A Lady of Wisdom. Infinite Horizons, #72

The Courtyard of the Courtesans glimmered in the slant of the evening sun. Summer's lush growth of ivy and morning glories had bronzed as frost crept in on the night's breeze. Along with death. Or perhaps the death had been there all along. Nidia's stomach churned. She'd rather be anywhere else than here but she needed this job. It was either fix the First Courtesan's wall or let her wife die of pregnancy complications.
Neither was acceptable but Avia came first. A Lady of Wisdom is a tense fantasy story where nothing is as it seems and the consequences of failure are too high to contemplate.