The Black Dove, The Waterfront
It was day; morning, by the bright sun streaming through the blinds. Niccolette’s head ached, and her jaw too, from clenching it against a fit of weeping. She really, Niccolette thought tiredly, should know better by now. She let go of the soft dark cotton, took a deep breath, and turned to the mirror.
It was hard, at first, to focus on her reflection. Her eyes darted about, searching side to side, as if there was something to find. They settled on every interruption, every speck of dust, every ray of light. She waited herself out, slow and careful, until there was nowhere left to look, until, as if she could sneak up on herself, Niccolette caught the reflection of her own eyes.
She breathed, slowly and steadily, and watched herself. For a little while, it was all she could do to count her blinks, and so that was all she did. In time, Niccolette found that she could reach for her make up, the eye black and lip color, and paint them slowly on, a thin steady running of black around her eyes, and a soft pink for her lips. She touched the too-sharp lines of her cheekbones, and grimaced, but there was little she could do now.
Niccolette stood, and covered the mirror again before she went. She settled Uzoji’s robe back on its hook, and went to the closet, searching carefully through it. She found a pale brown dress she liked; it was looser than it should have been in the bodice and the waist, Niccolette thought regretfully, but fully buttoned over one of her thicker corsets, she felt it would pass.
Niccolette pulled on her boots last, laced them up, and picked up her reticule. She took the envelope the maid had brought her with the breakfast she had not touched, tucked it away, and took herself outside.
The sun stung at her eyes; Niccolette was not exactly sure when she had last gone out, and she thought perhaps it was for the best she not remember. She lifted her chin, steadied herself, and made her way from Quarter Fords, hailing a cab when she reached a main road. She climbed into the back, drew the blinds against her headache, and rattled steadily through the Rose.
The Black Dove was a disreputable mess at night; she had never been there in the morning, but Niccolette was not surprised to learn it was no different then. Niccolette could not have said, as she stepped inside, whether the drinking and brawling had continued from the night before, or started afresh with the dawn. She stepped neatly around two men grappling with one another with only the faintest glimmer of professional interest at the bleeding gash on one’s head, and found somewhere where she could look around, once her eyes adjusted to the gloomy, slightly smelly, distinctly sticky dark.
She was not in the least surprised to find Demkaih Alkrim looking as comfortable here as he had in her kitchen. Perhaps, Niccolette thought, with the vaguest sense of something like regret, more comfortable here.
The Bastian took a deep breath, and strode unerringly and unhesitatingly through the bar, skirt neatly lifted above the sticky floor in one small hand. She made no effort to go around two men crossing to the counter, and indeed she did not need to; they held back at the edge of her field, and neither said a word about it.
Niccolette stopped next to the much taller Mugrobi, and looked up at him. She offered him no hellos, no inquiries, no well wishes. Instead, Niccolette set her reticule down, took out the letter from the envelope she had brought with her, and smoothed it down before him, her eyes as bright and sharp as her field. “What do you make of it?” She asked, and raised her eyebrows.
Come alone to Dread Isle tonight at 30 o’clock.