22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Calista
“ I still don’t understand what the big deal is. They’re shorts. I wear them all the time.”
Jessandra veered right after we crossed the drawbridge and continued along the road that ran parallel to the castle wall.
“This is what people wear. It’s what I wear.” I skimmed over her militant garb. “He can’t expect me to wear ball gowns all day. Or dress like you.”
Her gaze flicked my way.
“I mean, what was the point of bringing my things here if I can’t even use them?”
She remained silent while I followed and conversed with myself. Along the way, fuzziness grew in my peripheral, making the world appear softer than normal. I slowed down and blinked my eyes. It continued to take over my vision as if a veil-like curtain dropped in front of me. The sky looked a shade brighter, more pink than usual, and the city street we traveled didn’t seem as gritty and destitute as I remembered. I shook my head to clear my vision. All I accomplished was dizziness and my hair falling in my face and sticking to my cheek.
I tucked the now golden strands behind my ears and scrubbed at my cheek. Astaroth had tried to wipe it away, but his touch was more of an electrifying caress. My stomach fluttered nervously. No, that was just the sweets settling in my empty stomach. The image of his smile shoved out of my mind when I saw a goblin sweeping their porch with a tiny broom. Another leaned out their window and poured a bucket of liquid over the sill. It splattered when it hit the cobblestones. And another banged away on something. I felt like I was in a fairytale cartoon.
“Good morning!” I grinned and waved at them.
They startled when I called out, the one goblin dropping their bucket to the ground. The wood split when it hit, breaking into several pieces and shooting in different directions.
“Good, is it?” They shouted. “That was me only good shit pot!”
I cringed at the puddle of excrement seeping between the bricks. Why did they dump it in the street? The castle kind of had plumbing, why didn’t they?
The other goblins watched our exchange and glowered at me as they clutched their meager tools to their chests.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll get you—”
A hand clamped over my mouth. “You’ll do no such thing,” Jessandra stated. “And do not apologize. An apology is a debt owed.”
I pulled her hand down. “I thought a thank—”
She covered my mouth again. “For Roth’s sake. Do not say that either.”
“I’m not saying it, I’m clarifying,” I mumbled behind her palm.
She dropped her arm and turned a stern face to the goblins waiting for me to screw up. “Go about your business.”
They grumbled and shuffled away.
“Rule number one.”
I huffed. “I know. Never thank anyone.”
Her nostrils flared. “Rule number two. Never apologize. Ever. It’s worse than rule number one.”
My brain worked so hard my brow wrinkled. “That doesn’t make any sense. If it’s worse than the first, shouldn’t it be rule number one? And why is apologizing so bad?”
Jessandra tilted her chin up, seeming even taller. “When you apologize, you take culpability for things that are out of your control. For instance, did you drop the shit pot?”
I wrinkled my nose. “No. I’d never touch that.”
“Precisely.”
“But—”
“No. It was not your fault. And if you take responsibility for everything that goes wrong around you, every snollygoster here will find a way to make you pay them for something. And not all of them will want what they originally had.”
“Snollygoster,” I giggled. “Such a fun word.” I repeated it again and laughed harder.
“That is your takeaway from this?”
“Yes. I mean no. Sor—” I clamped a hand over my mouth and held back the next sorry for almost saying sorry, and then the giggles that ensued. I didn’t know why it was so funny. Was this what happened to crazy people when they snapped? Going crazy now seemed like a fun time.
“Focus, Calista.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but the grin spread over my aching face again. “I’m focused! Swear it!” If there was one thing I knew for certain, Astaroth would never allow me to be tricked or used by anyone else. He had that position on lockdown. I put my hands on my hips and stood tall. “Astaroth would never let them take advantage of me.”
“Astaroth would have no other choice. ‘Tis the way.”
Not feeling so sure of myself anymore, I looked up to the window, expecting it to be empty, and saw black eyes watching from the shadows within, waiting for me to call out to them and make it right.
“What’s rule number three?” It had to be just as important as the first two. The first three always were. I turned back to her when she didn’t respond and recoiled slightly from her penetrating gaze.
“Never ask for help, and never receive it.”
I thought I understood it before when she was talking about debts owed, but I fully comprehended now. Her anger toward me wasn’t only about owed debts. I broke cardinal rules, albeit unknowingly, and threw her existence into chaos, just like the man who killed my father. If she had come to Earth and impaled someone on the street to help me, I would lose my shit, be traumatized, even, along with any other witnesses, and I would be the one held accountable for her actions when she disappeared. There was a vast difference to our ways of life. Our moral ground was divided by a huge fork in the road. I crossed right over into hers and applied mine where they didn’t belong.
Because I don’t belong here.
I looked around at the leaning, hastily constructed buildings that would topple if one strong wind blew through. This was not my world. Astaroth didn’t share the same desires as the others here. The hidden hostile gazes penetrating me from all angles affirmed it.
A weird sensation crept over my skin and tingled up my scalp. I brushed at my arms as I checked them but found nothing crawling on me, only the eyes of the surrounding goblins watching and waiting, for what, I was too scared to find out. The fuzziness encroached on my vision again, except this time I couldn’t blink it away. I gasped for air as paranoia sunk its razor-sharp teeth into me.
“Calista?”
I focused on Jessandra’s mouth as she spoke, but her words were garbled.
The wishing stone warmed against my chest with a soothing pulse.
“Breathe.”
Annoyed and gasping for air, I said, “I am breathing.”
Jessandra’s brow furrowed into a deep V. She surveyed the area as I bent at the waist and rested my hands on my knees.
“Breathe.”
“Tell me to breathe one more time, and I swear to God—”
She squatted on the balls of her feet, face level with mine, and rested the back of her fingers against my forehead.
“What are you doing?” I shook my head when she tried to touch my cheek.
“Checking if you are well.”
“I’m fine.”
She rested her elbows on her thighs, hands dangling between her legs. “Fine people don’t talk to themselves.”
I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to her. Wasn’t I? The stone pulsed that soothing rhythm again. No. I refused to believe the necklace was talking to me.
“Did you get into the berries outside the kitchen?”
“Do what?” I shook my head and stood up, the world swaying around me. “No. Ziggy made me breakfast.”
She pushed to her full height and held me steady. “What did he feed you?”
“French toast.” Earth terminology confused her. “Wait, no. He made something similar to it. Rhymey words. Swe—”
“Sweet wheat?” she almost yelled.
I winced. “Yes, that’s it.”
Her hands dropped to her sides with a slap. “I will be having a talk with Ziggy.”
The paranoia struck again. If I thought my entire world was falling down when Astaroth reappeared, I was wrong. That was only the beginning of it tearing away from the seams. I latched onto her forearms, shaking her. “Did he poison me? Am I gonna die, Jess?”
She made a sound in the back of her throat that I’d never heard her make before. I let go and took a hesitant step back, ready to run if she attacked me, not that I would make it far. Her stride was twice mine.
Jessandra’s lips twitched before they spread over her face, showing all her teeth. They were perfectly straight and just as scary as Astaroth’s.
“Are you… you’re laughing!” I huffed, pushing the loose strands out of my face and loosening my bun more, before flinging my arms out in front me. “I am dying, and you’re laughing at me!”
The sound got louder, her eyes glossier, as she mimicked my earlier pose.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered and crossed my arms over my chest. I guessed I wasn’t dying, so that was a plus, and it alleviated some of my panic. “What’s wrong with me?”
My heart rate slowed as Jessandra guffawed in the middle of the street. She was not one to laugh. Hell, I didn’t even think she’d ever had a good time. Her idea of fun was going to battle and kicking someone or something’s ass. Seeing her lose her uptight composure in the middle of the street was comical. I pursed my lips to keep from laughing when she sucked in a breath and made a donkey sound.
“That’s enough, really,” I said.
Jessandra stood up and wiped her glistening cheeks. “Ooooh,” she breathed, but it was choppy, mixed with the final chuckles working themselves free. She reminded me of Santa Claus, but instead of “ho, ho, ho,” it was “oh, oh, oh.”
“Are you done?”
She looked at me and lost it again. I dropped my head back and threw my arms out to my sides, about to yell at the powers that be to save me and take me away from this awful place.
“Wow,” I whispered, taking in the vibrant, dreamlike, cotton candy sky. “It’s so…”
“Euphoric?” Jessandra finished for me.
“Yeah.” I turned to her. The smile on her face relaxed, more human than fae. “I was going to say beautiful, but euphoric fits.”
She tugged me close to her side, arm wrapped around my shoulders, and I stiffened out of fear of what she would do next. Our recent fight was wedged tightly in the half inch gap between us.
“It has set in. You should feel better from here on out.”
I pulled out of her hold. “What has set in?”
“The euphoria. It will last most of the day, but the intense part is over.”
Then it hit me. The giggles this morning with Astaroth instead of being scared or angry, the happiness that turned into paranoia in a split second when I should have been miserable to begin with—I was high as a kite on Faery drugs.
“Ziggy fed me an edible.” That little shit.
“Well, yes. It is edible. That is why we eat it.”
I shook my head. “No, he fed me drugs cooked into the food.”
“Ah,” Jessandra grasped what I was saying. “Yes and no. The food is the drug.”
“Remind me to never eat anything he makes ever again.”
“You will change your mind.” She nudged me forward. “Come, we have much to do, and I am withering.”
A goblin passing us with his wagon of goods sneered at her. Jessandra returned it tenfold. He jerked on the rope handle, mumbling, “I wished she would wither like the rest of us.”
My eyes widened when he gave me a once over.
“You, too. What makes you so special?” He spat toward my feet, then lumbered along, leaving me to wonder yet again why I had been chosen for this role and if Astaroth would turn me into a goblin, too, if I didn’t comply.
I hurried to catch up with Jessandra as she turned at the next street, intending to ask her, and noticed there were no signs telling us where we were.
“Are there an equal number of streets between the castle and the start of the labyrinth on all sides?” I asked, forgetting my previous thoughts and peering between the buildings for a glimpse of the magical walls.
“They all differ.”
“How do you tell someone where to go?”
“Directions.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You asked. I answered. If you want a different response, ask a different question.”
This would get annoying until I got the hang of it. “Where is the market located?”
“On the east side of the castle running the length of the middle circle.”
My brows popped up. They used cardinal directions just like humans did. Which meant the castle faced west. What was in the west that made them build the castle facing that direction?