by Jennifer Hykes

The stairs aren’t there unless you’re looking for them. At the back of a narrow alley, behind a dumpster, hidden beneath one more shadowy corner in a city full of them. Just one stair at first, waiting like an invitation. Step on it, and it’s followed by another, and another, leading deep underground.

The stairs are old stone, worn smooth by the tread of numberless others. The stone is slick with what I’ve always hoped is condensation from the cool air rising from below. My grandmother used to call condensation sweat. “The glass is sweating,” she’d say. But I never liked that term. Glasses don’t sweat; stairs shouldn’t, either. But I can’t help thinking it as I walk down to the undercity.

The stairs cling on one side to a rough stone wall. The other side is nothing but darkness, and a very long fall. I don’t look down. I’ll be there soon enough.

At the first landing, there is a booth run by Sandy. Sandy has soft gray eyes and a warm smile. Sandy sells flowers.

“A lilac for your trip?” they ask in a cheerful voice, bright as sunlight against shadow. Like this is all nothing more damning than a stroll to the corner market. They hold out a sprig with a sweet-smelling cone of purple flowers. In the dark, the flowers glow with the light of some distant summer sun.

Of course I buy the lilac. It would be suicide not to.

(I have to remind myself every time. Sometimes it’s tempting to think of not buying a flower here, like wondering what the wind would feel like if you jumped off a bridge.)

I pay Sandy and move on.

At the next landing, the Queen Mummer sells masks, which I never buy. Too expensive. And I don’t need one anyway. Like always, I hurry across the landing, trying to ignore the Queen’s silent presence, her too-long fingers and blank wooden mask.

At the bottom is the Bouncer, a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall ogre stuffed like sausage into a suit and tie. The Tattooed Woman stands a few feet away, on her cigarette break. Thorny vines of black ink frame her face and curl along her cheekbones. She doesn’t look at me. She has better things to do.

The Bouncer makes a point of going over the list, even though I’ve been here before. Many times. I check my watch discreetly, calculate how long it’ll take me to get from door to table. I bounce a little on the balls of my feet, but stop when he looks up.

“Go through,” he growls, stepping aside.

I nod and pass through.

I’m assaulted with the glare of neon and the smell of cloying cigarette smoke, bitter perfume, and sweat. I walk through a wall of sound, a dull roar of people and stranger creatures laughing and talking and calling for more drinks. Here and there, the roar is punctured by a scream, but those are swallowed up soon enough. I make my way through and over bodies to the table I want. The dealer is already unwrapping the deck, but he hasn’t laid down the cards yet.

“I’m in, I’m in!” I huff, grabbing a free stool between a pale, twitchy man and a woman with black oil-slick eyes. The dealer looks up at me, but his empty white mask betrays no reaction.

He sets the deck in front of him. He flips the top card over and places it in the middle of the table. Heart pounding, I scan the information bulleted there. The dealer reads it aloud.

“Subject is male, 34, Caucasian, local. Married once, divorced. Occupation: owner and manager of a small water heater repair business.”

My heart takes off running. My intel was right.

It’s Harry.

“Subject is currently in a relationship. Business has been in the red for the past two months. He has not told his girlfriend.”

My teeth grit. That’s Harry, all right.

The rest of the dealer’s speech goes into the finer details: the subject’s family life (strained), his past (troubled), his education (scanty). I know it all already. Even with the holes in my memory, I know Harry like the smell of my own skin.

This will be as hard as I thought it might. Hearing it all again, it’s like he’s right there, breathing next to my ear. Too close for comfort. But I clamp myself up tight. I can’t let it show that I know him, that he’s anything more to me than this night’s subject.

I run my fingers through my hair. The feel of it between my fingers relaxes me. It’s nearly to my shoulders now, dark and shining in the neon light. It is my reminder that he’s gone from my life, really gone.

The dealer finishes and falls silent, letting us digest the info. He puts his gloved fingers on top of the deck in front of him.

Aside from the two on either side of me, there is one other player, a boy who looks too young to be here. He clutches a white carnation in his hand and looks around, wide-eyed, at any sudden flash or scream. I feel a little sympathy for him. I was once in that position. But I’m not going to go easy on him.

The dealer flips over the next card in the deck. “The subject is at a bar after work tonight,” he intones. “How many drinks will he have? Please place your bets now.”

Behind my hand, I smile.

• • •

The betting goes on all night.

Each card the dealer flips is another aspect of Harry’s life, a rock turned over to reveal the creeping insects beneath. Which woman he would approach (the skinny one with auburn hair). What he would do when he reached her (grab her ass and smile). How he’d act when she rebuffed him (say nothing, but follow her around the bar, staring). What would he do after she left? (I get this one wrong on purpose, to break up my streak. But I know Harry. He’d call up his girlfriend and whine drunkenly about how much he loves her.)

I clean house. The dealer pushes my take across the table. The black-eyed woman says nothing, lips pursed; the boy looks like he’s about to cry. The pale man, who over the course of the game has folded up his bony shoulders like origami under pressure, fiddles with the subject card, turning it over and over in his fingers as if he does not want to believe that the game is over.

The Tattooed Woman slides in between us, setting one hand on the man’s shoulder. It’s a decisive gesture, a claim. “Hello, Mr. Georges,” she purrs, her tongue like a knife between her teeth. A tattoo of a snake curves down the back of her hand, emerging from the dark ocean that sleeves her arm. Her fingernails are bright red, and sharp.

Mr. Georges springs from his stool like he’s been stung with a cattle prod. His face is white, shining with sweat. “Just—I just—please, just a little more time—”

Her fingers slide from his shoulder to his wrist. “Mr. Light has been very generous, you know.” She sets his hand down on the table. The dealer has already cleared his cards away, I have already stuffed my take into my purse. We’re stepping back, turning away. All except the boy, who sits frozen in his chair, mouth open.

Mr. Georges stutters protests, but the Tattooed Woman shushes him. A long etched dagger flashes, Mr. Georges screams. Streaks of red stain the blue felt. Mr. Georges staggers away, leaving three of his fingers behind him.

The young boy buckles, sticks his head under the table. I hear him heaving. The Tattooed Woman picks up the fingers, wraps them in a cloth and walks away.

The boy appears over the lip of the table, glassy-eyed and three shades paler. His carnation, stem crushed between his clenched fingers, flickers in the garish light.

I sigh. I step around the dealer (who’s cleaning off the blood, though there’ll always be a stain) and lean in next to the boy. “Hey,” I say, “your flower’s starting to go. Better get out of here soon.”

The boy stares at me. I wonder what twist in his life, what sudden breaking, has sent him scurrying down here to Mr. Light’s. He mumbles something that might be a thank-you, ducks his head and takes off into the crowd, in the direction of the front doors.

I glance at the lilac pinned to my blouse. I still have a few minutes. I scan the crowd for Double Diane.

She’s standing by the bar, both bouffanted heads disgorging a stream of gossip, her washwater-blond hair lit too harshly by the neon blue lighting. I swim through the crowd, stepping lightly over a fallen Mr. Georges, and slide in next to her, flagging down the barkeep. A Spite for me, on the rocks, and two Bloodwine Coolers for her. I have her to thank for the unexpected intel that brought me to Harry’s table. Not that I’d tell her. This is a silent gesture, a way to keep my books balanced. She won’t ask anyway, caught in the throes of spilled secrets and acidic speculations.

I check my lilac. It’s starting to fade: I can see my fingers through its petals. It’s time to leave.

My offering made, my Spite finished, I head to the stairs and back toward daylight. The climb back up is a beast, every time. One hand I keep against the damp stone wall and the other I keep on the lilac, letting its summer sun warm my bones. The cold of the undercity pulls on me, like a river running endlessly down, but the flower is a lifeline. It remembers daylight.

Sandy is there at the last landing, waiting. The lilac is visibly guttering by the time I reach them. The thin, distant morning light shines on their dark hair, and makes the flowers seem to glow against the backdrop of shadow.

“Glad to see you back,” they say, like always.

“Thanks to you.”

Sandy shrugs and ducks their head demurely. Their stock of flowers, a little more sparse than usual, still fills most of the cart. I’m surprised to find myself smiling, leaning into the smell. I used to hate flowers.

“Did the boy with the carnation make it back?” I ask, pulling my eyes away from a bucket of pink and white peonies.

Sandy nods, glancing up the stairs. “Barely,” they say. “It’s kind of you to ask. Not many people down here ask after others.”

I’m unsurprised. “It’s the nature of the beast.”

Sandy sighs through their delicate nose. “More’s the pity. Between you and me, I hope I never see him again.”

It’s possible. He might have been scared off for good. But the undercity has a lure to it. Even now, on the threshold, part of me wants to drop the remains of the lilac and plunge down the stairs again, into the neon lights and the games and the vibrant, careless hedonism of it. Its distant pulse throbs in the stone steps beneath my feet. Maybe I could squeeze in one more game—

Sandy grabs my wrist. With a sudden shock I’m back in myself again. I have taken two steps back down the stairs without even being aware of it.

They press a carnation into my numb fingers. It’s a closed, tight bud with a yellow tip, but it is enough. It is still full of sunlight.

“Here,” they say, “on the house.” They pull me back up onto the landing and give me a gentle shove toward the last flight of stairs.

Heart racing, I put my foot on the first stair, and turn to look at Sandy.

They nod to me, as if it’s any other night. As if they haven’t just saved my life. “Between you and me,” they say, “I hope I never see you again, either.”

Saying nothing, I turn away and run the rest of the way up the stairs, racing toward air and light.

• • •

I don’t go back for days. Sandy’s presence lingers, the touch of their fingers on my arm leaving an indelible imprint, a firm pressure on my skin. I think of them as I lay in bed listening to the distant wail of emergency sirens; their shadow follows me when I go to the office.

What is Sandy doing there? Sandy, with their kindness and their flower booth, is out of place in the undercity. A puzzle piece in the wrong box. I wonder, briefly, if they have been set up there by Mr. Light, to peddle a false kindness and give the illusion of choice. Well, why not? Sandy wouldn’t be the first person to fake it. And I’ve been fooled before.

But it’s hard to think ill of Sandy. Suppositions like that seem to slide off their soft frame, like lies sliding off a single true thing.

“I hope I never see you again,” they had said. It was so sincere a request that I stay away fifteen days—longer than I have ever stayed away since I first stumbled down those dark stairs, chased by memories of Harry.

But the undercity still calls me. I’d shoved my winnings into a wine-colored velvet bag and stuffed it in my underwear drawer, and every day I see it there, waiting.

I pick it up and heft it. It’s my consolation prize from Harry, the only good thing that ever came out of our marriage. Well, and why shouldn’t I treat myself? At the very least, maybe if I see Sandy and ask all my questions, their shadow might stop following me around.

• • •

The flower cart is half-empty when I arrive. A fleeting feeling of wrongness crawls over my skin when I see it. Black plastic tubs that used to be full yawn emptily now. The red roses are gone, and the foxglove and sweet william, and most of the lilies. Even the gladiolas are gone.

I never thought I’d miss gladiolas.

Sandy sees me, rubs the weariness from their eyes. “You’re back,” they say briskly. “Can I interest you in—hmm …” They look over the cart and pluck a peony from the mix. “This one,” they say, holding it out to me.

I reach into my purse and pull out a dented picture frame. The photo inside is of me and Harry at the water park, the harsh summer sun throwing our faces into stark planes of light and shadow. I hadn’t noticed till after the divorce how strained I looked even then, even smiling so widely.

This is how I pay for Sandy’s flowers: with the memories of my time with Harry. Day by day, I have been lightening the load on my heart. But looking at the picture frame now, I think, how shitty is this? Sandy deserves a better payment than my baggage.

Sandy holds the peony in one hand, extends the other for the picture.

“Why are you doing this?” I snap.

Sandy blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“It doesn’t make sense! Where do all these flowers come from? Why do you sell them down here? You’re too—” I press the frame against my sternum. “You don’t belong here,” I finish.

Sandy smiles. They lean forward, gently take the photo from my numb fingers and slip the peony in its place. The memory is gone just like that, a string plucked free from the knot strangling my heart.

“I do this,” they say, “because I choose to.” They pat the corner of the cart. “As for the flowers, they’re from my own memory.” They point to a sprig of miniature yellow roses. “Those I saw in a greenhouse once,” they say, “and that peony is from a bush in my nana’s backyard.”

Guilt squeezes my heart. I don’t have any pleasant memories of flowers to give to Sandy. I know there had to be some in my life, but when I try to recall them, all I see are Harry’s gladiolas growing like weeds all over my memories. They’d been our wedding flowers, shafts of yellow and orange and red, the color of the sun. It had rained on our wedding day, but the flowers had been sunshine enough. So I’d said that day.

But it hadn’t been enough. It was like a bad running joke: a night of screaming, fists flying, the smell of cheap beer, and the next day he’d come home with gladiolas and apologies. And I would carefully trim the blood-red spears and put them in vases and tell myself this was normal, that lovers always had spats like ours.

I run my fingers over the peony’s large bloom. A warm spring breeze moves between the petals. I think I hear someone calling me inside for dinner; I smell frying food and tomato sauce on a long-ago breeze.

I feel warmth. I feel sunlight and safety.

I blink away the image, and see again the empty canisters. “You’re running out,” I say.

Sandy shrugs, tips their head in that demure way, trying to slip beneath my gaze.

“You need to get out of here,” I say.

“I can say the same thing about you.”

Later, I will think up a thousand clever things to say in response. But right now, I only have my burning cheeks, and the bag of prize money pulling me to Mr. Light’s. I turn away and plunge down into the dark.

• • •

The waitress pauses by the plush leather armchair where I’m nestled. Her mask has finely cut rubies where the eyeholes should be, and no mouth. Here in the more exclusive rooms of Mr. Light’s, none of the waiters speak. Without a sound she takes away my empty dishes, replacing them with new ones: a platter of rare songbirds roasted to a crackling golden-brown; shark-meat sushi served in a bowl made from the shark’s own teeth; fresh Spite served in a crystal goblet, flakes of gold swimming inside. I accept everything she offers me.

Musicians play in a pit at our feet, accompanying a trio of almost-naked dancers. The conversation among the patrons here is muted, almost business-like. They game at a few tables, betting over the minute failures of others. But there is none of that desperate revelry of the lower rooms; these are people who have been here a long time, and have seen it all before.

None of them wear flowers.

Some of them wear the Queen Mummer’s masks, though.

I glance up at a wide balcony overlooking the dining room. There, patrons in dragonskin suits and jeweled dresses mingle together, laughing and talking in a world even higher up than this one. High-stakes gamblers, chasing a mad thrill even I couldn’t dream of. Each one of them wears a mask: wood or bone, hammered gold or carved ruby. Lion’s faces and feathered bird faces and the faces of animals long extinct and forgotten. Behind them on the balcony, a pair of double doors leads into the High Rooms, Mr. Light’s private gaming chambers. Rumor (in the form of Double Diane) says that Mr. Light prefers his opponents masked so he will not have to behold the faces of his lessers.

A burst of laughter rises from a table near me. A red-faced man lobs a small bone into the musicians’ pit, provoking more laughter from his companions. The bone strikes the violinist, who makes a soft cry of surprise which is quickly muffled.

The brief sound resonates in my memory. I find myself standing, approaching the pit. A waitress intercepts me, offering a platter of bourbon-soaked cherries. I shake my head and keep walking.

It’s Mr. Georges. His pale face is hidden behind a grimacing theater mask, but I recognize those bony origami shoulders. His arms tremble with exhaustion. The violin is grafted to his shoulder, and the bow has been sewn to the stump where three of his fingers used to be.

The others are no better off. I can’t tell where the cellist’s body ends and his instrument begins. The viola player’s blank mask is fused to her face; her fingers make bloody streaks along the instrument’s neck.

I stumble back, my stomach turning over. Mr. Georges tries to lift his head, but his cheek is stuck to the chinrest. His eyes roll like a panicked horse’s, and he sees me.

I wonder if he recognizes me. Me, the woman who’d probably ruined his last chance to get himself free of this place. If he does, he gives no sign—or can’t.

God help me, all I can see is Sandy, handing Mr. Georges a flower that has long since vanished.

I stagger away from the precipice. My stomach twists some more, and I bend over a potted plant as my night of excess rises up out of me. The other patrons murmur; some chuckle to themselves, as if they know. A pair of jewel-eyed, mouthless waitresses help me up when I’m done, and take me aside.

I catch a glance of the Tattooed Woman standing on the balcony. The only mask she wears is the dark tracery of ink vines that frame her face. She turns away and disappears into the High Rooms.

I am hurried to an extravagant restroom, cleaned up, and given a fresh dress. The hem and bodice glitter with rubies; the collar is lined with the delicate feathers of baby birds. The waitresses comb my hair, slip jeweled pumps on my feet, and redo my makeup, while I stand numb as a statue being painted.

After they finish, I stand staring at the alien woman in the mirror. They’ve brushed out my hair, and beneath their brushes it’s grown: the hair that I’d kept short when I was with Harry, because he tried to grab it when he beat me, now rolls down my dress like a shining waterfall, nearly to my waist.

I run my fingers through it. The texture is familiar, comforting. It sings to me: I’m free. I’ve won.

On the white marble countertop, my peony is quietly fading into shadow.

I pick it up and flee.

• • •

My legs ache with each pound of my feet against stone steps. Mr. Light’s falls away behind me, along with the jeweled shoes. I have never run from those doors so quickly, but never has its hold on me been this weak, my entire being so repulsed by the whole enterprise. Is this it? Am I free? Could this finally be the last time I leave Mr. Light’s?

I keep running. I think only of Sandy. If I can just reach them, my escape will be certain. They will not let me fall.

Like a sun, Sandy rises into view over the edge of the stairs, in their neat black shirt and gray vest and crisp black trousers, perched on the stool next to their cart. Their almost-empty cart.

They are eyeing the empty canisters, chin propped on their hand. They look up at my approach. A weak smile forces its way onto their pale face.

I stop beside the cart, wordless. Only a single red flower remains, like a drop of blood, its head bowed almost in apology.

“You’re in a hurry,” says Sandy. They mean it to be a friendly remark, but the sorrow in their voice is unmistakable. They sigh, a long drawn-out hiss from their delicate nose. “I won’t be able to help you after this. So, I guess this is good-bye.”

I look at the flower. “So take it,” I hear myself saying. “Take it and get out of here.” My bare feet throb; my lungs ache for clean, clear air.

But Sandy shakes their head. “I can’t,” they say. “I’ll wait here for my last customer, then pack up the cart and head down.” They glance at the peony they’d given me, and nod toward the upper stairs. “You should get out of here.”

I don’t move. “I thought you said you were here because you wanted to be.” My voice is flat, hoarse, accusing.

They’re silent for a long moment. I look them straight in the face, and they stare at me straight back. Their eyes are dark and clear, and full of a sorrow I’d never noticed.

“I am here,” they say, “selling flowers on the stairs, because that’s what I want to do. And because Mr. Light allows it. But my time’s nearly up. I’ll need to go back down.”

I sit down with a hard thump on the stairs, unwilling to go, unwilling to leave Sandy. I had been certain, all this time, that Sandy had been free: a spirit uncontainable by Mr. Light, like the last ray of sunlight before absolute darkness. But they were no different from Mr. Georges or Double Diane or any of the numerous people who’d lost their money, lost their way, and were swallowed up by Mr. Light.

Yet lost as they were, still they climbed up here to the first and last landing and had been quietly trying to save as many people as possible.

And just like that, I see Sandy for the first time, like my heart is a flower only now turning to face the sun. I had been so long under Harry’s shadow, I had forgotten what light looked like. I had forgotten, even refused to believe that it existed. But Sandy is here, and I am here, and there is one flower left.

I stand, shaking with terror at what I am about to do, but knowing I am going to do it anyway. “How much do you owe Mr. Light?” I ask, holding up the wine-colored purse. Even after my night of indulgence, it still bulges.

Sandy shakes their head. “I don’t owe him money,” they say. “It’s me he owns.”

I lower the purse.

Sandy wraps their arms around themself, paces to the edge of the landing. “I offered myself to him. In exchange for him letting go someone that I cared about.”

I walk to the edge and stand beside them. The terrifying idea in my head is spiraling out of control, and I am helpless to stop it. I touch them gently on the wrist. The feel of their warmth gives me strength, even as my idea hardens into reality.

“Sell me that flower,” I hear myself saying. “I’ve got enough money to get into the High Rooms. I’ll go to Mr. Light, and gamble for your freedom.”

Sandy says nothing for a moment. Then they shake their head. “I can’t ask that of you. If you lose, he’ll have both of us. I don’t—I don’t want to see you trapped down here. You should go.”

I shake my head. “I’m not going to leave you down here.” I have never said anything more true. As if to prove it to myself and to Sandy, I turn and walk back to the cart and pick up the last small red flower. I fumble to pin it to the front of my dress, and somewhere in the midst of my fumbling, my fingers are joined by theirs.

“I had this flower in a pot in my first apartment,” they say. “It’s a nasturtium. A symbol of courage.” They give me a small, wry smile. “Or so my nana used to tell me.”

Despite the fear hammering in my chest, I smile. I take their hand, and together we descend.

• • •

The Queen Mummer is waiting for me. Her blank-mask face turns to watch me descend, her neck stretching unnaturally. Her long fingers already grasp a mask, holding it out for me. It is deep blue, lined with beads of silver and cobalt. A pair of ruby teardrops like blood dangle below the eyes. Her own blank wooden mask leans forward, and though I can’t see behind it, I think of a smile with too many teeth.

I reach into the velvet bag, but she shakes her head. She touches my hair instead, runs a curved green nail through it. I freeze, waiting for her fingers to clench and pull, but she does not. Her hand flickers, and a pair of silver shears appears.

I take a deep breath, and cut off my hair. Sandy gently squeezes my hand when it’s done. I close my eyes, and in the dark I hear a whispering, sweeping hiss. When I open my eyes, the hair that had pooled at my feet is gone, and the mask is in my hands.

• • •

The mouthless servants see my mask and lead me straight up to the balcony outside the High Rooms. The Tattooed Woman is there, paring her nails with a sharpened bone. She looks up, sees Sandy and me, and raises an eyebrow. I stand still and silent in the incandescent spotlight of her gaze, uncertain what protocol to follow, what password to speak.

She tilts her head toward the doors. “Go on in,” she says. “Your funeral.”

Sandy lightly squeezes my fingers. “Good luck,” they say. “I’ll be right out here.” They glance uncertainly at the Tattooed Woman, whose lip curls in a sneer. In the soft, muted light Sandy looks even smaller than usual.

I squeeze their hand, hoping the gesture will convey everything I want to say. Then I pass through the doors into the High Rooms.

Far from being the height of ostentation, the Rooms are remarkable in their restraint. The walls are deep blue. The carpet is white. The tables and the bar are little more than gentle curves and dramatic angles of soft white, glowing beneath recessed lighting. I think of moon rock: bare, cold, stripped down to its essentials. If anything, the simplicity makes it feel more luxurious, as if the people in the High Rooms are beyond garish and desperate displays of wealth, and it’s simply become their world.

Every one of them wears a mask.

I move into the darkness. The atmosphere here is quiet, but tense as a coiled spring. Here are the high-stakes games. Here are the falls and victories of giants.

Mr. Light sits at a small table near the center of the room. He is leaning back in his chair, watching the room. There is a single empty chair across from him.

It has to be him. He is the only one whose face isn’t hidden. He looks handsome, respectable.

He sees me, and smiles like a man who has just spotted an old friend. He gestures me to the opposite chair. I sit down. A masked dealer stands just outside the light, waiting.

“So,” says Mr. Light, “you want something from me.”

I freeze. I’m caught out, and I haven’t even said a word.

Mr. Light laughs. “No need to be ashamed! Everyone wants something from me. That’s the only reason anyone comes here.” He leans forward, the shimmering white table illuminating his face. “So, what do you want to try for?”

Behind my mask, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Sandy’s freedom,” I say.

The dealer at his elbow produces a small box, opens it, and withdraws a business card, which she hands to Mr. Light. He glances at it, and sets it down on the table. In fine silvery script is the name “Sandy Rosano.” He leans back in his chair. “And for your part?”

I produce the wine-colored bag, still bloated with the remains of a small fortune. I set it down gingerly, not wanting to touch the table’s finely scaled playing surface. I wonder what rare creature was skinned to make it.

Mr. Light nods. The dealer steps into the light, but instead of setting out a deck, she opens the box and hands a single card to Mr. Light. “The rules are different in here,” he says. “I know all the answers. I know what everyone in my cards has done and will do. If I played as a player, knowing what I do, well—that would be unfair, wouldn’t it?” His slight emphasis on the word ‘unfair,’ and the pointed look he gives me, makes me wonder how much he knows about my insider source. I curse myself silently for my stupidity. Double Diane spilled everyone’s secrets; why not mine? “So, I will play as the house,” he goes on mildly, letting me dangle on the fishhook of my own guilt. “You’ll be given the card, given a chance to read it, then I will ask you a question. One single question. If you get it right, Sandy goes free. If you get it wrong, Sandy stays with me, along with all your money.”

He doesn’t ask if I agree to the terms, or even if I understand. Mr. Light, himself the House, does not ask such things. All this is part of the deal of coming here to play.

He sets the card in front of me. I turn it over, read the contents. In quick little tidbits, a life is sketched out. It is sparser than normal: a relatively calm childhood, followed by a difficult growing-up like those I have seen in the cards many times before. But then the subject’s past comes abruptly to a halt, all connections severed. No current lovers, no current family, no current hobbies. Their lone occupation, listed with no further details, is “flower seller.”

Sandy. I am betting on Sandy.

I follow the trail of their past, to the point when they came to the undercity. There had been a lover, but that’s all the card says. I set it down.

Mr. Light leans into the table. “Three years ago,” he says, “Sandy came to me with a deal. She would stay down here, in exchange for her lover’s freedom.” He wields the pronoun like a weapon, a dagger slid across tender flesh. “I agreed, and said lover returned to the upper city. Here is the question: did Sandy save her lover?”

If anyone else had asked me that question, I would have said yes. But when Mr. Light asks it, here in the High Rooms, doubt runs through me like cold water. If there were not room for doubt, it would not have been asked. And the human heart is so fragile, so fallible.

And yet … and yet. Sandy has a power all the same, enough to send me down into the dark to try to save them. Enough to make me believe I can save myself, too. The weight of their kindness makes cracks in the dark for light to get through. Anyone who has been Sandy’s lover, anyone who has known that weight and that light and that kindness as intimately as they knew their own skin … I want to believe it’s enough.

“Yes,” I say.

Mr. Light’s smile, when it comes, is slow as a snake moving through grass. He shakes his head, reaches over, and takes both the purse and the little card with Sandy’s name on it. All the heat flies out of me. I am frozen in the chair.

The dealer takes the winnings, sets them in the little box, and moves back into the shadows.

“Well,” says Mr. Light. “Aren’t we a little optimistic? Did you think a flower seller could compete with this?” He lifts one hand in a slow arc, showing me the High Rooms, as if their cold shine were not already burned into my eyes. “Sandy came to win her lover’s passage out of the dark. Sandy stayed behind, bleeding out her memories so others could get out. I let her, because it doesn’t hurt my bottom line.” He shrugs. “In the end, they all come back to me. They come back despite Sandy. Oh, she makes a pretense of some sort of enlightenment, she plays the martyr well. I commend her sincerity. But at the end of the day, Sandy has saved no one. Not a single soul. She is mine, like everyone else here.”

Beneath my heavy, shining mask, tears burn their way down my cheeks. I want to take the mask off and fling it onto the table, but if I leave now, we’ll both be lost. I grit my teeth. Maybe it’s the mask, or maybe it’s that new boldness inside me, but I hear myself say, “Then let me buy their freedom.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You have no money left,” he says. “And even if you did, it’s not like I have much need for small change.”

“Do you take memories?”

He snorts. “Of course,” he says. “But if you’re thinking of buying Sandy with those cheap, sordid memories of Harry …” He leans back, examines me. “I’ll free Sandy for everything after Harry. All your life in the upper city that you’ve made without him. Deal?”

I stare at him. All my time spent rebuilding, all my time trying to move on, gone. But even as I think that, I have already said yes in my heart. I can feel the memories bleeding out of me, all the bandages ripped off, all the wounds reopening. Harry surrounds me again: his rising voice, his rough hands, his bald lies and subtle coercions. I smell him pressed against my skin.

But Sandy is still there. I stand, pale and unsteady and shaking, and leave the High Rooms.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” says Mr. Light.

• • •

Sandy stands in the middle of the balcony, watching the Tattooed Woman in silence. The Tattooed Woman ignores us. Her eyes are on the mingling customers below, looking for trouble.

“Let’s go,” I say, taking Sandy by the hand and leading them from the balcony. My flower is starting to fade already, but that isn’t what hurries my steps. It’s the thought of Harry, right behind me, that makes me move.

“How did it go? What happened?” asks Sandy, their voice almost lost beneath the sound of wailing strings coming from the pit.

“You’re free,” I say. “We just have to get out of here.”

Their head tilts, noticing the nasturtium. I know they’re thinking what I’m thinking: that the fading flower is the only thing that can get us out now. If we can’t pass the highest landing before it vanishes completely …

By now my feet are swollen and filthy, and my calves burn with effort. I have already run up the stairs once that night, and the thought of doing so again makes my legs scream. But there is no alternative. “Go, go!” I cry, pushing Sandy ahead of me. The mask drops from my numb fingers and falls off into the darkness, as my shoes had done before.

Sandy is not athletic, and I am worn to nubs. As much as I want a hasty escape, neither of us are up to the task. Every step seems agonizingly slow, every moment flickers away too fast. The nasturtium’s petals are mostly transparent.

We pass the Queen Mummer, whose blank wooden mask turns to watch us. We keep going. I can already see the top of the flower cart peeking over the next landing above us. Almost there.

I hear the sound of footsteps running up the stairs behind us. I try running faster, thinking it’s Harry, thinking it’s Harry and all is lost. But I can’t push my exhausted muscles any further.

Someone grabs my arm, yanks me back down the stairs. I am caught before my neck can break against the stone steps, and slammed against the cold, sweating stone wall. The inked outline of a snake stands out against the pale flesh of the fist that holds me.

Sandy stops, turns. Their eyes are wide and shining in the dim light. “Thérèse, no!” they cry. But the Tattooed Woman drops me, leaps up the stairs, and drives a sharp elbow into Sandy’s gut. Sandy crumples, folds.

I push myself up, bracing myself against the wall. My shin is scraped and bleeding, but not broken. “Leave them alone!” I scream, launching myself up the stairs. The Tattooed Woman turns to meet me, her grin contemptuous. She kicks me in the face.

Sandy gasps, sucking in breath. “Thérèse,” they moan, “please don’t …”

The Tattooed Woman stands on the stair between us, hands on hips. “You know no one gets away from Mr. Light,” she says, sneering. “That’s just the way it is. Sorry, Sandy dear.” With one combat-booted foot she turns me over, checks the small red nasturtium. It’s flickering badly, almost gone. She rips it from me and throws it out into the dark.

Without another word, the woman who had been Sandy’s lover walks back down the stairs.

• • •

“Hey,” I say when I get my breath back. “Can you move?”

I hear Sandy shuffling on the stairs above me. They are gingerly sliding down to where I am. I can’t see them, because everything is dark.

I feel Sandy’s hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think she broke anything,” they say. Their voice is weak, uncertain. “What about you? Can you move?”

Limb by limb, I stretch myself. My right shin is raw and bleeding, and one arm is a mass of bruises, and I think my nose might be broken. I could probably sit up, but what’s the point? We’re both lost. I could just as easily go limp and slide right down the stairs to Mr. Light’s, or roll myself over the edge. I can already feel the downward tug on my heart. But Sandy is right here, so I stay.

“I guess it’s over,” I say. “Think he’ll go easy on us?” But I know he won’t. Harry didn’t ever go easy, and Mr. Light is no better than him.

Sandy strokes the cropped ends of my hair. “Probably not,” they say. Then, “I’m sorry. I can’t remember any more flowers.”

I start to cry. I have never hated myself more than at this moment. Even after all I’ve done in the undercity—Mr. Light has been kind enough to leave me memories of my own selfish wallowing—all I want now is to comfort Sandy and I have nothing to give them. I can only cry at the whole stupid wastefulness of it.

“I’d give you all the flowers Harry gave me,” I say. “But you deserve better than the awful things he touched.”

For a moment Sandy is silent, just stroking my hair. I find their hand and clasp it. Their grip is strong. “They’re still flowers,” they say. “They’re still beautiful, no matter who bought them or why.”

I laugh despite myself. I can’t see Sandy’s face—there is no light here except the distant bug light of neon far below us—but I am amazed at how they can stay Sandy even at a time like this. Mr. Light may have owned them, but he could never pin Sandy down.

A warmth blooms in my heart. I don’t know how it happens, but a bright spear of gladiola appears in my hand, yellow as sunlight. I feel up toward Sandy’s face and slip it over their ear. Its light is dim, but it is enough for me to see Sandy smile.

“Thank you,” they say. “I love it.”

And the floodgates open. Whether it is the flower or Sandy’s smile that pierces my numb heart like an arrow, all the flowers in my memory come pouring out. My summer-colored wedding flowers, the bouquets Harry gave me, the geraniums from our apartment window box, the dandelions I saw in the park when I was a girl. They bloom along the stairs and rain down over the edge, filling all the long dark with a summer light I remember so clearly now. All bright and blooming despite Harry. The bug light of the undercity vanishes under all that sun, and I can see the path upward.

I force myself to my feet. My legs still throb and my shin still bleeds, but Sandy is here and the light is getting through, and that’s enough. I hold out a hand and help them up.

I am not sure how many down below will get my flowers and make their way up out of the dark. I am not sure if Sandy saved me or if I saved Sandy. But I know we are climbing out of the dark clasping tightly each other’s hands. And we will hold the door open for as long as we can, together.