13. Penny
Penny
T he woman with the sharp teeth scowled down at me where I knelt on the roughhewn floor.
We were alone in a nondescript room with stone walls and not a stick of furniture.
It looked enough like a prison cell that I glanced over my shoulder to try to see if the door through which we’d entered had bars.
Before I could see for myself, the woman’s hand shot out and caught me by the chin. She turned my face around and up to meet her gaze.
“What are the seven tenets of Eeus?” she asked, not for the first time.
I swallowed as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “I don’t know.”
Kit and I had rehearsed many questions and answers when hypothesizing situations for our introduction to the Bone Men. This didn’t fit any of them.
She retained her grip on my face, her fingertips digging in where grit from the ground had chapped my skin. “Which is the holiest of the rites?” she asked .
Another repeated inquiry, earning repetition from me, as well.
“I told you: I don’t know.”
I tried to shift away, wishing to alleviate the strain in my neck from the woman’s unyielding grip or the pain that spiked in my knees as they pressed against the floor.
But she held me fast and bent closer, sneering. “Why do you seek to serve a god you know nothing about?”
I was Kit’s recruit, here to join the ranks of those who worshipped Eeus. That was the cover story. That was what I’d been told to say. But those simple declarations had proven insufficient in convincing my captor. And I really had no knack for lying.
“I can learn,” I stammered, then corrected, “I will learn and do whatever is necessary to prove myself worthy.”
Her lips pulled back from those fang-like teeth, ready to either snarl or spit in my face. I didn’t find out which before another woman’s voice cut in.
“There he is!”
My captor pulled back while digging a single, claw-nailed finger under my chin like a fisherman’s hook. She peered past me, making me wish I could see what made her expression shift to one of confusion.
“Violette? Where are you taking the intruder? They were to be questioned and detained until the Right Hand?—”
The new arrival, Violette, laughed, a sound like a lilting melody. “Kit Koesters is hardly an intruder, Matina. He belongs here as much as any of us. More than some.”
Kit?
I jerked my head around, feeling the sharp scrape of Matina’s fingernail as I turned.
In front of the open door—which did indeed have bars—Kit stood, unbound and impassive, seeming to tower beside an equally tall redheaded woman.
They made an impressive pair, though the arrogant tilt to Kit’s head was as puzzling as the surname his companion had used to refer to him.
Kit Koesters. Why not Mosel? And why did the new name seem to carry the weight of a curse, a word forbidden to be spoken aloud?
Pulling away from his escort, Kit advanced into the room. Even his gait had changed. His posture was bolt upright, and his face had gone stony and cold.
A flash of anger crossed his features as he gestured toward me. “Is this how we’ve taken to inducting new recruits? With scare tactics and abuse? This is far from the way my father would have handled things.”
His father was a sore point in any conversation. Why bring him up now?
Realization struck me when I remembered where I’d heard that surname before.
Several years past, a man named Vaughn Koesters was caught out as the head of the Bone Men.
He’d been arrested, tried by the Provincial Council, and executed publicly.
It was the talk of Eastcliff for weeks; rumors and hearsay ran rampant about the big, bloody debacle.
Some speculated Vaughn’s death would be the end of the cult—cutting off the head of the snake, as it were. But the Bone Men survived, perhaps even thrived, in his absence.
I would find out soon enough how well they managed.
I’d known through rumors that Kit’s father had been high up in the organization, but I hadn’t expected this. Kit was not merely the son of a Bone Man. Not only a former Bone Man himself. He was the son of their most infamous leader. Now I understood why he wasn’t upset about his father’s passing .
“He’s no kind of recruit,” Matina snapped, pulling me from my thoughts.
Kit drew to a stop close enough that he could loom over my captor. I’d thought him intimidating when he’d threatened me with a knife. Now, he was downright menacing.
“He’s my recruit,” he said.
Something in Matina weakened, and she hesitated to meet Kit’s eyes as she protested. “He knows nothing of the tenets or the rites. He knows nothing at all, from what I can see.”
“It’s none of your concern what he does or doesn’t know,” Kit retorted. “It’s not your place.”
Matina’s hands curled into fists. “Presumptuous of you to assume my place,” she hissed.
“Stand down, Matina.” Violette spoke from her post inside the door. “Kit outranks you by blood alone. Even though he got lost for a while.”
I craned my head around to see her wink at Kit and flash a flirtatious smile. Jealousy joined my maelstrom of emotions, catching me off-guard. I bit my lip and stared at the floor so neither Kit nor Matina would see the flush rising to my cheeks.
Without another word, Kit stepped around behind me.
I felt his warmth against my back as he bent in, and I heard the sound of him removing his knife from its sheath.
The ropes around my wrists went slack, freeing my aching arms. Kit took hold of my elbow and eased me to my feet. His hand lingered as I stood.
“If you boys are ready,” Violette said, “I can show you to some lodging. Somewhere you might recognize, Kit.”
Kit released me, then gave a prompting push at the small of my back. It propelled me forward, but more out of surprise at what felt almost like an intimate touch than from the force.
Violette forged a path out of the building she informed me was called the Ossuary, and I found it far larger than I’d guessed when I’d been blindly ushered through it.
We stopped to collect our confiscated belongings and endured another delay in a cramped office where she rifled through the drawers of a cluttered desk.
I didn’t see what she found inside before she tucked it into the pocket of her slacks and rejoined us.
I’d already moved into the space she’d abandoned at Kit’s right side, so she rounded to his left. Taking hold of his elbow again, she took off at a clip.
The hallways turned and narrowed, forcing me to follow rather than walk abreast of them. I was fully in their shadow by the time we passed through a wide atrium and arrived before a pair of wooden double doors that opened out into fading daylight.
A town center sprawled before us. Cobblestones defined streets and alleys, traveled by pedestrians and horse-drawn carts. Beyond the jagged rooflines of the businesses and shops, smoke curled from distant chimneys.
Past those, sheer stone walls stretched toward the sky in a horseshoe shape, making it look like the city center had been dished out of the side of the Shattered Peaks.
“You’re lucky you came back now.” Violette’s cheery voice grated on me. “A few years after you left, your father simplified the initiation process. What used to take years now only takes months.”
“How many months?” I spoke up from behind them, feeling like an unwelcome eavesdropper on their conversation.
Violette glanced back at me with a saccharine smile. “Nine, for most,” she replied. “Some take more. Some less. Some much less.” She gave Kit a knowing look and wink before tittering a laugh.
My brain churned with thoughts and questions, reconciling what I’d been told by Kit while on the road with what I’d learned since we arrived.
His name was Kit Koesters, not Mosel. He was the son of the wicked Vaughn Koesters, a man who had wished his own child to suffer to better serve his god.
I couldn’t fault Kit for his desire to distance himself from that or shield himself from it as much as possible. The familial association would have made him a pariah anywhere but inside these walls. Here, though, if Violette’s adoring gaze was any measure, he was a legend.
The effusive redhead announced the sights as we passed, hanging on Kit’s arm and tossing occasional comments my way while I lagged behind.
I prickled with envy at how comfortable she seemed with him, almost affectionate.
I was so focused on the two of them that I missed nearly everything on Violette’s tour, which ended on the lawn of a single-story cottage about the size of my family’s farmhouse.
My attention returned to the conversation in time to hear Violette tell Kit, “It’s been empty since your father passed. Almost like it was waiting for you.”
The cottage was charming from the outside and decidedly innocuous.
Scanning up and down the crooked residential road found most of the neighboring homes equally quaint.
Flowerbeds dotted sparse front lawns and clotheslines were hung with fresh laundry.
This cozy community was the opposite of what I’d expected to find when venturing to the Bone Men’s encampment.
As I studied the rows of houses around us, Violette and Kit turned to face me. Violette beamed while Kit remained stern, his gaze distant and unfocused .
“Kit, you never introduced me to your recruit,” the redhead said, her voice more sultry than conversational.
Kit’s dark eyes sharpened with awareness. “Ah, of course. Penny, this is Violette Yost. Vi, this is Penny.”
“Penny?” She giggled. “What a sweet name. Is it short for something?”
“Penwell,” I supplied grudgingly.
Violette tutted. “Oh, but that’s far too distinguished. Doesn’t suit such a boyish face.” She leaned in and pinched my cheek.
It was all I could do not to recoil as she sidled back up to Kit and bumped her hip into his.
“You know, my husband used to employ a farmhand named Penny,” she said. “Perhaps it’s a more common name than I thought.”
I did my best to keep my contempt from showing as Violette carried on. “Well, Penny, I owe you thanks for bringing my Kitten back to me.” She tipped her head onto Kit’s shoulder, looking like she would crawl inside his skin if he let her.
“Don’t mention it,” I muttered. Jerking a thumb over my shoulder, I indicated the closed cottage door. “Should we let ourselves in?”
“Oh, no. I have the key.” She fished into her slacks pocket to produce a weathered iron key she must have gotten from the desk in the Ossuary. She trotted up onto the stoop and fussed with the lock. Upon earning the click of the latch for her efforts, she pushed the door open inward.
She turned to me with what was proving to be an unrelenting smile. “Welcome to Ashpoint, Penny,” she said, then added, “And, Kit? Welcome home.”