House of Shadows(29)

Moonflower took this parcel and opened it out into a very fine keiso overrobe. Removing her deisa overrobe, she donned the one that marked her clearly as a keiso, her fingers lingering on the rich cloth as she tied the sash. Then she stood facing Mother.

A blue that matched Moonflower’s eyes, the robe was embroidered from hip to hem with the fine-cut leaves and delicate white blooms of her namesake. White moths with long feathery antennae and green-traced wings fluttered in a graceful spiral from shoulder to hip. It was a robe that had once belonged to Mother herself, and a very generous gift—though also one that would enhance the beauty of the House by bringing out the beauty of its newest daughter.

Narienneh said gently, “My daughter, you need fear nothing, for you are part of Cloisonné House. All your elder sisters will teach you and look after you and you must respect them and always be courteous and guard the honor and dignity of the House. Of them all, you must have an Elder Sister to guide your steps as you learn the ways of the flower world.” She sent a glance around the circle of keiso and asked, “Who will be Elder Sister to this youngest of our sisters?”

This had all been settled beforehand, of course. Rue straightened her back, and then bowed slowly and gracefully to the floor.

“Good,” said Mother. “Well offered. Go to Rue, my daughter, and she will teach you the ways of the flower world and of Cloisonné House.”

Moonflower bowed to Mother, straightened, went to Rue and bowed again, and then took her place behind the older keiso.

Mother rose, clapped her hands once, gently, and walked, her back straight, out of the studio. She did not seem to notice any of the keiso, and certainly not the deisa, though Lily sent her an angry sidelong glance as she passed her. The keiso left the room one at a time, in silence, in order of seniority—Rue neither early nor late in that precedence. Moonflower, though youngest in the House, nevertheless rose with her Elder Sister and went out with her; she would stay a step behind Rue for weeks, perhaps months, until she was ready to present herself on her own to the House and the candlelight district.

The deisa left after the keiso, Lily first among them. The line of her back was as straight as her natural mother’s, but with anger and offended pride rather than Narienneh’s effortless dignity.

Last of all—neither keiso nor deisa, nor quite a servant—Leilis rose from her place in the corner of the room. She gathered up the cups and carefully stacked them, six at a time, in the now-empty bowl. Then she threw a glance around the transformed studio. Drops of dark liquor marked the floor where each cup, dipped into the bowl, had scattered its own libation upon the polished wood. The floor would have to be cleaned and polished before the screens and cushions could be removed and the room restored to its ordinary function. Leilis would do this task, for it was not fitting that servants should so much as touch the liquor. And she was not, after all, quite a servant.


During the period of her keiso apprenticeship, Moonflower would sleep on a mat in Rue’s room, as she would live every moment with her Elder Sister. But she came alone to Leilis’s room even so, late that evening after most of the keiso and all the deisa had gone out about their duties.

“Rue said I should come,” she said, in her soft, gentle voice. She had put aside her elaborate keiso overrobe, so she now wore only a simple pale-blue underrobe.

Leilis had been sitting by her hearth, one hand resting on the largest of the cracked hearthstones, watching a small fire burn in the depths of the great fireplace and thinking about nothing. Or trying to think about nothing, while memories she had thought long put aside seemed to her to flicker among the flames. Long inured to loss, long past any natural bitterness… so Leilis had thought herself. She’d watched more than a few deisa assume their keiso robes, but Karah—was it the special exception made for her, or was it the girl herself who had brought Leilis’s half-forgotten anguish back to her so strongly? Looking up wordlessly at Karah now—at Moonflower—Leilis thought the girl’s inherent sweetness must be responsible. But though the memory of her own loss had become so sharp, Leilis somehow could not regret Moonflower’s ascension to keiso status, or the sense that she herself was in some way regaining a long-numbed capacity of feeling.

Moonflower slipped uncertainly into Leilis’s room, though Leilis had not yet answered the girl. She drifted a step forward, with a natural grace for which many young keiso would have traded their toes. “Rue,” she began, a little uncertainly, but then her voice firmed. She went on, “Rue said you persuaded Narienneh… Mother… to make me keiso. Even though I am only seventeen. She said I should come and thank you. I do thank you. I was afraid of Lily. The keiso… they are not truly like sisters, but even the ones who don’t like me don’t make me afraid.”