Chapter Fourteen
I had shifted us into the main corridor leading to the dining hall, as I didn’t know this place well enough to go anywhere else. Alphonse had taken over at that point and been steering us along winding passageways and up endless staircases as he’d said he had a quick errand to do. And I guessed it involved food since we’d just entered a kitchen.
It was a big one without the subtle elegance of the halls outside. Which had been becoming steadily less refined as we went on, with brilliantly colored mosaics giving way to bare walls, intricate tilework becoming rough slabs of stone underfoot, and expensive spell light dropping away in favor of copper lanterns, the heat of which had stained the plaster behind them in places. I hadn’t paid much attention until now, though, when Alphonse pushed through a rough, scarred wooden door, and we stepped into a blast of heat.
That was thanks to a long, whitewashed wall full of bread ovens on this side of the room, tended by an army of women with stained aprons thrown over their tunics. There was a mass of sturdy wooden tables in the middle of the space, being worked on by another hundred or so people, and a row of enormous stone fireplaces along the wall opposite us. Like the bread ovens, they were going all out and blasting the workers in between with a double dose of heat.
That might have been why the spit-turners, sitting on little stools to the right of each fireplace, looked exhausted. They were all men drenched in sweat, to the point that they looked like they’d been in the dining hall with us. Only I didn’t think so.
The servants there had been freshly scrubbed and pristine, with their tunics plain but clean and pressed to fall in elegant folds. These guys were in rags, and not many of those, because who would want to ruin decent clothes with that job? And they were decorated with ash from the fireplaces, which had clung to all that sweat and created almost a paste over their skin.
They looked like chimney sweeps after a hard day and were busy cranking haunches of meat and huge, trussed-up fish over the flames, why I didn’t know, as dinner had been canceled. Only maybe not. A bunch of teenagers were rushing around, grabbing platters of food, throwing wards over them that immediately became steamed up, and rushing out again.
Ye olde room service was booming tonight.
“They gotta have the kitchens above the water line so that the smoke has somewhere to go,” Alphonse explained as we skirted around the edge of the room. “So, the nicer areas are all below the sea, with the workspaces above it.”
“Seems like a strange choice since most of the court breathes air,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but so do their enemies. This place was built for defense. The palace is basically a hollow mountain, and the fey got ways of flooding whatever parts of it they want. They know how to survive that kind of thing, having done it for thousands of years. But their enemies—”
“Don’t,” I finished for him.
He nodded. “Armies come in, but they don’t come out. Or at least, they used to. They don’t come in so much anymore.”
I thought back to the flooded ballroom and the people who had been busy fleeing the attacking monster. But none had seemed overly worried about all that water. And then I thought about the twisty corridors outside and how much fun it would be to meet a trident-carrying bunch of fey while lost in the maze and busy drowning.
No, I didn’t suppose armies came in much anymore, either.
But this part of the palace seemed like another world, being bone dry and without the cool breeziness of the rest of the complex. There weren’t even any windows to open, giving the tiniest bit of fresh air. Just massive expanses of smoke-blackened chimneys above the roasting stations, their scars getting steadily darker from the heat.
The air shimmered with it to the point that the room seemed to ripple, and within seconds, I was sweating up a storm under my armor. I glanced at Alphonse, who wasn’t perspiring because vampires didn’t, but he also wasn’t looking comfortable. Even in minimal tunics, I didn’t know how the servants took it.
“Slaves,” Alphonse said when I voiced my thoughts.
“What?”
“Oh, they don’t call ‘em that, but that’s what most of ‘em are. I mean, they don’t technically have to work for the Green Fey, but there’s not a lot of other options around here if you wanna eat.”
“Then why not leave?” It didn’t look like they had anything to lose.
Alphonse snorted. “How? They’re not allowed to use the Green Fey’s portals, including the one to Earth. And the other light fey houses are hostile to anyone with human blood trying to settle in their lands.”
“There are other portals—”
“Yeah, but even if you can get to one, and that means battling across hundreds of miles of hostile territory, what are you gonna use for money? Slaves aren’t rich, and those things are expensive. Not to mention that even if you somehow beg, borrow, or steal your way through, there’s a whole world on the other side that you don’t know how to navigate, and there’s no one to help you.
“Plus, there are all kinds of rumors about Earth, probably planted by the Alorestri, that’s got these people thinking it’s a hell zone. And the kind of assholes who come here as smugglers don’t exactly give anybody a reason to think otherwise. “I tried talking with a few guys in a tavern a week ago, but they didn’t believe me.”
He thought about it. “Of course, I’m not exactly the poster child for that kinda argument.”
“But the dark fey do it all the time!” I said. The casino that housed my court had a kitchen full of refugees from the war, who I strongly suspected didn’t get minimum wage. But they did get housing, food, protection, and the ability to slowly assimilate into the magical community.
Why couldn’t these people do the same?
But Alphonse was shaking his head. “Some of the dark fey do it, those who can pay traffickers to get them out and have family on the other side who help them get on their feet. But plenty of groups end up being abandoned by the bastards they paid their life savings to and never make it out of Faerie or get killed by those same traffickers as soon as there’s any sign of trouble. Cause that’s easier than getting sent up on a smuggling charge.”
He shot me a look. “Don’t you read the papers?”
Not as much as I probably should, I thought grimly.
I stared around the room, seeing again the terrified witches being corralled into pens by Nimue’s people back in the sixth century, who I’d been unable to save. I wondered if any of these were their descendants. It didn’t feel good to realize that they might be.
It was harder to steal witches now that they’d banded together into a worldwide coven network, but breeding what you needed from former captives was apparently fine and dandy. Because there were plenty here, and I was damned if I’d heard anything about it. And that included in Senate sessions where there’d been plenty of talk about possible allies in the war, but nobody had mentioned a group of humans already living in Faerie!
Maybe because said humans didn’t have anything to thank us for.
“Why hasn’t the Circle done anything?” I demanded, my temper rising. “These people are human—”
“Part human in most cases, and don’t look at me like that. They’re not gonna risk a war trying to drag back a bunch of people who have never even seen Earth and would likely only be trouble—”
“They’re magical humans! The Circle doesn’t have a choice!”
“Oh, they got a choice,” Alphonse said dryly. “And these guys might be magical, but they came from the wrong side of the blanket. Namely, the covens, who don’t care much for the Circle in our day and absolutely hated them in the past. You want ‘em to risk a conflict with a mostly friendly power over people who would only strengthen their enemies? Not gonna happen. And the Senate don’t like mages period and don’t want any more on Earth than they already got. Come on, Cassie. You know how it goes.”
I was learning.
“Look, let’s just get what we need and get out,” Alphonse said, scanning the room.
“And what do we need?” I asked, distracted by my thoughts.
“That red-haired waitress.”
“What?”
“The one who gave you the fish? She’s gotta know something. She delivered the damned poison.”
“You think she’s an assassin?” I remembered how she’d been low-key flirting with Pritkin, which suddenly took on a more ominous vibe.
“Don’t know. But even if not, she’ll know who gave her the platter and if she seen anybody adding a little extra “spice” at the last minute. And that might get us a line to somebody working with Tony. But we gotta find her first.”
“Do you see her?” I asked because I didn’t. She’d been a curvy redhead with dimples, a pretty, slightly round face, a pug nose, and bouncy curls held back by a dark blue scarf to match her tunic. But while there were a lot of people here and a larger-than-normal number of redheads, none looked like her.
“No, but I see the bastard who sent me on a wild goose chase earlier,” Alphonse said grimly and darted forward.
And I do mean darted. Vamps could move when they wanted to, which was why a portly cook who must have topped six feet by another foot was soon dangling off of the floor. Because Alphonse had just hung him on a hook.
For a moment, I thought that “hung” might be literal, with the man’s tunic threatening to strangle him. But his height saved him, being enough to let him get up on tiptoes to take some weight off his neck. But not to come down because a vamp was in his face.
“You lied.”
And, you know, Alphonse might not be pretty, and he might not be eloquent, and he might be a massive gaping asshole when required. But there weren’t too many who were better when it came to sheer scare tactics. And it looked like the cook agreed.
“I—I didn’t lie—”
Which was when the fangs came out, and like everything with Alphonse, they were more grotesque than usual, being cracked and yellow and with the tip of one splintered into two, like a snake’s forked tongue. As if he needed another intimidation factor. The two-pronged fang got very close to the other man’s neck before he spoke again.
“I checked every vendor,” he hissed. “Every last one, and a lot of the locals who were just milling about. Guess who hadn’t seen her?”
“W-well, they’re not going to tell you, are they?” the man spluttered. “You’re an outsider. They don’t trust outsiders here.”
“A fact you didn’t bother to mention before sending me on that useless chase!”
“What useless chase?” I asked.
“I came here after our lovely meal to talk to the girl but didn’t find her. Head honcho here told me she’d run off in a panic. Only nobody saw her where he said.”
“That’s why you had all that food,” I guessed.
“Merchants talk better if you buy something,” he agreed. “And I hit up every one.”
“Perhaps they missed her?” Honcho volunteered, which was a bad move. Something he realized when the fang was back and scraping his skin this time. But he kept on babbling anyway.
I wasn’t sure he could stop at this point.
“It’s dinner time,” he said, his voice shrill. “Everybody goes to Fountain Court! It’s the cheapest place to eat. The fishermen give their unsold catch to the vendors for a song, and they sell it on to the crowds—”
“Shut up!” Alphonse hissed. “The passage from here to the city comes out right in front of them! And a fleeing, half-drowned redhead is memorable. So, she didn’t go that way—”
“She did! I swear she—”
“—and now the trail is cold, and you’re going to warm it up for me or be the main course at the next meal. With an apple in your mouth.”
Alphonse never raised his voice, but he didn’t have to. The man shot a look at a nearby spit, where some small, goat-sized animal was roasting. It didn’t have an apple, but I thought he got the idea.
“Tell me!” Alphonse said, grabbing the guy’s neck and causing his protestations to descend into incomprehensible gurgling.
I glanced around. People were still steadily working, most not even glancing this way. That could have been the heat, sapping the life out of them because the designer of this place must have been a sadist. Yet you’d think their boss possibly being dinner would raise at least an eyebrow.
But no. How often did this sort of thing happen, I wondered. ‘Cause it was looking like the answer might be daily, to the point that nobody bothered to take notice unless their workstation was close enough to risk getting sprayed by blood.
One of the workers was a young woman making meat pies at a nearby table. Pritkin had said that the Alorestri had the best food in Faerie because they pulled from both sea and land and had elements from two worlds’ cuisines in their own. I’d been looking forward to trying some local dishes but was now more interested in the person preparing them.
Everybody else was red-faced and sweating, but she looked cool as a cucumber, with her clear skin not so much as flushed. She also bore a slight resemblance to the waitress, although she was way better looking, and the other girl hadn’t been ugly. I wondered if they were related and wandered over.
And she noticed, although she quickly looked down at the filling she was spooning into the pastry. It looked good, and a platter of finished pies being loaded onto a tray for baking looked even better. My stomach, still neglected and complaining about it, grumbled fiercely, and the girl glanced up in surprise.
I grinned at her. “Missed dinner,” I said, and she looked startled before abruptly hitting the floor.
It happened so fast that, at first, I thought she’d slipped. But a check under the table showed her body in something that wasn’t a curtsey or even a bow. It was full-on prostration, and the floor was in no condition for it, being full of muddy footprints, pieces of squashed vegetable, and raw sausage.
Without thinking, I grabbed her hand to pull her back up, and she immediately started screaming.
I let her go and stepped back, but the screaming didn’t stop. It wasn’t crying or even sobbing; it was full-on, high-pitched panic, like a lamb being led toward a stump covered in blood and with a bunch of other lamb’s heads scattered around it. And I had no idea what to do with that.
“Um,” I said brilliantly as Alphonse looked over at me.
“What the hell?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Maybe we should switch spots,” he said. “You take bitch boy here and I’ll intimidate the girl.”
“I wasn’t trying to intimidate her! I just wanted to get her off the floor.”
And before I’d even finished my sentence, she scrambled up, still screaming.
I blinked at her and then around at everyone else, who had finally stopped work to gape at us. They think I’m a fey, I realized. One of those nobles who were apparently a giant bunch of dicks. I’d put up the hood on the cape as we walked here since I had too many enemies to count, but it wasn’t helping now.
And neither was that, I thought, when I pulled it down, and then everybody started screaming.
I stared around in confusion as they dropped whatever they were doing and ran for the exits, fighting each other to get through the doors. Except for the redhead, who caught one glimpse of my messy, air-dried hair and unmistakably rounded ears. And fainted.
“Do you fucking mind?” Alphonse said to me, shouting to be heard over the din. “I’m trying to interrogate someone here!”
“I was just trying to get a meat pie,” I said, bewildered.
“Tell them that,” he said as I knelt to check on the girl.
I figured it couldn’t hurt, and enhanced my voice to be heard over the crowd. “I don’t mean you any harm; I just wanted a pie. And can I get some help here? I think she knocked her head.”
The panic did not noticeably subside, but the man Alphonse had been trying to question unhooked himself and knelt, his eyes twitching from me to the hulking vampire. When neither of us did anything, he bent to examine the girl and frowned.
“She’s bleeding,” he said, looking up. “May I get her some help, Lady?”
I stared at him blankly because hadn’t I just asked for that? “Yes?” I said when he just squatted there, letting her bleed. And giving the impression that he might have let her bleed out if I’d said so. Which caused a rash of goosebumps to break out on my arms.
What the hell kind of place was this?
But once permission had been given, he snapped into action. Some shouted commands, none of which my translator understood, halted the desperate flight, and some more had several burly men rushing over, one of whom picked up the girl and took her off through an arched doorway. Neither looked at me, keeping their heads down and averting their eyes.
And giving the impression that they thought I was going to go for them fangs first, like a hungry vamp.
Instead, I was just a hungry human who understood exactly nothing.
And then Pritkin showed up.
“Well, that’s just jolly,” Alphonse said bitterly before I could. Although I probably wouldn’t have commented, being too busy noticing something weird. Namely that none of the fey seemed to be afraid of Pritkin.
They were gathering around him instead, talking rapidly in the strange speech that my translator didn’t know, even though it was supposed to know them all. And hanging off him with pleading faces and grasping hands, with the clear implication: please save us from the terrible monster. Suddenly, I knew how the Kraken had felt.
“Okay, what did you do?” Alphonse asked me.
“I didn’t do anything! I was admiring the pies and—”
And suddenly, I was inundated with them, heaps and heaps of them, on multiple trays held aloft by kneeling people with their faces turned away. Like ancient worshippers making offerings to a . . . vengeful . . . goddess. . . And, okay, I got it.
“Look,” I said, and everybody pulled back, almost as one, getting as far as their bodies would let them while still offering up the requested snack.
“You should probably take a pie,” Alphonse said dryly, although he looked somewhat sympathetic, probably at whatever was on my face.
I took a pie.
It was too hot and threatened to burn my fingers, being just out of the oven. But I was afraid to say anything lest the woman offering it killed herself or something. I caused a glove from my armor to appear underneath it, hoping nobody noticed.
“Thank you,” I whispered, which did nothing. I was still ringed by pie bearers.
But the head honcho said something rather sharply to the mass of people around me. Who scattered on the winds, back to their stations to fill the orders that the throng of younger types in clean, mostly sweat-free clothing, were waiting to take to hungry diners. Pritkin’s crowd abruptly deserted him, too, and our eyes met across the crowded room.
Well, shit.