tell me.Stay quiet. Let me handle it.
And I’d stay huddled in the dark, first in the dank room Mama rented for us when she left, and when the money ran out and she didn’t come back, somewhere up on the top floor of this place.
Sometimes I’d creep to church and sit in the back few rows. Macean was a god bound by a fate he didn’t choose, and the green sisters said he needed our faith to set himself free.
Now Ruby owns the building we used to hide in. But we both remember what it was like to be powerless, to jump at unexpected sounds and know everything could be taken from us, as it was so many times as we tried to climb.
And we willneverbe like that again.
Ruby’s built her empire with a strength and focus most people can’t even dream of, and she’s never stopped, never wavered.
Thing is, I’m older now than she was when she got her start, andstillshe doesn’t see me as an adult.
I’m like my god—I need faith too. It will strengthen me enough to throw off the bonds of always being the little sister,herlittle sister.
And finally I’ve brought her an idea that’s made her pay attention. That’s made her really look at me, see I’m ready.
Macean is the god of risk, and tonight I begin the biggest gamble of my life.
I sip my drink again, lick the sugar from my lips.
Tonight, my sister’s going to let me in.
And I’m so hungry for it.
