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Kerik looks a little pale at this. But all he says is, “Go on then. Show me how that will look.”

“Now?”

“Yes now, write your name on me, Master.” Of course he makes it sound like a command.

“Very well.” Perl lifts the brush and nods. He leans in.

Kerik yelps as soon as the brush touches his skin. “That tickles,” he says, looking up into Perl’s eyes. “And it is colder even than your frozen touches.”

“I’m sorry,” Perl says, then swallows and tries again, doing his best to make the letters neat despite the way Kerik yelps and wriggles and his own hands shake.

When Perl pulls back, his work complete, he puts a hand on Kerik’s upper arm. Kerik almost flinches away like a shying horse.

He looks down at the neat lettering. “Does that say Perl?” he says, voice heavier than before.

“It says my full name. Perlash-zeren-ai.’

The letters glow softly as the painted words set on Kerik’s skin. Perl supposes they look quite pretty.

Kerik nods. “And the other item in the chest? You said there were two.”

Perl sets down the jar and lifts out the last item. “Ah, yes, this.”

It’s a tangle of leather straps. Black leather with bright silver fixings.

“And what is that? It looks like a horse’s tack.”

“It is traditional. Part of the ensemble you are wearing. It’s a bridle.”

“For me?”

“It’s hardly for me.”

“Are you planning to ride me like a horse?”

“No,” Perl says with a small smile. “Although that is sometimes done.”

Kerik raises both eyebrows at Perl as if he is unsure whether Perl will actually do this. But he seems to draw his strength to say, “So I am to be in wrist cuffs and a horse’s bridle with your name painted on my chest and jewels attached to my nipples and this cruel collar.” He touches it, lying on the table. “And a gilded cage around my cock?”

“That is the idea. You are on display. At a Silver Ball the role of the thralls is to be decorative.”

“No wonder you have to send all your thralls to a brutal pit to be trained to endure this. It’s ridiculous.”

“I am aware of how ridiculous it is. I did not design these protocols. Take them up with The Aeons.” Perl sighs. “I am sorry. These events are not held often. I did not expect there to be one when we were here.”

“Shall I put the rest of it on? The cuffs and the bridle and the cock covering and the nipple clamps. Try it all together?” Kerik raises an eyebrow in a gesture that Perl is quickly learning means he is about to say something infuriating. “Would you like to see me dressed decoratively, for your pleasure, Master?”

“I suppose it would make sense for you to put it on so you can get used to it.”

Kerik picks up the wrist cuffs and turns them over in his hands.

They’re smooth pieces of metal, not a hinge or a clasp anywhere. They’re sized for Kerik’s wrists, or, at least, for a man with wrists that size, but there is no way he can get them on over his hands.

Perl waits, watching Kerik puzzle over them. Eventually Kerik looks up at Perl and says, “How do these work?” He holds out the silver cuffs to Perl.

Perl takes them. “Ah,” he says simply. “These are magic.”

“I am actually aware of that fact. Of course they are magic. If they’re not magic they’d be useless.”