“No. Them.” Jesse’s brows narrowed. “The nobles. The ones who run it all. They said they’d give me a place to stay. Food to eat.”
Charon glanced at Yves. Even when teenagers took apprenticeships in pleasure houses, like Laurent de Rue had, they didn’t see clients until they were of age. “You were in one of those houses?”
“No. Different ones, near Red Harbor.” Jesse blinked quickly, and he raised his hands to clumsily rub his eyes with his wrist. “A noble there said he’s starting houses like they have here. He said it would make us rich.” He hunched his shoulders. “I didn’t earn a copper, when I could’ve done more working the docks on my own. So I stole from the kitchen on my way out, and they…hurt me.”
Charon could feel Yves looking at him. Pleasure houses had to be approved by the crown. Plenty of illegal brothels existed—there was no way to avoid that—but nobles were banned from starting any without the crown’s knowledge. It could ignite a civil war between the lower and upper classes, and there were far more commoners than nobles.
“Do you know the noble’s name?” Charon asked. “What they looked like?”
“I don’t know. I thought he was pretty at first. Tall. Dresses nice. He didn’t give me his name. We all just called him sir.”
“Can you describe the house?” Charon asked.
The boy frowned. “The door was blue.”
Slowly, Charon eased as much information from Jesse as he could. The boy’s memory was fogged by terror, but Charon pieced together a rough estimate of who he was and why he’d thought setting fire to the Pleasure District would free him. The noble who’d tormented him had spoken of coming “back” to Duciel, and Jesse had thought that meant he was in charge of one of the houses in the Pleasure District. He’d meant to burn them all, and Charon suspected that he’d thought that dying by fire would be more merciful for a courtesan than what he’d endured.
“They hang firebugs at the harbor,” Jesse said at last, “even though the king said no one gets hanged no more. Will they do that to me?”
“No,” Charon said. “I’ll do what I can to help you.”
Jesse sighed. “You’re not really from here, are you? I can tell. You still think they won’t hurt me if you ask them nice enough.”
When Charon finally stood, his knees cracked in protest. He helped the boy onto the cot, then turned to Yves. Yves looked on the verge of tears. Charon pulled him to his feet, and when he brought Yves to the cell door, he found the guard had fallen asleep in his chair.
“That’s comforting,” Yves said.
Charon shook the guard awake before he led Yves up the steps, but the soothing effect of his dominance would probably last for a while. When they emerged into the cool night air, he let go so Yves could walk off and kick a stone across the street.
“Whoever did that to him deserves to be ripped to shreds by dogs,” Yves snarled. He was crying, tracks running through the makeup he wore to hide his freckles. “I’m not saying he was right to do it, but his hands… He’s fifteen.”
“I know,” Charon said.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked questions myself.” Yves sighed heavily. “You shouldn’t have had to do that by yourself. It has to fuck you up, using your dominance like that.”
Charon thought of Aster saying much the same thing to Nikos long ago. “It isn’t pleasant, but it was necessary.”
Yves took a deep breath. “What do you need to come down from it?”
Charon raised his brows. “I’ll be fine.”
“You walked into a fire, saved someone’s life, and then used your dominance to calm down a tortured kid. Let’s just assume you’re not fine.I’mnot fine, and I was just watching.”
Charon almost brushed it aside, but he thought of Aster lying in his arms, pitying Nikos for what the interrogators made him do. “I never learned what makes it better.”
Yves looked like he wanted to kick something again. “We’re going to tell Sabre what we heard, and I’m staying in your room tonight.” Charon opened his mouth, and Yves shook his head. “You’ll have to tie me to my bed otherwise. Just let someone else take care of you before you decide to, I don’t know, overthrow the monarchy on your day off and install a republic.”
“That might be beyond my skill,” Charon said.
“Good.” Yves smoothed down his hair with shaky fingers and grabbed Charon by the arm. “It’s about time that you found a limit.”
Yves scrubbed out the tea kettle in Charon’s room and tried not to think about the smell of charred wood drifting through the Pleasure District.
He knew that life wasn’t exactly charmed for most courtesans. It certainly hadn’t been for Sabre de Valois, when he’d been sentenced to serving in the district after his family was charged with treason. If it was seen as a punishment only slightly better than being hanged at the gallows, it could probably stand to undergo a change or two.
But Yves hadn’t really considered it much. Being a courtesan had been so simple for him—almost laughably so, after a lifetime of raising his own siblings and working on the farm. It was easy to ignore the ugly, dark corners of the district when he was living in the House of Onyx with a carefully curated list of devoted clients.
He thought of the way the boy had leaned toward Charon like a whipped dog seeking a gentle hand, and had to set the kettle down and stare into the fireplace. Unfortunately, that only made him think of Charon rushing into the fire in the House of Silver.
