Chapter 17
Seventeen
ALLETTE
Shadows still consume the darkened walls as I don my worn boots and tie the laces with frigid fingers. Downstairs, I use my last two coppers earned during my shift at the factory on salty ham, runny eggs, and a glass of orange juice.
Stepping out into the persistent mist, my heart sinks when I realize this is the best I’ll feel all day. After hours of stirring a boiling hot vat of dye filled with cloth, my arms will be limp as wet noodles and my feet will be swollen. Don’t even get me started on my back. In one day, the posture Aunt Marjory drilled into me has gone to pot. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up. The black stain on my fingers doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the blisters and splinters from the stick I use to stir for hours on end.
I worked hard in the human realm, but not like this. And for only a fraction of the wages.
My boots slip on the sludge-coated cobblestones, but I manage not to fall and ruin my dress. Not that there is much to ruin when the hem is already stained with mud. As I weave through men in caps, women pushing prams, and Tuath browsing shops, I notice a crowd near the market.
Although there isn’t much time to spare, curiosity gets the better of me, and I wedge myself between two women to see what’s caught everyone’s attention.
A line of Tuath stretches from the bakery, down the street, all the way to the bronze statue of King Taranis and beyond.
“What is the line for?” I ask no one in particular.
The woman next to me mutters, “Castle’s hiring.”
My heart kicks up speed.
Senan .
Last night, I dreamed of my mate glowing like a lantern, the ink on his skin creating the most mesmerizing shadows. He called my name over and over again, but the faceless crowd kept shoving me back until I fell into the portal. I would have drowned if I hadn’t woken up.
On the horizon, the factory’s tall smokestacks pump more darkness into the sky. There is probably a group of women already gathered at the gates, their faces haggard, shoulders stooped, and fingers stained.
More darkness waits inside that place. A day of misery for five pence.
But, if I can secure a job at the castle, perhaps I’ll be able to reconnect with my love. I should know better than to hope. What is the likelihood that I’ll actually run into Senan in a mammoth castle with so many towers? Still, there is no hope down here.
There is no guarantee I’ll even get a job, but I’ll never know if I don’t try.
I file in behind a short, silver-haired woman wearing a plain black dress.
“This is a bloody disgrace,” she grumbles, lifting to her toes so she can peer over the head of the young man in front of her. “You’d think those Scathian bastards would see how badly folks need work and provide a few decent jobs to us lowly Tuath.” Her gaze drops to my clenched fingers, and her scowl deepens. “Textile factory?”
I nod.
“Hate to say it, but there isn’t a hope of them hiring you if they see your hands. Have you experience working in a household?”
“Yes. I worked as a scullery maid.” In the human realm . “I’ve only been at the factory for a day. My…employer passed away, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” That sounds believable, doesn’t it?
The young woman’s hair sways when she nods. “Rotten luck, that. Happened to my friend Nancy. She’s working at the Black Hole now.”
The poor woman, to be driven to work in such a terrible, hopeless place.
We shuffle forward a handful of steps.
After the last few days I’ve had, I refuse to judge anyone for doing what they need to survive. I nod my chin at the line snaking toward the mountain beneath the castle. “Do you know how many people they need?”
“Not a clue. Doubt it’s this many, though.”
The longer we wait, the more people abandon the line, which bodes well for us. At least, I hope it does. When we stop next to a cart of fruit and veg, my stomach whines. “Does it pay well?” Stars, I’m hungry. If I had the coins to spare, I’d buy the loaf of bread sitting in the bakery window and eat the entire thing.
“My friend Jeston works there. Claims it’s the best job in the city—if you can get in. They offer room and board on top of fifty pence a day.”
Fifty pence is a bloody fortune. And they house and feed you? It sounds too good to be true.
The woman picks up a lemon from the cart and hands a coin from her pocket to the vendor. The tangy scent of citrus fills the air as she tears away the skin. “Here.” She holds the peeled lemon toward me.
Not sure what she expects me to do with a lemon. I love them in cheesecake, but on their own? No thank you.
“It’s for your fingers,” she explains, forcing the fruit into my hand. “Stick them into the flesh, and it should take that dye right off.”
At this point, I’ll try anything if it brings me one step closer to the castle. I press my fingers into the yellow flesh. The juice stings my blisters and cuts, but the pain is worth it when the dye comes off. I smile at the young woman. “Thank you.”
She grins back. “You’re welcome.” When she turns around, her smile vanishes. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She braces her hands on her hips, cursing toward a man stepping out of the cobblers to speak to two others in line. “The bloody nerve. Seriously. Can you believe him?”
The man offers the others apples from the pack slung across his chest.
“Did you see that?” the young woman hisses, her gray-tinted skin flushing pink.
“He gave them apples?” I’d kill for an apple right now.
“Not the apple. The bastard is cutting the line. Hey!” She waves her arms over her head. All three men twist toward us. I want to shrink away, but there is nowhere to hide and no way I’m going to risk losing my place in this line.
“No cutting, asshole! If you want to be here, get in the back.” She jabs her finger toward where the line curls around the brick postal office. The others behind us grumble in agreement.
Those who were there before him tighten ranks, pushing the man back out of the line. He stalks toward us, shoulders hunched and eyes narrowed. “Where do you get off, Braith? I was just talkin’ to some mates.”
“You have no mates, Daren.” She throws a hand over her shoulder. “Back of the line before I call the guards.”
“You two know each other?” I ask once he disappears around the corner.
“Unfortunately, he is my cousin.”
The revelation makes me chuckle. What I would give for a backbone like Braith’s.
The line begins to move faster, and my heart kicks up speed when a set of black gates come into view. Instead of continuing up the stairs where I went yesterday, we follow a second path that twists down toward a cavern cut into the rocks.
This is it. Almost there.
Four royal guards wait at the mouth of the cave, their wings spread as they scan our faces. The young woman, Braith, and I finally reach the beginning of the line. She steps through the small door cut into the bars, and I’m about to follow when the door slams in my face.
For a moment, I’m left stunned. Why did they let her in and not me?
I clasp the metal bars, letting go just as quickly when my hands start to burn. Iron . The black-clad guard on the other side barely spares me a glance as he turns a key in the lock. The Tuath behind me curse and shout, growing louder. Angrier.
This can’t be the end. It can’t.
“Please, sir,” I call. The man stops, but his flat expression doesn’t waver when his cold eyes land on me. “I need this job. My mother is sick, you see.”
Braith shoots a pitying glance over her shoulder before one of the guards urges her deeper into the cavern with a sweep of his arm. The man with the key leaves without so much as a word.
More shouts erupt at my back—vicious slurs against the king, his brothers, and all Scathians.
I understand their rage and frustration, have felt the same emotions clogging my veins the past couple of days. How exhausting it must be for them to have lived like this for so much longer—perhaps their whole lives.
I cannot believe I’ve wasted an entire day in this line instead of working. Tonight, I’ll hand over more money for yet another night at that inn and watch my funds dwindle away until I’m left with nothing.
This can’t be how today ends.
Please , I beg the sleeping stars. Please, let me inside.
It feels so selfish to plead with them on my own behalf when there are so many still waiting, yet I plead all the same.
I’m so close. So bloody close. One bit of good luck. Is that too much to ask? After all I’ve been through, don’t I deserve it?
A high-pitched scream pierces the sky, coming not from behind me but from the cavern, where two guards are dragging a woman in a soaked shift with sopping pink curls and wings from the mouth of the cave. The guard who ignored my pleas fumbles for the key to the gate, unlocking the door and yanking it aside, allowing the trio past.
The woman begs to be released, but her cries fall on deaf ears as the guards drag her through a gauntlet of cheering and jeering Tuath. They spread their wings and shoot into the sky, hauling the still-screeching woman into the clouds.
The remaining guard waves me forward. “Looks like it’s your lucky day. Hurry it on. Get inside with the others.”
I step inside, and the gates slam closed at my back.
It worked. I can’t believe it actually worked.
The dank smell of damp earth surrounds me as I descend a steep set of stairs cut into muddy brown stone that leads to a wide cave lit with flickering fae lights. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the dimness. When they do, I notice two separate lines have formed. Men to the left and women to the right.
Braith grins, waving when she sees me. “You made it.”
“By the skin of my teeth.” Perhaps the stars really are listening. “Do you know what happened to that woman they brought out?”
“They’re taking her to the pit, I imagine,” Braith says with a casual shrug.
What did she do to deserve being thrown into the realm’s most notorious prison?
We duck beneath a stalactite clinging to the brown ceiling. “She was Scathian, using a glamour to get into the castle,” Braith says under her breath, as if being born with wings is the worst fate imaginable.
My palms begin to sweat. “And the castle doesn’t hire Scathians?” I assume.
Her nose wrinkles. “Heavens, no. They say it’s to give the Tuath a chance at a decent wage, but I really think it’s to keep us from mixing with the lofty birds.”
Growing up Scathian, I never really thought of the disparity between Scathians and Tuath. And why would I? This has always been the way things were done. The Tuath are born without magic, destined to serve their winged employers. Wynn and our other servants seemed happy enough with their lot in life.
Living among the Tuath for only a handful of days has taught me otherwise.
Even I’ve started to resent the obvious wealth and lofty towers. The lavish parties I once attended. The lazy days spent lounging in the sun without a care in the world. But as much as I resent them, they’re still a part of who I once was.
I press a hand to the wall to keep from slipping down the steep slope and into the river at the bottom. “How did they know she was Scathian?”
One by one, those closest to the river strip down to their shifts before stepping into the water and wading toward a waterfall.
“The waterfall is enchanted, removing glamours from those who pass through.”
My breath stalls in my lungs. You’re not wearing a glamour , I remind myself. But what if the water removes the dye used to color my hair? What if someone sees my scars and asks what happened?
I didn’t make it back to Kumulus only to end up in prison.I’ll have to find some other way into the castle.
When I turn to leave, my face collides with the hard chest of yet another Scathian guard.
He sneers down at me, his dark eyes sharp as flint. “Going somewhere?”
“No. Of course not. Just admiring the scenery.” The scenery? Really ? It’s a dark, damp cave. What is there to admire?
Too quickly, it’s Braith’s turn to enter the river. Before she does, she steps up to a table situated at the edge of the water.
A guard waits on the other side, hunched over a thick tome, an ink pen dangling between his thick fingers. “Name?”
“Braith Nightingale,” she replies.
He records her information in silver ink that instantly vanishes. “Age?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Birthdate?”
“July twenty-third.”
“Experience?”
“Four years with Lord Timothy Weatherby and another two before that with Lady Audrey Markham.”
After recording all of Braith’s information in the book, the man motions me forward.
Do I give my real name? With the way the ink disappears, the book clearly has some sort of magic. What if it somehow knows Allette Rittey has no work experience—at least, not in this realm. What if it knows I’m not Tuath?
“Name?” the man asks.
I’m going to end up in the pit. I just know it.
The man’s ice-blue eyes lift to mine. “ Name ?”
I need a name. Any name. Why can’t I think of a bloody name? I clear my throat. Just give him a bloody name! “It’s Wynn. Wynn Caelis.”
He scrawls my best friend’s name into the empty space. Just like with Braith’s information, the silver ink fades away.
It worked. It actually worked!
“Age?”
“Twenty-three.” At least, she would’ve been if she’d survived.
“Birthdate?”
“January fourth.”
“Previous employer?”
“Lady Marjory Rittey. She passed away.”
The man looks as if he couldn’t care less as he motions for me to join Braith at the river’s edge. Now to make it through the waterfall, and I’m in the clear.
Braith offers a hesitant smile as she strips out of her boots and stockings.
I bend to untie my laces with stiff fingers, slipping them off. My bare feet sink into the cold, silty sand. With my face burning, I remove my dress, knowing the thin shift beneath will do nothing to hide my nakedness once it gets wet. I ball up my things and adjust my hair to conceal the scars at my back, watching Braith disappear beneath the waterfall.
My feet slip into the icy water, and my thundering heart pounds louder than the torrent as I approach the freezing spray and step beneath the waterfall.
Water pummels my head and shoulders. I try to step forward, but the liquid has become a solid wall. I try to step back to no avail. My heart falters in my chest with blind panic. Somewhere, someone shouts.
This is it. This is how I die, drowned beneath Senan’s castle.
Let me through. Dammit . Let me through!
I’m not Scathian—not anymore. My wings are gone. My magic is gone. I am empty. Nothing. Please, please , let me through.
No matter how I shift, the waters refuse to let go.
More shouting erupts at my back.
Maybe this is just another punishment for binding myself to a Vale prince. For what happened to Wynn. For leaving Eason behind. For leaving my aunt. Maybe I deserve this fate.
Don’t give up , I swear Wynn’s soft voice whispers. You’ve come too far .
I squeeze my eyes closed and surge forward with every ounce of strength I possess. The water seems to part, and I fall through the liquid curtain, my knees slamming against the hard stones on the other side and my bundle of clothes spilling into the water.
Braith is right there, catching my arms and helping me to my feet. “Are you all right?” she asks, gathering everything I’ve dropped and handing it back to me in a sopping heap. “What happened?”
I clutch the soaked garments to my chest, peering back toward the water distorting the outline of three guards, their colorful wings wide and swords drawn.
“My…my foot. It got wedged between two rocks,” I lie, loud enough so the two women in white waiting on the shore with stacks of towels and garments can overhear.
“You’re lucky you didn’t drown.”
I glance back at those guards. Drowning was the least of my worries.
Together, we make our way to shore. It’s not until one of the Tuath women hands me a towel that I realize how badly I’m trembling. I wrap the dry linen around myself. Before we receive our uniforms, a burly man with a thick black mustache stalks out of one of the many passageways dotting the stone wall.
“Hands please,” he orders, removing a golden dagger from the sheath at his belt. Braith hisses in a breath when he pricks her thumb. A deep-red drop of blood wells from the tiny wound, which the man adds to a page in the notebook from his pocket. His hazel gaze slides to mine. “You’re next.”
Not wanting him to see my mating bond and start asking questions, I offer my right hand. The cut only hurts for a moment, and once he has collected my blood, the man disappears back through the same passageway.
I suck on my sore finger until the bleeding stops. “What is the blood for?”
Braith wraps her towel around her, tucking the end beneath her armpit. “It’ll allow you past the castle wards.”
Only the wealthiest Scathians can afford wards on their towers. Needless to say, we didn’t have any where I grew up.
The woman holding the garments shoves a white bundle into my arms. A mesh mask sits on the very top. When our gazes meet, she smiles and says, “Welcome to Castle Kumulus.”