Chapter 8
Eight
A good brownie never starts a war.
Even if you don’t mean to. - Arienna
Worst.
I groan.
Idea.
I whimper.
Ever.
I am never drinking again.
My head feels like it has a sword rammed through it. A fiery sword. One that has been cursed to inflict even more pain than is possible. A magical fiery pain that makes me wish I was still drunk.
Groping around my bed, I search for a wayward bottle. There’s usually one or two cuddled up against me.
Nothing.
Poop.
“I am going to kill you,” Fabia hisses from somewhere beside me.
Too late. I’m already dying.
Groaning, I wave my hand in my best friend’s general direction. My head is absolutely killing me, and I’m not in the mood to plot out my fictional death in another one of her books.
“What happened?” I press my hand to my eyes, trying to block out the morning light.
Why does Drunk Me never remember to close the curtains? One job. I only ever ask her to do one job, and she always fails.
“What happened?” Fabia hisses. “What happened?” As her voice increases, I really wish she’d follow the rules more. Perhaps I should remind her that a good brownie never yells.
“Rule number sixty–”
“I am not yelling!” she yells.
Moving my hand away, I slowly open my eyes, but a blinding white light pierces my skull. Squinting, I try to focus past it.
“We are in jail,” Fabia says as she starts pacing on my left.
My brows furrow. That’s weird. No one but Fabia ever stays the night in jail.
The cells all have king-sized beds, and the sheets are changed every day, but they’re never actually used.
A good brownie always says sorry when they do something wrong, and a good brownie always accepts an apology.
And when the jail helper accepts an apology, the accuser must be released as otherwise, they’d be holding them for no reason; kidnapping is very rude, and anything rude is illegal in Brownston.
Throwing me a dark look, Fabia adds, “In Raza.”
“What?” I jerk upright, only to grab my head in both hands. “That was a bad idea,” I groan to myself.
“Oh? Now you can tell if something is a bad idea? Where was that insightful ability last night?” Her words drip with sarcasm.
“When you brought a wasp to a wedding and set it free! And then decided the best way to handle the other ones you kidnapped out of the wild was by getting some anti-wasp runes from Raza!”
“I did what!” I shoot to my feet, then press a hand on the wall for support. My heart hammers, and my eyes sting from the harsh light. I look around the place, desperate to see something other than the three white walls and white-painted steel bars.
“Why didn’t you stop me?” I very nearly yell, panic starting to set in.
The fairies are a monstrous race. They eat trespassing children.
They torture their prisoners. They put the milk in before the cereal.
We can’t reason with these people! We’re going to die, and I haven’t even got laid! Or rather, I don’t think I have.
I furrow my brow, trying to remember last night.
A sudden jolt of electricity shoots through me. Pierced brows over violet eyes fill my mind, sizzling and intense. An oversized nose, also pierced, nestles between sharp cheeks. Black curly hair adorns his head. But the image is hazy and fleeting.
Blinking, I wonder if that was a memory or a dream.
“Well, because –” My best friend looks a bit sheepish. “I really wanted to see Raza, and you never want to come here when you’re sober.”
“That’s because fairies are psycho! They have war and weapons!
There aren’t any weapons in Brownston. There’s not even any violence in Brownston.
But here? Well, there isn’t even an ensuite in here!
” I say, horror hitting me as I spot the toilet in the corner.
It sits directly in front of the bars. Anyone walking down the corridor will be able to see us.
“That just isn’t humane. Fairies aren’t humane! ”
Panicking, I run to the bars and grab them. “Hello! Hello! Mr or Mrs or Ms or Gender-Neutral Helper! I’m sorry! We are sorry! So please let us out!”
Shaking her head, Fabia starts pacing faster behind me.
“Hello!” I don’t-quite-shout. I turn my head to look at her. “Why isn’t anyone coming? Are they leaving us in here to starve?”
But she’s not listening, lost in her own panic attack. She brings her hand to her lips, nibbling on her black-painted nails. “I never made it a secret that I wanted to visit this place. I’ve talked about it for years. My books all take place here. What author wouldn’t want to visit their books?”
Bugger. I knew all that. Drunk Me is too wonderfully clever for her own good.
“Okay, okay,” I say as I release the bars and turn back to face her.
“It’s going to be okay. I’m sure we can sort this out.
” I sigh in relief as it comes to me. “Queen Hurvan will help us. We have a treaty with the fairies after all, and we’re at peace, so she’ll just ask nicely and…
” I trail off as I catch the look on Fabia’s face.
She’s staring over my shoulder, her lips parted, her eyes wide. Spinning around, I find a dark figure coming down the stairs at the end of the hall. Dressed in all black, he looks as ominous as our situation feels.
Stepping up to the door, I stick an arm through the metal bars and wave. “Hey, hey,” I call in my most polite voice. “Can you come here, please?”
He doesn’t give any indication he’s heard me, but his feet carry him to our cell. When he stops in front of me, his face finally out of the shadows, I stare at him in shock. I’ve never seen a scar before, and the entire half of his face is –
“Ow!” Fabia elbows me hard in the ribs.
“Are you in charge?” she asks all businesslike. “I would like to speak to Queen Hurvan and inform her –”
“We’ve already talked to her.” The scarred man doesn’t glance at her, his eyes still locked on mine.
My cheeks heat as I realise I can’t hold his gaze. My eyes keep wanting to roam over his face, to take in every morbid detail. I want to ask him what happened, but my stomach twists with something that makes me feel sick.
Looking down at my feet, I shuffle back a bit. Fabia instantly takes my place.
“Well, we haven’t. And I’m sure if we did, she’d be able to clear up this mess and –”
“Your queen agreed to sacrifice you to save everyone else. The treaty between our people is quite clear. If a brownie ever breaks one of our laws, the treaty is voided, and we go to war. We’ve already breached your territory.”
Fabia shoots me a pointed look. I pretend like I can’t see her.
Like I can’t hear the memory of her arguing for us to build a wall around our kingdom.
I mean, it’s not like it would have worked anyway.
The thing about fairies is they have four wings.
And the thing about brownies is we let everyone in if they just ask nicely.
“The terms of our new agreement include handing over any brownies that’ve committed a capital crime.” He looks at Fabia. “Entering our lands illegally is a misdemeanour.” His gaze turns to me. “But trying to sneak through the portal to the human realm…” He pauses.
My heart hammering, I lift my gaze to his, trying not to cringe in preparation of his words.
“Is punishable by public execution.”
I cringe.
“But Arienna wasn’t trying to go through the portal! She doesn’t even know where it is!” Fabia protests.
His eyes bore deeply into hers. “And I wasn’t trying to upset my wife, but she still burned half my face off.”
I gasp. Fabia turns pale.
“Did she say sorry?” I whisper.
Sorry fixes everything. My tummy twists as I study the deep grooves cutting across his face. For the first time, I start to doubt the power of an apology. His own wife…
I can’t imagine being married to someone so cruel.
When Fabia doesn’t say anything more, he turns to me. I swallow hard and dig my fingers into my thighs so I don’t take a step back.
“Do you know what a fairy public execution entails?” he asks.
I glance at Fabia. She grows paler by the second. “No?” I squeak.
“You will be smothered in honey to be feasted on by ants. Once they eat off all your skin, we will release pregnant wasps so they lay their eggs inside your body. You will be kept alive, force fed omini, until the maggots eat their way out. You’ll scream the first few days, but eventually your vocal chords will snap.
You will be cut open from shoulders to wrists, from thighs to ankles.
And then your bones will be snapped inside you.
Your ears will be cut off as will your tongue.
Your ribs will be cracked open and spread apart.
And as you are struggling to breathe, your intestines will be pulled from your anus and strung around your neck. Only then will you be granted mercy.”
My mouth opens and closes wordlessly. I can’t speak, can’t think, can’t focus on anything other than the cruel, gruesome picture he’s painted. Of my soon to be fate.
Hunching forward, I vomit all over his shoes.
Whatever I ate last night was chunky and red, and it now looks like –
I vomit again.
Brains.
“Uhhh,” I moan as I spit out the lingering bits in my mouth. My heart’s pounding so loudly, I barely hear the man’s next words.
“Luckily for you though,” he says tightly as he shakes his right foot, “King Morningstar is feeling generous today and would like to offer you a deal.”
“What kind of deal?” Fabia asks warily. Her voice is small, nothing like her normal self.
I tremble as I wrap my arms around my waist, trying to hold myself together.
They’ll do everything he said they would.
I’m going to be tortured for weeks, maybe even a month.
I’m going to spend the last of my days crazed and in pain.
I’d be lucky if I remember my own name, let alone Fabia, my dearest friend.
I look at her and she at me. I can see the worry in her eyes. The heartache and the guilt.
I can’t let her suffer through my torture.
Taking a deep breath, I swallow hard and look up into the man’s cold plum-coloured eyes, ready to take the deal. I open my mouth and –
Projectile vomit all over his tunic.
Oh my gods. I held eye contact!