Chapter 24
The guards flank me as I’m led away.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“Back to Lord Varrik’s rooms.”
My mind feels perforated, questions poking through. I want more answers. I want to find Kaetir and the other fiends. I want to not be locked up in the Piper’s damn rooms.
“Umm, excuse me?”
The guards turn to me as I stop walking.
I make my expression innocent and meek. “When the Piper was walking me here, he explicitly said he did not want me back in his rooms afterward.”
I meet the eye of the guard at my left, and his constellation appears at his receding hairline. Presumptuous. Easily bored. Distrustful.
Okay, so not him.
“The Govern said no such thing to us,” he tells me, his frown rooted into the wrinkles on his chin.
I look to the guard on my right with the thick blond beard. His stars burst to life, half buried in his eyebrow. Formidable. Eager. Aims to please.
Maybe I can work with that.
I lift a shoulder. “The exact thing he said was ‘After this, you will go with the other fiends, where you belong.’”
He weighs my words. Hopefully, it sounds like something the Piper would say.
But the other, distrustful man narrows his eyes. “Well, as I said, he didn’t say that to us.”
I keep my focus on the blond guard. “But he did leave in a rush,” I point out. “I don’t think he’ll be very pleased with you if he finds me back in his rooms . . .”
His jaw works, like he’s chewing on an internal struggle. He looks at his companion. “Maybe she’s right. Why would he have her go back to his personal rooms?”
“Fucking Fates,” the other one mutters. “I don’t know.”
“I’m a fiend,” I point out. “Of course he’d want me to go with the other fiends.”
The first guard sighs. “Just make a decision. I tire of standing here,” he grumbles out.
The blond turns to me with a sharp nod. “Fine. Let’s go.”
My heart leaps as they change direction and start escorting me down a set of stairs. I look to the floor as I walk, barely containing my pleased grin.
* * *
“Are you bringing me to . . . the dungeons?”
And to think I was so proud of my cleverness. Right up until the point that they brought me all the way downstairs, only for us to go down more stairs. As in, below the ground level. As in, we are now underground.
To get into this cramped corridor, we even went past a door that had bars on it, on the little upper window part. That didn’t bode well at all.
The blond guard frowns down at me. “These aren’t the dungeons.”
I shoot him a suspicious look. “But you do have dungeons?”
“Of course there are dungeons,” he scoffs, like that was a ridiculous question. “This is a castle.”
“Okay . . .” I glance sideways at the murky wall, my nerves making my palms go clammy. “But just to be clear, this isn’t the dungeon?”
“No. And believe me, you don’t want to see them.”
I’m still not convinced he’s telling me the truth. The air is cold, the stone is dirty, and the lighting is dim. But I asked for this, so there’s no backing out now.
My hands twist in front of me as they lead me down the bleak narrow staircase. When we reach a dark door with old varnish bleeding through its splintery surface, I nearly turn and run.
But when the guard opens it and lets me pass inside the doorway, I let out a breath. No barred cells in sight. Thank the Fates.
I look around at the large, open sitting room. Despite the path that got us here, the space isn’t at all ominous. There’s a dug-in window basin with grass in front of it and sunlight dumping in. The room is simple, not decorated like the upper floors, but it’s furnished and clean.
And full of the stolen fiends.
At the unlit brick fireplace ahead, there are sofas and a table that arc around, each seat occupied.
Directly ahead through an arched doorway, I can see more fiends sitting at a dining table, and an open kitchen beside it where I can smell food cooking.
Beyond the kitchen, there’s an offshoot corridor that leads to several closed doorways, muffled noises coming from within.
There’s also a walkway to the outdoors right here in the sitting room.
The door is open, so I can see the set of worn stone stairs at a sharp incline leading to the grassy grounds above.
“Old servants’ quarters,” the guard explains.
“Oh.”
I’m so glad it’s not the dungeons.
The guards move past me to go speak to another guard, who I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the room. After speaking to him, they leave, and the fiends take notice of me where I hover in the doorway.
“Esti?”
I turn to see Kaetir walking in from the kitchen, bowl in hand. I’m so relieved to see him that I hurry over, only to stop awkwardly. Our previous conversation wasn’t great, and then I all but passed out beside him.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
His brown eyes are full of concern. “Are you? Last time I saw you, you were being carried out by the Piper.”
“He brought me to a healer.”
I don’t explain more than that. I just . . . don’t even know how.
“You were gone for days. I thought the worst.”
My heart softens. “I’m okay.”
He motions me forward, and I sit across from him at the long dining table. “Are you hungry?” he asks, setting down his bowl. “I can get you something.”
I shake my head. “No thanks.”
We’re quiet for a moment as he scoops in a spoonful of food, and I notice the other fiends glancing over at us.
“Can you tell me what’s been happening since I left?”
He teeters his head. “Not much, actually. After you collapsed, everyone finished eating, and then all of us fiends were brought here. I haven’t seen Theo or any of the other kidnapped fae since.
But that blond Core woman we saw walking down our table that day came to speak to us.
She told us we weren’t in any danger. She’s been coming every day to check on us too. ”
“That’s it?”
Kaetir shrugs and takes another bite of his food. “That’s it. She said we wouldn’t have to share these cramped quarters for long. But aside from that, we haven’t been given any answers.”
I blow out a breath, immensely relieved to hear that they haven’t been mistreated. “I wonder why they took us,” I murmur.
“I have no clue.”
Just then, two boys and a girl run inside, their small horns on display, their feet flying down the steps and into the kitchen as they rush to get whatever the woman at the stove is cooking.
When he notices who I’m looking at, he leans in. “Did you realize all the kids who were kidnapped were fiends? No fae children. And luckily, all the kids have their fiend parent with them too, so they aren’t alone.”
I chew my lip in thought. The more information I get, the more confused I become.
When I let out a weary sigh, Kaetir’s face fills with a flash of pity.
“You must be tired. I can show you to the bedrooms,” he offers.
“There are plenty of empty beds. We don’t have anyone tending to us or anything, so we have to make our own meals, but there’s extra clothes and we’re permitted to go outside since there are more guards out there. We’ve been treated well.”
“Aside from being kidnapped, you mean.”
He chuffs out a laugh. “Yeah. Aside from that.”
We fall silent and Kaetir finishes eating while I watch a group in the sitting room passing the time by playing some sort of dice game.
“I wonder what they did with the fae. Where Theo is.”
“I’ve tried asking,” he says, pushing away his empty bowl. “But they won’t tell me anything.”
I can hear the worry in his voice, patchy and pitched.
I reach across the table and take his hand, squeezing it.
“We’ll find out what happened to Theo,” I assure him, and it’s more of a promise than I can rightly give, but I’m feeling bad about being so harsh with him before.
I know how charming Theo can be and how much he makes you want to keep his approval. “And we’ll find out why we’re here.”
Kaetir’s chin wobbles with emotion. “Yeah. We will.”
I smile at him as he squeezes my hand back.
“Estinya.”
I jump, my breath shattering into a thousand fragments. I was so engulfed in our conversation that I hadn’t realized the room had fallen silent. Uncomfortably so.
Whipping my head over, I see the Piper standing in the doorway.
He does not look pleased.
When he starts walking forward, the sound of his footsteps seems to drip down the walls and soak through the floor. I watch, wide-eyed and tense, as he comes to a stop at the table.
The Piper says nothing. Just glares at me before those fiery brown eyes fling against Kaetir. “And you are?”
Kaetir swallows. “My name is—”
“I don’t care,” the Piper interrupts. His voice is boiling. “Who are you to her?”
His eyes drop. So does my stomach.
What is he doing?
I follow his gaze, realizing he’s looking at where I’m holding Kaetir’s hand. We both yank apart at the same time.
“I’m . . . She’s . . . We used to be friends,” Kaetir stutters out.
I shoot him an incredulous look. Used to be friends?
He winces.
The Piper stares at him for another moment, making Kaetir squirm. Then his attention comes back to me. “Let’s go.”
I freeze at the angry command in his voice.
“Shouldn’t I stay here with the other fiends?”
“No,” the Piper says.
Flat. Final.
“Now, blight.” He turns and starts walking out of the room, and I let out a shuddering breath, sharing a look with Kaetir. Not wanting to incite any more wrath, I get to my feet, even though my knees shake.
And I follow the Piper.