Free Taste of Passion by Renae Jones Page A

her elsewhere. Or maybe her mother never earned out her own Temple of Passion contract, and had had no choice.
    She went back to watching children slide. She smiled at more toddlers, then at skillful five-year-olds, older daredevils who tried to stand while sliding and got yelled at by the attendants. She refused to leave until she’d recaptured her peace.
    As she headed home, sitting primly in the first cream-upholstered lev car, once reserved for the luxury caste, her thoughts returned to Rasmus. If she told him about Kelsa, how would he look at her then?
    She sighed. She’d have nightmares again that night, as she had the night before. Even in daylight, all of her memories were taking on more sinister contexts. Veils she hadn’t realized were there were falling away from her eyes, and she was seeing the ugly in previously innocent aspects of her upbringing.
    And if she ran into Rasmus now, he would surely finish the job of driving her crazy; she checked the time, to be sure he was working. Then she decided she was an idiot. She wasn’t stupid for wanting to avoid him―that was an important need.
    She was stupid for not avoiding Rasmus properly.
    She arrived back home to obsess over travel guides, investigating amazing spas and retreats hidden in the carefully sculpted wilds. Through pictures, she admired lush jungles and temperate pine forests and the sea of lights at Chabliss.
    Quite easily, she found one that interested her. It was a painting retreat for non-artists, nestled at the base of one of the hundred great peaks (which, in actuality, numbered thirty-six). The cost was steep―but then she realized this would count as a reeducation credit for her. An attempt to reeducate herself meant a four-month extension on the money she received from the government, the pittance that barely paid her base expenses.
    With that money figured in... Well, it was still expensive. But she had the excuse she wanted. She booked a two-week stay, far away from her crazy off-worlder neighbor.
    * * *
    Fedni locked the gilt-and-glass door of a little boutique at the edge of the diamond district, nestled between a swanky custom electronics shop and an antiques seller. The lock-up ritual was becoming familiar after two months of working there, closing up in the evening while the lights on the street switched from twilight dim to full-dark bright.
    Five months before, when she’d jaunted off for a painting retreat, she’d had no clue that decision would somehow lead her here, back to the street she used to window-shop on.
    Behind her, discrete islands of cut but unfitted dresses formed the frames of this season’s most sought frocks. Fedni was a shop girl, manning the front desk and taking measurements at a patron’s initial fitting. She also swept floors, cleaned windows twice daily and assisted the artist who arranged the shop windows.
    That was the job she wanted someday, dressing the windows. She had an eye for it, and a grasp of trends to rival anyone born into the dressmakers temple. Getting that job would be another caste hop, her third, but she wanted this one badly. It was very Federation of her.
    Reeducation, or perhaps just boredom, had finally taken. She was a working woman now. Her caste had changed, though she was keeping her townhome and she still sat tall in the luxurious cream lev cars.
    She hadn’t dropped completely to the dregs of society―technically, she was an adjunct apprentice uncontracted dressmaker, which was professional caste. Still, the luxury-caste patrons she served tried hard to ignore her presence, especially if they recognized her from her former luxury-caste notoriety.
    That had taken getting used to.
    At that moment, she was a nervous shop girl. Her stomach fluttered warningly while she gathered her simple black handbag and freed her hair from its chaste knot. Then she slipped out the employees’ door in the back.
    She might be a shop girl with a date waiting, perhaps. If he’d come.
    Two blocks