The hooks and hangers were crowded with a variety of garments: oiled sweaters, thick woolen shirts, scarred spaceleather jackets, and two or three evening cloaks in the Liaden style.

Pat Rin removed his own cloak and hung it carefully over Natesa’s coat. Shaking out his lace, he stepped back into the hallway, where his lady waited in her sun-yellow gown.

He paused, his heart suddenly constricted in his chest. Natesa’s black eyebrows rose, just slightly, and he moved a hand in response to the question she did not voice.

“You overwhelm me with your beauty,” he said. She laughed softly and stepped forward to take his arm again.

“And you overwhelm me with yours,” she answered in her lightly accented High Liaden. “Come, let us see if together we may not overwhelm the world.”

The doors between the public parlor and the visitors’ lounge had been opened and tied back; the furniture moved out of the public parlor and the serviceable beige rug rolled up, revealing a surprisingly wide expanse of plastic tile in a deep, mostly unscarred brown. A refreshment table was placed along the back wall, directly beneath — Pat Rin blinked.

When not pressed into duty as a dance hall, the public parlor of Ms. Audrey’s bordello displayed certain ...works of art... as might perhaps serve to beguile the mind away from the cares of the day and toward the mutual enjoyment of pleasure.

This evening, the walls had been—transformed.

The artwork was gone, or mayhap only hidden behind objects, which, had anyone dared challenge Pat Rin to describe twelve items belonging to Korval that he least expected to find on public display, he would certainly have placed within the top six.