The Ruby District was the only area of the Station with red lighting outside of the Station alarm. This was the entertainment district, which provided any pleasure that an individual might imagine. The Garnet Market was enclosed in the Ruby District, but Rose led them around the market instead of cutting through it. Asa wondered if Rose had conflict with the robots in this time-line, if he was avoiding the market; in Asa’s own time-line, Rose maintained neutral relations with the robots after a childhood of traversing the Garnet Market on a daily basis.

  The jewel of the Ruby District was the Vermilion House. It was the largest and grandest building in the district with five upper levels and then several lower levels. There were discrete scanners that confirmed identities at the entrance, and Rose stopped to let the machine scan his face. The screen briefly pinged green, and the door opened inward.

  Asa looked up at the tall visage of the House, which had been his home until he was sixteen years old. The House was the saturated red of arterial blood, narrow balconies rounding the edges, and lined with windows that held the warm glow of ambient lighting. There was a huge neon red sign that read The Vermilion House with a logo of a pomegranate. Asa had lived his whole life in the House, born to his mother when she was eighteen years old. The House had allowed her to keep him, but it had been conditional—he would also work for the House, or he would have to live elsewhere. His mother had signed a secondary contract that included him as a dependent to her primary contract, and which also stipulated that he would not have to sign his own contract with the House. It was only two years ago, when the House had said that Asa had to sign his own contract with the House or leave, that Asa had decided to leave.

  When Asa looked at the House, his heart clenched with both longing and resentment. The House held his mother hostage, but it had also raised him. The House never slept. There had always been someone to talk to or someone to play with. Now he lived in a tiny apartment in an anonymous building, and his room was so silent and empty.

  Asa hadn’t stepped foot inside the House—inside his home—in two whole years.

  Now Luna shoved Asa inside the House, and it smelled exactly as he remembered: redolent with the scent of paper and freshly burned incense. The entryway was vast with high ceilings and real lacquered wood flooring, a narrow and richly red runner rug leading them further into the House. Asa couldn’t count how many times he had run in and out of this entryway, on errands for Madame Katusha or his mother or the cook, or just because that’s what he wanted to do.

  Mouse whistled loudly. “Wow, this place must be really rich,” she said.

  Asa glared at Mouse, but Rose ignored her. Of course, this place was wealthy off the backs of its workers, off the infinite demon contracts that Madame Katusha had negotiated to keep people working here even after they had paid their debts. Asa had seen so many people crumble when they thought they had paid off their debts and thought they were free—but they hadn’t read the fine print correctly.

  But Madame Katusha had also raised him to reach Head Apprentice status, and his mother had encouraged this.

  House attendants arrived dressed in red uniforms and led them through the long winding hallways and up spiral stairs, which was the same route to Madame Katusha’s office in Asa’s own time-line. The door to the office of the Madame was large and painted black with an ID scanner mounted on the wall.

  Rose once again scanned his face and it pinged green, although the door didn’t automatically open this time.

  A woman’s voice barked, “What?” from inside the door.

  Asa froze in shock—he knew that voice like the back of his hand.

  Rose sighed loudly. “It’s me, open up,” he called through the door, leaning his shoulder against the wall.

  “You can’t talk to me that way, you absolute punk,” his mother shouted through the door. “I’m balancing the accounts, go away.”

  Rose leaned forward, pushing himself away from the wall, and barged into the office of the Madame—who looked just like his mother, Galatea Rex.

  The Madame sat behind an extremely large wooden desk with her cheek resting on one hand. Her black hair was styled in intricate braids, and she wore red lipstick and kohl penciled delicately around her eyes. This woman looked and sounded exactly like his mother in his own time-line. Asa couldn’t wrap his mind around it. How could his mother be the Madame of the House instead of Madame Katusha?

  “You are an extremely predictable kid,” the Madame drawled. “Who do we have here?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Rose said coolly. “You saw the news.”

  “And this is my problem because…?” Asa’s mother asked, raising one elegant eyebrow.

  Rose opened his mouth, but Mouse interrupted him. “Wow,” she breathed. “She’s really pretty.”

  “Who asked you, pipsqueak?” the Madame said, but Asa could tell she was trying not to smile.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Rose frowned, jabbing a thumb in Asa’s direction. “He’s got a House collar,” he said.

  Asa’s mother wore narrow spectacles, and she performatively lowered them, before sighing. “I guess that does change things,” she said, standing gracefully and rounding the desk to look at Asa more closely. She was only a few inches shorter than Asa—he remembered when they were the exact same height, and he realized for the first time how small his mother actually was. She had always seemed larger than life to him.

  Asa couldn’t believe his mother was the Madame here. His mother had no desire to lead the House—she said she never would, because then she would risk actually never being able to leave. The Madame stayed with the House as long as she lived, until she died.

  “What’s your name, kid?” the Madame said.

  Asa remembered what Nora had said: Galatea Rex didn’t have a child. It hurt more than he thought it would that Nora had been right.

  “Asahel,” he said.

  “Last name?” the Madame said impatiently.

  Asa didn’t answer.

  “Tell me your last name,” the Madame said again. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  “Rex,” Asa said reluctantly because he never lied to his mother.

  “Do you know,” the Madame said thoughtfully, “that’s my last name as well?”

  Asa probably should have lied. It was reflex to tell her the truth—she looked just like his mother. He couldn’t imagine his mother without him, but here was Galatea Rex without him, and she didn't recognize him at all.

  “A very thorough digital search of the Station didn’t turn up your face,” the Madame continued, looking at him speculatively. “So we widened the search to the whole system, one planet at a time.”

  Asa was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

  “You don’t exist in this system at all,” his mother said smoothly, with no hint of tension at this information. Asa couldn’t remember his mother ever lying to him. Sometimes she chose to omit information, or wouldn’t answer him, but she had never outright told him a falsehood. Asa’s stomach dropped, an irrational hurt flooding his system, because this wasn’t his mother. But she still felt and looked and sounded like his mother. “And yet—you look just like me.”

  Asa ran his hand self-consciously through his shoulder-length black hair. Everyone in his time-line always said he was a carbon copy of his mother—it was as if he didn’t have a father at all.

  “And that robot looks exactly like my work,” his mother continued, nodding her head toward PQ-9. She extended her hand, presumably for Asa to hand over PQ-9, but PQ-9 beeped a sound of disapproval, still perched inside the neck of Asa’s jumpsuit. Asa crossed his arms, immovable. “You must be from another time-line then,” his mother concluded, her tone confident. She didn’t look perturbed at all that Asa hadn’t surrendered PQ-9 to her.

  There came a knock at the door.

  “Oh, that’s my Head Apprentice. Come in,” his mother said, louder to be heard through the door.

  Asa held his breath—perhaps to see himself, even if the Madame had said he didn’t exist in this time-line, maybe it wasn’t true, or maybe he had a different name here. He couldn’t imagine anyone else as the Head Apprentice to his mother other than himself—

  The Head Apprentice entered, and it—wasn’t Asa. It was Jury Stone, who had also replaced him in his time-line as Head Apprentice after he left the House. She wore the Head Apprentice uniform, which was red with small white accents. She had long dark red hair, brown eyes, and an expression that expressed nothing.

  Jury didn’t even spare him a look—which was par for the course even in Asa’s own time-line—and sat at the small desk on the other side of the Madame’s desk. There were data-pads in a neat stack on the desk, and then a little chest of drawers where Asa knew the special parchment and writing implements for contracts were stored. Asa knew this because in his time-line, this was Madame Katusha’s office and that had been his little desk until he was sixteen years old.

  “This is my Head Apprentice, Jury Stone,” the Madame said with obvious pride, as she glanced over at Jury. It sounded like she was saying, “this is my child”, and Asa wanted to say, but I’m your child. Asa clenched his jaw and reminded himself he was in another time-line. The rules weren’t going to be the same.

  “She’s pretty too,” Mouse piped up. “Do you only hire pretty people?”

  Asa’s mother laughed, and Asa could tell that it was genuine. “Very observant girl,” the Madame said, smiling. “What would you say about working for me?”

  “Does that mean you think I’m pretty too?” Mouse said, pure curiosity in her voice.

  “And more importantly—very clever,” the Madame said, smiling wider. This was the smile Asa had seen her give clients time and time again. The sales pitch smile. “We pay for room, board, clothing, and any health-care that you need. You would even get to learn any House-related skill you want. How about it?”

  Mouse started to open her mouth, but Asa interrupted her. “She’s not taking any deals from you,” Asa said immediately, even though it felt wrong to disagree with his mother. But she wasn’t his mother. She was Galatea Rex who had never had a child.

  The Madame tapped her mouth with her index finger. “Well, that’s a problem,” the Madame said calmly. “You see, with the amount of damage your demon battle did to the city infrastructure, we really don’t have the funds to repair it.”

  “I highly doubt that,” Asa retorted. He knew the funds that the House pulled in, since as Head Apprentice he had also been partially in charge of accounting. Asa didn’t see how House finances would be different in this time-line, especially since his mother was even smarter than Madame Katusha

  The Madame shrugged one shoulder elegantly. “Why should we have to pay for it?” she said. “After all, the one who causes the damage is responsible for it.”

  Mouse was starting to look a little more nervous, finally. This irritated Asa, as she should have realized that this wasn’t a good situation earlier, especially since she was the cause for this whole thing. Asa didn’t like the way that the Head Apprentice had been opening drawers and retrieving the specially-cured parchment and writing implements for multiple contracts.

  “Then you should petition the SAD for funds,” Asa said, short.

  The Madame made a scoffing sound that still managed to sound charming. She waved a hand toward the Head Apprentice. “It’s just a simple contract,” she said, her tone reassuring. “Nothing complicated. No need to be nervous,” she said kindly to Mouse. “It’s only until you pay back the damages.”

  The Head Apprentice held up two separate contracts: one for Mouse, and one for Asa. Both contracts were written in red ink, most likely derived from dried demon blood. Asa knew this because one of his roles as apprentice of the House had been grinding the ink himself. Asa reflexively looked behind himself toward the door, measuring his distance to escape, but Rose and Luna were still in the office. Asa could imagine that the rest of Rose’s subordinates were stationed in the hall, just in case.

  Fuck.

  Asa and Mouse were trapped.