City of a Thousand Dolls by Miriam Forster Read Free Book Online

placed her papers together in a neat pile and took a deep breath.
    “Nisha”—she paused—“Nisha, do you know why I chose you as my assistant?”
    The question was so unexpected. All the theories she’d had since she was a little girl flew out of her head. “You always said I was too old to train,” she said slowly. The words stung as they left her lips.
    Nisha closed her eyes, remembering the day she’d come to the City of a Thousand Dolls. The cold stone at her back and the smoothness of a carved toy cat in her hands. A gift , her father had said. Spotted cats are good luck. This one will look after you .
    Then he had kissed her on the forehead and told her to sit near the gate and not go anywhere while he gathered mushrooms.
    He had never come back, and Nisha hadn’t seen her mother again either. Eventually Nisha had accepted that she, like the other girls, had been abandoned. Sometimes she wondered what her parents had found so awful about her that they’d left her here.
    Once Nisha realized that her parents weren’t coming back, she had begged Matron to let her go into a House as a novice. To dance at the House of Music, or to train at the House of Combat, anything to give her a place to belong. But Matron had always said that the Council’s decision was that she was too old to make a proper novice. If she’d come to the City as an infant, like most of the girls here, it would be different. But Nisha had been six when she came to the City.
    Nisha opened her eyes, chasing the memories away. “I don’t know, Matron. I thought it was the only place you could find for me.”
    Amusement flashed across Matron’s face. “I could see why you would think that,” she said. “But we could have given you to one of the House Mistresses as an assistant too, or put you to work in the kitchens.”
    “But I served you,” Nisha said, wondering at the exchange. “Why?”
    A momentary bitterness twisted Matron’s mouth before her face smoothed into her normally placid expression. “I didn’t have much choice,” she said. “For reasons I can’t discuss, I was forced to be your advocate. But I don’t regret it. You have been invaluable to me as an assistant and as a source of information.” She hesitated. “And I’m afraid that your value to me has put you in danger.”
    Nisha burst out with a nervous laugh. “Who cares about me?”
    “No one, usually,” Matron said with blunt cruelty. “But the new head of the Council, Akash tar’Vey, does.”
    Nisha held herself perfectly still, masking the jolt of surprise she felt at hearing the tar’Vey name. The new Council Head was a member of Devan’s family?
    Unease crawled like a long-legged mantis over her skin. This appointment gave the tar’Vey family even more power. Made it even less likely that they would ever let Devan speak for her, even if he did want to go to his family with the idea.
    Nisha held her breath and waited for Matron to mention Devan. But instead, Matron said something completely unexpected.
    “Nisha, today the City lost a novice, one who was spoken for by a very wealthy and powerful man. A man who has already paid us a great deal of money. If we cannot find a girl to replace her, then we will have to pay him back. Akash tar’Vey believes he has found an easy way to quickly get some of the money we need.” She took a deep breath. “Nisha, the Council wants to sell you.”

 
    Three things should never be trusted
    The scales of a rival
    The gold of a Kildi
    And the smile of a nobleman
    Bamboo caste merchant’s proverb

6
    “SELL ME?” THE words echoed in Nisha’s head like the ring of a gong. For a moment, she thought she had heard wrong. “They don’t own me.”
    “No,” Matron said, “they don’t. But you have no caste or family, like most of the servants do, and you have not been accepted as a novice in the City. You can claim the advantages of neither novice nor servant. Akash says that makes you the perfect