Normally, Tillie didn’t mind being the object of everyone’s gaze. But today, the crowd loitering in the street wasn’t drawn to her orange-red curls or her height or regalness. They weren’t viewing her with lust or envy or simple admiration. Today, they were eyeing her with sympathy.

Even without the surveyor standing guard at Tillie’s door, any passersby would know what those otherworldly screams coming from within meant—affliction. Some hurried by while gawking over their shoulders. Others congregated in the narrow street, forming a semicircle around her door. Tillie stood there, head held high, eyes trained forward on the surveyor.

He was young, barely a man but already so grim. She inspected his uniform—dark leather pants tucked into calf-high boots, a trench coat with the collar up, grazing the bottom of his tricorn hat. One hand rested on his hip. The other held his glaive, a long, wooden rod capped by a steel blade. Inside, another such polearm was currently shredding her father into innumerable pieces. He was afflicted, and the only fate for affliction was a mercy killing.

The ghastly screams ripped through the thin wooden walls and warped windowpanes. The surveyor looked at Tillie stoically. To him and his kind, afflictions were a common sight. In the lower city alone, there was at least one mercy killing a week. With all the houses pressing against each other and the crowding barely alleviated by the choked cobblestoned streets, it was a wonder there weren’t more.

Another set of screams issued from the house, more feminine than the last. Tillie’s mother had chosen to stay by her husband’s side, despite the danger. Tillie took one step forward. The surveyor held up his gloved hand. She slumped back, wishing she could be absorbed into the crowd, just be another nameless, faceless low blood watching someone else’s horror unfold. But this time, it was her horror, her nightmare.

The screaming subsided into muffled gurgling, then ceased altogether. The door flung open, and another surveyor stepped out. Tillie felt like she had just stepped in front of a mirror. Hair the same fiery shade, eyes a similar hue of green, the height, the figure, all of it so achingly familiar. But the likeness ended there, for this woman was a surveyor, evidenced by her fine leather garb rather than the faded linen dress Tillie bore. And beyond that, her essence breathed high blood, her fine breeding apparent in the way she tossed her hand, raised her eyebrows, and craned her neck.

She shared a few words with her male colleague, then raised her voice. “The daughter,” she said before retreating inside.

The male surveyor beckoned Tillie over with a wave. As she approached, he stepped aside and ushered her in, then shut the door behind. The chatter and bustle of the lower city midday streets hushed. Inside, the lighting was dim, the sun’s rays neutered by the overcast skies and the grime coating the windowpanes. But Tillie didn’t need sight to tell her of the carnage. She smelled it. That twinge of iron floating in the small room, intermingled with feces.

“She strayed beyond the ward, and a bit of distortion-laden viscera landed on her,” the surveyor man said, pointing.

Tillie followed his finger. There were the floorboards, soaked with blood and peppered with chunks of flesh, countless bloody fragments of her father, the only way to keep his non-Euclidean parts from overtaking him entirely. But beyond was a larger form, inert, lying on the floor. Curls of gray with remnants of orange-red, a faded striped dress, hands that had healed and helped and coddled Tillie all twenty-one years of her life.

“We wanted to give you a chance to speak with her before we perform the mercy killing,” he added.

The look-alike stepped in and stood beside Tillie’s mother. “I’ve constructed a ward around her. You can come as close as it, unless you wish to repeat her folly.”

Tillie moved to the woman’s side, then gazed down at her mother. She was lying face up, her eyes staring at the ceiling, her breath faint and labored.

“Ma?” Tillie said.

The eyes strayed to hers. Recognition took. Her mother smiled, then tears streamed down her cheeks. “So sorry, Till. I messed up. Got too close. I shouldn’t have stayed. Should’ve been out there with you. I just, I just, I don’t know, didn’t want your Pa to be by himself at the end.”

Tillie went to reach for her mother’s hand to console her, but the surveyor woman grabbed her wrist and held tight.

“No closer than this,” she said. “She’s afflicted. We don’t know where the distortion embedded itself.”

Looking at the streaks of gore that were her father decorating her home’s floorboards and realizing that her mother would soon follow, her remains intermingled with his, Tillie wondered why she shouldn’t join them to complete this twisted family portrait.

The front door opened, flooding the room with light, making the unreality real. The comfort of darkness returned once the door shut. A new arrival stood in their midst, clad in a deacon’s gray robes with a pale-yellow sash. Incense floated in the air. Tillie stepped back from the ward, and the look-alike released her wrist.

“You’re late,” the look-alike said. “The daughter requires your services.”

The deacon approached until he stood at Tillie’s side. He smiled at her, his unstained teeth exposing him as high blood. Here today, she had at least two of the upper class in her humble home, and all it had taken was for a distortion to undo her world.

But that’s what they did, the distortions. Blighting space-time, converting the holy symmetries of the Euclidean into perversions, forcing reality to mutate into a senseless facsimile of itself, the laws of physics and mathematics turned on their heads, the mind unable to comprehend. And when these distortions touched human flesh? Affliction, that disease of corruption forcing itself onto the body and twisting it into a literal horror impossible to make sense of. Limbs doubled, tripled, gone where they’d been before, sprouting from new regions altogether. Mouth and teeth on palms, on throats. Eyes everywhere, blinking or lidless, staring with a manic intensity. None of these transformations static; the afflicted continuously metamorphosing.

And while these physical perversions could be the fuel of nightmares when the affliction was far advanced, the worst of it was the unending torment that was existence for any who became afflicted. For the afflicted had been touched by the non-Euclidean, which meant they were no longer prey to the laws of reality, including time. They did not die, could not, in fact, save by the complete and total dismemberment that was a mercy killing.

Tillie’s mother groaned.

“Whenever you’re ready,” the deacon said.

These were Tillie’s last moments with her mother, her last chance to share words, but Tillie’s mouth was a desiccated husk, her mind a blank. What was there to say? Better to spare her of her pain and ease her suffering.

“Set her free,” Tillie said, her voice shaking.

“We bring rot to the undying,” the look-alike said to Tillie.

Yes, for rot was blessed. Rot meant the non-Euclidean had been purged, and the afflicted could find peace in death.

“Blessed is the Rot,” the deacon murmured. “The Rot of the Link, the Rot of the body, the Rot of the world.”

Tillie and the two surveyors joined in, all four of the room’s unafflicted chanting the prayer in unison.

“The Rot of the Link is freedom, freedom from the tyranny the Others would thrust upon us. The Rot of the body is comfort, comfort in knowing we are free of affliction. The Rot of the world is purity, purity of space and time saturated in the laws of the Universe. Blessed is the Rot for it signals the Euclidean reigns.”

The prayer was complete, and a semblance of calm descended on the room. The deacon took Tillie’s hand and led her away, out the front door, into the street, down the thoroughfare, around the corner, twists and turns. It was all a blur to Tillie, her world a series of still images, flashes of scenes interspersed with a blackness, nothingness, her mind trying and failing to grapple with what had happened.

The cobblestone street began to slope up. The sad hovels of sagging wood and crumbling brick shifted into gray limestone cut neat and clean. The buildings grew taller and statelier, numerous shining windows holding flower boxes on their sills, each brimming with curated selections of vibrant flora—marigolds, poppies, pansies. They were in the upper city.

Their trek ended at an iron bench in a park. It was early summer, not yet warm at midday, but still, the crisp air under the eaves of trees was a welcome relief to Tillie. So too were the scents. This was wholly unlike the lower city, and Tillie very much wanted to forget that place and what was currently happening there. A pang of guilt. Here she was, alive, free of affliction, wandering the upper city with a high blood.

“Have you ever been to this park?” the deacon asked.

Her attention shifted away from her turmoil and settled on him. She was shocked by the sight, exposed now in broad daylight, the perfection. Dark eyes and hair. Brown skin. Young, eager, elegant. Another pang of guilt. How could she even think of beauty at a time like this? Tillie rested her hands on her lap, folding one over the other. She shook her head in response to his question about the park.

“I don’t think many in the lower city are aware of it,” he added, “but you know, it’s here for everyone. The Church maintains it. You can come whenever you like.”

This deacon was unlike the other clergyfolk she’d known in their dingy little chapels in the lower city, haranguing on and on about the importance of the rituals, the beauty of symmetry, and the divineness of the Euclidean. Tillie had never put much stock in it until today. When she’d seen the other side of holy.

“The mercy killings . . . will they free my parents from torment?” Tillie asked.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, given the manner in which the mercy killings are made, but your parents will be at rest.”

Yet there would be no true grave for either, the countless pieces of each spread out, buried in disparate locations allocated for that very purpose, all to ensure neither was able to reaggregate. So they would truly find peace; that was the important point. Whether Tillie visited partial graves or not was insignificant compared to freeing them.

“And my home . . . when can I go back?”

The deacon frowned, then reached for Tillie’s hands, still folded in her lap, but he stopped himself short.

“You can’t, I’m afraid. The surveyors need to check for more distortions, and if there are any, the house will have to be warded off.”

She’d known that, in the back of her mind, but her thoughts persisted in being a jumbled mess.

“Where do I go, then?” she asked.

“Have you any family? Any friends?”

Family? Her mother and father were all she had, and they were gone. Gone. A hollowness gripped her gut until she remembered that she wasn’t wholly alone. Gemma would take her in, at least for a little while, but what of the long term? Maybe she could find more washing work. She would have to earn much more now that she would be on her own. On her own. That emptiness thudded in her abdomen, so potent, so heavy, that this time, she doubled over.

“Are you alright?” the deacon asked.

“This . . . this doesn’t feel real.”

If she cried, would it help somehow? Is that why people did that when they were upset? But no tears came, just the ache and a sudden restlessness running through her body like a thousand ants marching in waves.

“Do you have somewhere you can go?” the deacon asked.

“I do.”

“I’ll take you there,” he said, rising from the bench.

Tillie stood, brushed off her dress, and forced herself to straighten her back.

He smiled at her. “I only really noticed it now,” he said, “but actually, the resemblance is uncanny.”

“To the surveyor woman?” she asked.

“So you noticed it too, despite everything?”

“I seem to be noticing and not noticing, on and off, like my mind can’t make up what it wants to think about.”

“That’s not unexpected. Traumatic moments have a tendency to do that. In fact . . . ” He stopped and frowned. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this. Ask me to proofread a sermon or teach you a formula to use for a ritual, and I’ll do so marvelously. But providing consolation? I’m the definition of useless.”

“Then let’s talk about something, anything else,” Tillie suggested. “Tell me about my look-alike. What’s her name?”

“Sophie Roshem, Lady Sophie Roshem.”

---

“How much longer you gonna be here, huh?” Jacub asked, chewing a piece of half-stale bread.

A spray of crumbs came out with his question, littering the wooden tabletop. Tillie gazed at the detritus.

“Jacub!” Gemma shouted.

She came around the hanging sheet that separated their bed from the main space. Gemma had put it up back when Tillie moved in with them over a month ago. It shielded eyes, to be sure, but allowed noises to pass right through. Tillie was already aware that she had overstayed her welcome, but in case she wasn’t, Jacub was making it doubly clear, in his way.

“You can stay as long as you need,” Gemma said.

She moved in strange arcs, bobbing and weaving and bouncing, all to appease a little bundle that would otherwise erupt into screams. Gemma and Jacub’s son wasn’t even three months old. Tillie was just another burden on their already taut nerves.

But Tillie was on edge too, equal parts exhausted and anxious. From two hours before sunrise to an hour after sunset, she worked. The laundering hadn’t panned out, so she’d moved on to something else. She was now a seamstress, working twelve hours a day, six days a week, in a large, dark warehouse, among nearly thirty other women. She’d been at it for just over two weeks, and already her eyes and fingers and back ached. She couldn’t keep it up much longer.

“Actually,” Tillie said. “I heard of a place for rent. I’m going to look at it today.”

“Good,” Jacub said, tearing another piece from his bread and chewing slowly, mouth open and smacking with each bite, predacious eyes hungry for something else.

This was yet another reason Tillie was eager to leave. His hostility she could weather, but his lusting? It was unbearable. So far, she’d managed to avoid being alone with him in the house, but her luck wasn’t going to last. Jacub was strong, and she knew how that would end.

“Well, I’m off,” Tillie said, rising from the table.

Jacub’s eyes followed her every movement. She gave Gemma a hug, the baby a kiss, then headed out the door. It was her one free day of the week. Outside, it was sticky and hot. Tillie hurried down the street. As she navigated the thoroughfares, Tillie passed a home with a door boarded off and heavily warded. Her footfalls slowed then stilled. She gazed at the threshold, eyes scanning the symbols and numbers painted on. A permanent ward. A structure balustraded against the non-Euclidean threat that lurked within.

Was this how her own home looked? She wouldn’t know, seeing how she’d avoided returning to it ever since that fateful day. That was the past, ugly and tainted, and she couldn’t afford to dwell on it. She didn’t have that luxury, for if she stopped but a moment, that dark cloud of grief would threaten to undo her. To survive in the lower city meant to press on and bury the pain deep.

So that’s what Tillie did, turning from the warded door, forgetting she had even glimpsed it, continuing with the task at hand, onward to the house she hoped to rent. It was in an especially bad part of the lower city, known for issues with petty theft, but there weren’t many options for someone on her income. The way, at least, was mostly clear of other foot traffic; the heat had forced people into inaction, sitting in the shaded streets, homes turned into ovens by their lack of ventilation. Tillie trotted by them. Most said nothing, just watched her. Some of the more brazen men called to her. She pretended not to hear them. So strange that beauty could be such a curse, depending on one’s station. If she lived in the upper city, her looks would serve her well. They would guarantee a good marriage, a bustling social circle, security, and safety. Here, among the less fortunate, beautiful things were a liability. What man would want to wed her? Bed her, yes, but not wed. She was a dangerous thing to lay claim to. Too coveted. To be poor and beautiful was an awful fate for a woman.

Tillie approached the door of the rental and knocked, the waterlogged wood of it depressing under her overworked knuckles. She waited a good twenty seconds for a response. When none came, she rapped again. Still, no one answered. Tillie had no choice but to wait on the front step in expectation of the landlord. The sun was high in the sky, so there was only one spot where she could manage to avoid its brutal rays. She sat in it. During the first half hour of her vigil, she was pestered nearly eight times. In these instances, Tillie did what she found worked best—refusing to make eye contact, staying silent, and, for the most tenuous harassers, scratching herself and mumbling nonsense in hopes of putting them off.

After the last in the series, she debated giving up on her watch, but then a bell tolled, fixing her to the spot. She fumbled in her dress, fingers grazing a notepad and graphite stick. She pulled them free and brought in her knees to use as a makeshift table. Tillie scribbled away. So did everyone else in eyesight. No matter what they had been doing, no matter how time-sensitive or urgent the task, the tolling of the bell and the ritual it signaled took precedence.

Tillie touched her graphite stick to paper and set about invoking the harmony of the Euclidean. A circle as round and flawless as possible. A dot in the center. A straight horizontal line to the circle’s edge, labeled “r.” Then, beside the geometric form, Tillie wrote out the Sacred Formula of the Circle’s Area: A = πr², the same she’d been taught as a child by their chapel’s priest. She repeated the drawing and formula over and over again, page after page. It was the daily ritual, undertaken by all citizens of the city, low and high blood alike, three times a day, every day. They all did their part in keeping the non-Euclidean at bay by reminding reality of its purest, truest form. So said the Church.

Ten minutes later, the bell tolled once again, signaling the end of the ritual. Tillie was preoccupied stowing her notepad and graphite stick when a man with a red face and fat nose and lips flopped down next to her. Without offering even a word, his hands reached and ran over her torso and breasts. Tillie pushed him away and jumped up, fists balled, breath coming hard and fast.

“Aww . . . don’t be like that,” the man said. “Y’see, this here is my property. You want to hide from the sun in it, you gotta pay the price.”

Tillie stormed away. Clearly, she wouldn’t be renting from a man like that, but then, that meant she was back to square one. Still a burden to Gemma, and prey for Jacub. She had to keep moving both to combat her despair and to put some distance between her and that unpleasant encounter. She made her way through the winding streets, the very air growing hotter and stickier by the minute. The sun was overhead with shade even scarcer than before. She longed for rest, then noticed that she was near the Most-Holy Southeast Bell Tower, the same one that had only just signaled the rituals. Tillie ducked into the tower’s interior, away from the unholy heat. Given that the usual attendant was absent, she helped herself to his wooden stool and sat in blissful solitude.

Tillie laid her cheek against the cool stone of the tower wall and sighed in relief, then watched the heat undulate off the street. As she did so, a small, white form drifted by, softly descending on the wind until it was eclipsed by the rooftops and chimneys of adjacent buildings. A paper airplane. Then another. And another. Tillie counted ten before one dropped to the street just outside the tower. She rushed to retrieve it, her heart pounding, a smile spread wide across her face. She knew what it was. Everyone in the lower city did.

Tillie quickly snatched up the paper airplane before a stray gust could blow it out of reach. She opened it and spied several lines of text written in a neat, spidery script. She tried to decipher the symbols, extract their meaning, but Tillie couldn’t read. It didn’t matter. By nightfall, she would hear the poem from the plane, filtering through the streets by word of mouth. This happened every time. It was a special treat to the diversion-hungry folks in the lower city. The mystery. The intrigue. Who was the Paper Airplane Poet? What insights might be gleaned this time?

More airplanes floated on the wind originating from the top of the bell tower, Tillie’s tower. She gasped. When the poet descended from above, they would have to pass by her. She would learn who they were. But did she want that? Did she want to spoil the mystery?

Tillie gazed again at the writing on the paper. So delicate and fine. The writer was more than just literate; they were refined, sophisticated. A high blood? All the horrid things that had happened to her today and in the days before, they had all led her to this moment. Would she toss this gift of fate aside? She was running low on options. Backed into a corner. This was an opportunity.

Tillie walked back inside the tower and looked into the rafters. Stairs and ladders zigzagged their way up countless stories. It would be a long and arduous trek, but she needed to do it, confront the poet. Up there. High above the city with no potential onlookers. She folded the poem, placed it into a pocket in her linen dress, then started her ascent.

Step by step, then rung by rung. This meeting would be a means of enacting an idea that Tillie had had in mind for weeks, with no way of putting it into action. She’d even gone as far as visiting Lady Sophie Roshem’s estate, requesting admittance, being denied. She hadn’t known what else to do, short of stalking the woman. But even if she’d wanted to go to extreme lengths, Tillie hadn’t the time for that, with her work. So, she’d given up on her desperate fantasy. But maybe this poet was the key. A high blood who might know Lady Roshem, who could put in a good word for her, who could help her escape the hell her life had become.

She was at the last ladder, the one that led into the belfry. She climbed slowly and carefully just to where she could peek her head out and scan the landing. She spotted a solitary figure tossing the last of a dwindling pile of paper airplanes. Tillie rose through the floor, stood, and walked toward the figure. The person froze and spun toward the footfalls. They both locked eyes.

“Wait . . . I know you,” she said.

How could she not? The kindness he’d shown her on the worst day of her life. The prettiness of him. Even without his gray robes and pale-yellow sash, Tillie knew him instantly.

“You’re the deacon,” she said. “You were there during my parents’ mercy killings.”

“Ah, Sophie’s look-alike. I remember you.” A paper airplane was still in his hand. He looked down at it, smiled, then loosed it into the city. “One moment.” He picked up the last five planes, tossed them out, then walked to Tillie.

“You’re the Paper Airplane Poet,” she said.

“An awful name. Hardly poetic. I suppose that’s what happens when you leave these things to develop organically.”

“Why not sign the poems with a name you like?” she asked.

“There’s no fun in that.” He moved past Tillie toward the floor opening.

“Wait, where are you going?” she asked.

“Back down. Where else?”

Tillie dashed in front of him. His smile faded.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I need to speak with you.”

“So I gather, but can’t we do that elsewhere?”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to become the person she needed to be. She wanted to stay soft, kind, gentle. She longed to be pure, to have beauty within, not just on the surface. But the world was shaping her in its image. Tillie wanted to survive, desperately, and in Simetria, that meant she had to adapt.

“I know who you are,” she said, arms stiff at her sides, hands balled into fists, chin tilted downward.

“Do you? Tell me, then, what is my name?”

Tillie started because she didn’t actually know. He’d just been “the deacon” to her. He smirked and went to brush past her once more, but she grabbed his arm and dug her blunted nails in, with only the thin linen of his billowy white shirt acting as armor.

“I can find out easy enough,” she said.

“And? What would you do? Expose me as the Paper Airplane Poet?”

“Yes.”

The poet frowned and shook his arm free of her grip. Tillie didn’t know much about the machinations involved in the convoluted lives of the high bloods, but she did know what this secrecy meant. The poet purposefully didn’t sign his poems, dispersed them on the city at random, clearly paid the tower’s attendant and toller to be absent, all for a reason. Maybe his art would bring embarrassment or shame on his family. Or maybe he couldn’t express himself freely if everyone knew the face behind the words.

“How would outing me serve you, or anyone, for that matter? You’d just be taking away one of the only joys your people have.”

“I . . . I need something from you,” she said. “I don’t want to expose you, but I will if I have to. I don’t have a choice. I’m desperate.”

The poet’s frown eased. If they hadn’t met before, if he hadn’t been there during her darkest hour, he wouldn’t have softened. He was a high blood, and she a low blood. They lived in different spheres. They’d both been raised to be distrustful of the other, but unforeseen circumstances had nudged them together. That moment in the park. Him walking her to Gemma’s, explaining what had happened, convincing them to take her in. That final squeeze he gave her hand before leaving.

And more than that, they both knew the pains of being pretty in a city rife with ugliness. They were shiny baubles, nothing more. For the poet, other high bloods must have viewed him as simple, vain, or flippant, on account of his beauty and propensity for poetics, despite his privileged upbringing. His emotions so vast, so all-encompassing, that he was driven to release them on the lower city. To give vent and share his angst with strangers. Finding safety and belonging but only in anonymity.

“I’m completely lost,” Tillie pleaded. “Soon, my work will have worn me down into dust. I don’t have anywhere to go. I’ve overstayed my welcome with my friend, while her husband looks at me like meat. I’m not safe there . . . anywhere. There’s nowhere I won’t be abused, or worse, all because of how I look. I’ve even thought of mangling my face just to scare everyone away. But then, I stumbled on you, someone who could maybe help me use my face to my advantage instead.”

The poet stepped away from the opening in the floorboards and closer to Tillie. “I’m listening.”

“I look like Lady Sophie Roshem. This you said, yes?”

The poet nodded.

“This might sound silly, but what if we could make use of our shared likenesses? What if I could be her double? I’ve already tried to ask her, but her servants wouldn’t let me in or give me the time of day.”

“Her double?”

Tillie nodded and clasped her hands. “For any reason. Safety or simply avoiding social things like parties or those fancy events you high bloods have.”

The poet shook his head and laughed. “Sophie Roshem doesn’t need anyone to protect her. She’s a surveyor, and a good one. As for you standing in for her at social events, how would that work exactly? Do you think people wouldn’t notice? People who’ve known her for years? And what about all the protocols and norms we follow that you know nothing about?”

“I could learn.” Fear gripped Tillie. She’d thought the biggest obstacle would be getting him to listen, but here the Paper Airplane Poet was, with ears and mind open. The issue wasn’t in getting heard but rather in the nature of her proposition.

“What was your name again?” he asked.

“Tillie.”

“Look, Tillie, I could most certainly secure a meeting between you and Sophie. I know her, and she knows me. The thing is, it would be a flawed endeavor. You wouldn’t get your ticket out of the lower city, and that’s what you’re really after, isn’t it?”

Tillie’s shoulders and face slumped. She gave a half-hearted nod. That was it, then. She was doomed.

“But don’t lose hope,” he added.

Tillie’s eyes shot up to meet his.

“There’s another route, a more promising one, but it wouldn’t be a fairy-tale ending. It would be hard in some ways. It all comes down to perspective. If you want security independent of marriage, then what I’m about to offer you is your best bet. On the other hand, if you prize purity above all else, then you’re better off staying in the lower city and finding a husband.”

Tillie wanted out, out of the filth, the coarseness, the ignorance, the stench. She longed to escape the brutes, the peddlers, the catcallers, the gropers, the adulterous husbands. They’d always been there, true, but before, when her family had been whole, she’d been buffered from the ugliness of the lower city by a stern father and a watchful mother. Gone now. Tillie was alone with only her loss, a sad and sorry stand-in for the security family had offered her. So then, she would find a new means of protection, a new home. There was absolutely nothing keeping Tillie in the lower city.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

---

Tillie and the poet stood in front of a two-story brick building in the upper city, the day’s heat fading with the approaching dusk. The structure resembled a house but had none of the warmth inherent to a home. It didn’t look at all like she’d imagined it would, so clean and respectable, nothing like its counterparts in the lower city.

“Nicolus,” the poet said. “My name. Nicolus Yevin. It’s a bit suspect for me to present you to Madam Gerton if you don’t even know my name. She’s sharp. She picks up on little nuances like that, and she only employs the best.”

Tillie glanced down at the pale pink muslin dress that Nicolus had purchased for her. She had to look presentable, so he’d said, which also meant taking a bath and getting her hair styled, all done at his estate by his servants. None of them seemed concerned that their master had brought a low blood home. Then again, it wasn’t their place to judge, just to follow orders. And those orders of Nicolus’ had been to clean Tillie, dress her, fix her hair, feed her. For this meeting, she had to look her best and, most importantly, resemble Sophie.

A humming floated on the wind, and Tillie glanced in its direction. Sure enough, it originated from an attuner affixed to a house on the other side of the street. The forked spire crafted of black metal wobbled then stopped, wobbled then stopped, signaling a distortion was near at hand. The surveyor standing guard outside a house a few buildings over confirmed it. Somewhere in that home, someone was afflicted and facing their mercy killing. Why then didn’t the realization rattle Tillie like the warded home in the lower city had?

“I saw the surveyor standing guard earlier, before I ventured into the lower city,” Nicolus said.

“The mercy killing must be taking a long time then.”

“They usually do in the upper city. High bloods like to think we can somehow weasel our way out of fate, but the distortions don’t care about what we call ourselves or how lauded our names are. They don’t discriminate.”

That much was true. The high bloods most certainly weren’t immune to this curse that blighted their city, but oh, how different the reaction was. No high bloods crowding the home’s entrance, eager to spy the horrors unfolding indoors. The right to privacy was respected here. And there were no cries of terror peeling through the too-thin walls and windows owing to the sturdier constructions that were the norm. The upper city may have been just as prone to the creep of the non-Euclidean, but the response to the horror was so clean and crisp. In the face of the hideousness of the corruption of space and time, the high bloods maintained their decorum.

Nicolus touched Tillie’s arm. “Best not to dwell on it. Let the past lie. Focus on your future. Are you ready?”

Of course, she wasn’t. Everything had happened so fast. From the tower to his estate to this, A Taste of Refinement, all within a span of a handful of hours. But she hadn’t agreed to anything yet. She was simply looking into her options.

“I’m ready,” she said.

They walked to the door. Nicolus turned the brass handle and pushed. Inside was a large sitting room with numerous embroidered sofas and chaises bearing geometric patterns, thick burgundy curtains covering the walls, and life-sized paintings of prominent high blood men and women. But the place was still and silent. No patrons or employees to be seen. Of course, it was too early for that; this establishment only came alive deep in the night.

“This place is warded,” Nicolus said, gesturing at the walls, “if that fact factors into your decision.”

“I don’t see it,” Tillie said, moving closer to one of the walls and peering at it. Lines and spots, geometric to be sure, but not the complex mathematics that were required in wards.

Nicolus rapped his knuckles against the wall. “On the other side of the paper, etched in with ink. This is how it’s typically done in high-blood homes. Expensive. Labor-intensive. But a sound investment for those who can manage it.”

“Does your home have wards in the walls?”

“Naturally,” he said. “I’m always thinking about the future. Now, come along.”

Tillie followed him down a corridor with several doors. One was cracked open, light filtering out. Nicolus tapped on it.

“Enter,” a voice said.

Tillie followed Nicolus and found herself in an office with a large walnut desk and two cushioned chairs facing it. The walls were covered in wood paneling, making the space feel warm but cloistered. A woman sat behind the desk writing in a ledger. On seeing Nicolus, she beamed, set her pen down, and hurried over to him. They did their high-blood greeting, hands to hearts, one at a time, then her eyes settled on Tillie.

“I have a potential find for you,” Nicolus said. “Can you guess which high blood she could play?”

“Why, Lady Sophie Roshem, of course,” the woman said.

She inspected Tillie, circling her. Tillie, likewise, inspected the woman, who had that thickness that comes with middle age. Her hair was a deep red, matching her lip shade, and was styled into a cluster of curls.

“What a lovely likeness,” the woman said. “What is your name, dove?”

“Tillie, ma’am.”

“This is Madam Gerton,” Nicolus said. “She owns this establishment.”

“Did Lord Yevin explain to you what we do here?” Madam Gerton asked.

Tillie nodded, to which the Madam frowned.

“Speak. We have language for a reason. It sets us apart from the lesser beasts.”

Tillie winced, then forced herself to be stern. Hardening herself was the only way she would survive in a place like this. “I don’t know how to say it without sounding vulgar.”

“Then say it how you know,” Madam Gerton said. “I won’t take offense. There are many misconceptions I’ll have to dispel from your mind if you opt to work here. Better for me to hear them now.”

“People come here to . . . join with . . . others, the ones who work for you.”

Madam Gerton glanced at Nicolus and raised her eyebrows. “That’s what you told her?”

Nicolus looked at Tillie and nodded. “Tell her the rest.”

“Your employees pretend to be certain high bloods, the ones they look like. For me, that would be Lady Sophie Roshem.”

“Better, but not quite right,” Madam Gerton said. “People don’t just come here to share a bed with my lords and ladies. They come for a chance to share an evening with them. Talking, laughing, being merry, and yes, making love, if they so desire, but it’s not just that. This is not a brothel, understood? A small difference that keeps us from ruffling the wrong feathers. Well, that and the fact that many of our patrons have significant pull, powerful clergyfolk amongst them.” She smiled at Nicolus. “The point is, my people are skilled in many ways. They’re trained to be indistinguishable from the high bloods they resemble.”

“Like an actor in a play,” Tillie said.

“Exactly, my dove. You’d be an actor, playing Sophie Roshem, in all ways.”

“Not so different from what you hoped for,” Nicolus said to Tillie.

To be a player or a plaything? Which would it be? But maybe the distinction didn’t matter overmuch. At A Taste of Refinement, Tillie would be in control. She would be someone, someone respectful. Anything was better than living as a nobody destined to be gobbled up in the lower city. Still, she knew that if she took this leap, there could be no turning back. Once she worked for Madam Gerton, no man would ever take her as a wife. It was a good thing Tillie had no interest in playing at matrimony.

“There is one thing,” Tillie said before trailing off.

“Yes?” Madam Gerton asked.

Tillie glanced at Nicolus. She was too bashful to say it in front of him, but she’d have to resolve this matter rather quickly if she had any hope of starting a life at this establishment.

“I’ve not joined with a man.”

“Well, aren’t you a darling,” Madam Gerton said. “That’s not an issue, but we would need to rectify that prior to your starting. The first few times can be unpleasant. We’d want to get past all of that before you accept any clients. Perhaps Lord Yevin would be willing to assist? Better than one of my own here. Less complicated that way.”

Tillie’s eyes shot to Nicolus’, but his face was neutral.

“In either case, you’d be fine, dove,” Madam Gerton said. “All that remains is for us to talk about logistics. Your pay. Time off. Working conditions. Accommodations here. After that, you’re free to make your decision.”

“I’ll just be outside while you two discuss,” Nicolus said.

“That would be lovely, Lord Yevin. Just give us ladies a few minutes. Please help yourself to a drink while you wait.”

Tillie watched him as he left, for any sign, any hint that she was making the right decision. She got nothing, just downturned eyes and a small trace of guilt. But for what?

After they finished talking, the Madam and Tillie stepped out of the office. Nicolus approached, and Tillie examined him as he conversed with their host. He was courteous toward the Madam, smiling and laughing with her, but there was a kind of wall around him now. He wasn’t the deacon who had consoled Tillie, nor was he the romanticized Paper Airplane Poet. He was a high blood as she’d always known them to be. Guarded. Secretive. Wearers of masks on masks on masks. But why the obscurity? What was he hiding from Madam Gerton? From her? Even after they left, as they walked to his estate where Tillie would stay the night while she thought over this important life decision, he hid his true self, the one she’d only had brief glimpses of.

After dinner, while they drank port on his back terrace, his distance persisted. Tillie tried to make sense of it to no avail. Then, a servant came bearing a tray. On it were writing implements and parchment.

“For the ritual, sir,” the man said, depositing his burden, bowing, then leaving Nicolus and Tillie alone.

To be waited on for even the rituals? Life in the upper city was so vastly different than what even Tillie had imagined. Nicolus lifted a graphite stick and twirled it in his fingers, then the bells tolled. He set an elbow to the small table between them and a chin in his hand. With his other, he jotted on the blank parchment a string of letters and numbers and symbols Tillie had never even seen, advanced notations, ones only the clergyfolk themselves would bother to learn. She gazed at his spidery script and marveled at the knowledge traveling from mind to hand to parchment.

Nicolus glanced up, caught her eye, and cleared his throat. “Well? Are you going to do your duty, or do you happen to be a cultist?”

Tillie stammered as she grabbed the other graphite stick, then began scribbling the simple axiom that she always did. Circle, dot, line, r, A = πr². She couldn’t stand to shift her eyes to catch Nicolus’ gaze, mortified as she was by her own ignorance, by her childish scribbles made all the more pathetic by their proximity to Nicolus’ elegant and learned flourishes. Somehow, the ten minutes of the ritual passed, and the bell tolled. The servant returned in short order and retrieved the tray. Then it was just Tillie and Nicolus and a tension that wouldn’t ease.

“So . . . should I do it?” she asked.

“That’s your decision to make.” Nicolus swirled his port and stared at the amber liquid as it slid slowly down the inside of his goblet. He was so young and yet had so much already. His estate. His couture clothing. His collection of rare potables.

“If I leave the lower city,” she said, “I won’t get to enjoy your poems anymore.”

He stopped swirling the port and lifted his eyes to hers. The guilt was clear now, exposed and naked. “Can you even read them?”

Tillie’s cheeks burned in reaction to his cruelty, but she quickly figured out what he was doing—redirecting his self-hatred.

“No,” she said. “At least, not right now, but I’m confident Madam Gerton will teach me to read. Some clients might enjoy Lady Roshem reciting sonnets to them.”

“Madam Gerton will teach you many things.”

“But there are things I have to learn before starting my work,” Tillie said, keeping her eyes locked on Nicolus. “Perhaps you could show me?” Her voice trembled.

“I wouldn’t be of much use to you.”

Tillie deflated, and it seemed to reach Nicolus through his aloofness.

“I’ll share a secret with you,” he said, swirling his port again. “I tend to prefer the company of men. So, while I could show you things, I’m not the best option. Fret not, though. I happen to know someone who would be perfect for it.”

Tillie shrank. She didn’t want someone else. All she craved was one night with someone she felt something for, before she began spending nights with strangers.

“I’d like it to be you,” she said. “I find myself . . . liking you.”

Nicolus stopped swirling the port, drained the rest in one gulp, and slammed the goblet down. “You’re being foolish. You, growing attached like this when you’re about to bind yourself to Madam Gerton.”

“Just once,” she said, sipping her own port, finding courage in it.

“I’m afraid not,” Nicolus said. “See, he’s already on his way. Here. Tonight. So make your decision, Tillie.” He rose from his chair and walked into the house.

Tillie stayed seated, immobile and wounded. She remained outside, watching the light from the summer sky fade, eventually retreating indoors when the night was total, a serenade of crickets sending her off to her fate.

Inside, a man was sitting on a chaise beside Nicolus, their legs touching. When Tillie entered, the man rose and approached her, taking her hand and placing it on his heart. He waited for her to repeat the high-blood greeting she’d never done before. He smiled at her confused silence and brought her to the chaise. Nicolus moved to another chair and watched them from afar.

“I’m Vergil Holdsworth,” the man said.

His eyes were blue, made more brilliant by his dark chestnut hair. Compared to Nicolus, he was taller and broader and had a deeper voice that was just as dignified. He wore a gray robe with a green-gray sash of a priest, a colleague of Nicolus’ but also his superior.

“Nicolus says you’re from the lower city?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Tillie replied.

“I must say, you do indeed look like a high blood. You’re very fortunate.”

“Or unfortunate, depending on where you stand.”

Tillie didn’t want to be disagreeable, but she was hurt and confused, her whole life hanging in the balance. She had this one night to decide her future, but all she could think about was the deacon-poet sulking in the corner. He preferred men, he’d said. He’d been sitting so close to Vergil. His eyes lingered on the man and found no time for Tillie. Nicolus was brooding, that much was clear, but not about her. His angst wasn’t over the fact that she might join with Vergil, but that Vergil might join with anyone. Once she saw it, once she knew it, she let go of the last lingering desire she held for him.

“But that’s why I’m leaving the lower city,” Tillie said. “Tomorrow, I’m to become Lady Sophie Roshem at A Taste of Refinement.”

“Is that so?” Vergil asked.

“Yes, sir. Do you know her?”

A wide smile stretched across Vergil’s fine lips. She could see herself kissing them.

“I do,” he said, “I know her quite well, in fact. We’ve been close since childhood. If you’re planning on becoming her, I could teach you much about her. You’d make Madam Gerton proud.”

“I’d like that,” Tillie said. “I’d be indebted to you.”

“You’ll need to give him something first, then,” Nicolus said. “Bed him.”

Vergil scowled. Tillie furrowed her brow and frowned at the deacon-poet.

“Don’t be grotesque,” Vergil said.

Nicolus rose from his chair, walked to the chaise, and squeezed himself between Tillie and Vergil. He was unsteady, his breath a flammable fume of alcohol.

“We’re all adults here,” Nicolus said. “So, let’s stop dancing around the issue. I asked Vergil here to bed you, since you need it done before starting work with Madam Gerton. Vergil is here because he’s a helpful sort of chap who also happens to be obsessed with Sophie.”

Vergil stood up, cursing under his breath. “Go to sleep, Nicolus. You’re completely soused. You’re only going to say things you’ll regret.”

Nicolus rose with a slight wobble and lurched over to Vergil, staring him down. “The only thing I regret is meeting you.” He stormed out of the room.

Vergil sighed. “These artistic types. So dramatic. He told me you learned who he was. His, shall we say, alter ego.”

“The Paper Airplane Poet.”

“He’s a strange one, charming in his own way. But, enough about Nicolus. What he said was uncouth but not inaccurate. I’m here to help you, Tillie, if you so desire it.”

Vergil held out his hand. Tillie rose, walked to him, and placed her palm in his. She’d made up her mind. There was only one path forward.

---

“Look what I found,” Vergil said, dropping a paper airplane into Tillie’s hands.

They were in her room at Madam Gerton’s. The tasseled pillows, the silk bedding, the thick and velvety curtains, such lovely objects surrounded her.

“You found this today?” she asked.

“Today.”

In the four months that Tillie had been at A Taste of Refinement, the Paper Airplane Poet hadn’t released a single work. A pause this long was unusual for him. Tillie worried about Nicolus, but what could she do? Their connection had been severed before it had even been explored. She had spent these months learning the skills required for her new role. She’d only been seeing clients for a handful of weeks, but it’d been just as Vergil said—she was making the Madam very proud.

Because of Tillie, Vergil had become a regular customer. Her other clients lavished her with gifts and kind treatment. This life wasn’t the horror she’d been taught it would be. In fact, it suited her. She was thriving. Her past was a distant murmur. Her present was all that mattered. She got to wear fine attire, consume delicacies, rise late, play at being a high blood in so many ways. More than anything, though, she wasn’t just a pretty thing ripe for the spoiling anymore. She was protected now, from distortions, from men. She lived and worked in a warded establishment. If a man touched her, he had paid for the privilege. It was a transaction when in the lower city it had always felt like a theft, the hungry stares, the whistles, the occasional brushing against her buttocks. All of that a tasteless memory now. But there was one thing she did still reminisce about, from time to time—Nicolus and that guilt she sensed in him.

Tillie unfolded the paper airplane, smoothed it, and tried to make sense of it. She was still learning, but Vergil helped her fill in the gaps as they read the poem together.

A Gift

From below you came to me,
First with demands
Then with pleading.
My soft heart bled for the latter.

You came to me
With a silly plan,
A flawed scheme
With doppelgängers
And childish notions.

You came to me
Knowing nothing of my world,
One you so desired to join.
I laid a path for you,
One of challenge and chance.
You consented.

You came to me
Naïve as a dreamer.
You saw in me integrity,
Naught but a rusted poniard.
This world corrodes.

You came to me
With fancies of love
For a man so flawed
He did not stop it.
In truth, dear double,
I used you.

You came to me
To find a way free,
A sentiment I shackled.
Down to a taste of refinement,
And for this, I pray,
Please forgive me.

You came to me,
And I betrayed you.

Tillie folded the paper and let it rest on her lap. The title of his poem, “A Gift.” Was she the gift? A gift to someone? Someone whom Nicolus truly cared for?

“It seems he feels somewhat sorry for having nudged you here,” Vergil said.

“Yes, so it seems.”

Four months and Nicolus’ actions were still eating away at his soul, enough for him to put the pain to paper. He was asking for Tillie’s forgiveness, but there was no need. There was nothing for her to forgive. How different their views were on the matter. For him to see her as shackled when she’d never felt freer. From covetous men. From the threat of the non-Euclidean. For the first time since losing her parents, Tillie was safe. Whatever Nicolus’ reasons were for steering her here, it mattered little to Tillie. Her life, this one here, was the real gift.

Tillie moved to her desk and laid the poem down. She dipped a pen into an inkwell and made a few markings on the paper.

“Would you mind returning this to him?” she asked Vergil.

“Of course. What did you say?”

She leaned back, letting him see the small alteration she’d made to the last line.

You came to me,
And I betrayed saved you.