Chapter 30
I’m coiled tight as I’m escorted downstairs to the old servants’ quarters where the fiends are staying. I don’t have anything with me. All the clothes I’ve been given aren’t really mine, so I go with nothing but the linen dress on my body, the slippers on my feet, and the hair veil on my head.
As soon as I near the entry room, I hear a buzz of voices, and I step in to find a swarm of activity—and a dozen new faces.
My lips press together in a thin line as I take in the scene.
Fiends are standing around in clusters, a pair of horns on every head, faces turned toward each other as they talk.
I look around, but I don’t see anyone who seems distressed. The guards leave me, and I walk farther in, sidestepping people as I search for Kaetir. I spot him on the sofa, talking to a fiend woman who I recognize from our original group, though I don’t know her name.
Before I can go over to him, another woman intercepts me.
“Esti, right?” She has a sharp jaw and a thin nose, with acorn-colored horns poking through her auburn hair, unadorned with a veillet. She’s another one of the women who came from Hamelyn.
As soon as I meet her eye, her stars are there, poised to be read. Stubborn. Fearful. Sharp-tongued.
Oh, great.
“Yes?” I reply carefully.
She crosses her arms in front of her and looks me up and down with an unpleasant expression. “Why has the Piper taken such an interest in you?”
Several people nearby glance over, and my cheeks heat.
“I don’t know,” I reply with a shake of my head.
“Where does he keep taking you?”
I hesitate. “Upstairs.”
Now, even more people are looking, voices going quiet as they listen to our conversation. I shift uncomfortably on my feet.
Her brown eyes narrow. “Upstairs . . . where?”
“In . . .” I consider lying, but I’ve done nothing wrong, so I go for the truth. “His rooms.”
She gets this look on her face like she’s just caught me red-handed. The other fiends around us exchange looks, and none of them are nice.
Okay, so I should have lied.
“Right,” she says with a snap. “So you’re his whore.”
I rear back, my eyes going wide. “Excuse me?”
“Nell!” someone hisses at her.
“No, I want to know,” she insists, leveling me with a look as she fastens her fists at her hips.
“Hey! This isn’t Esti’s fault,” I hear Kaetir say, before he shoves past people to get to my side.
The woman he was sitting with comes too.
She’s petite, with short black hair cut at her jaw, her veillet sheer and showing light brown horns beneath.
I blink over at Kaetir in surprise as he crosses his arms. I didn’t expect him to come defend me like this.
“Leave her be, Nell,” he says, his expression flattened.
Nell’s brown eyes are pressed between layers of anger and judgment, the imprint of both shining through.
“We all saw her go into his tent that very first night we were taken. So what did you do?” she asks, gaze flicking back to me.
“Strike a bargain with him? You spread your legs, and in exchange, you get to live upstairs with the other fae while we rot down here?”
Anger stirs in my gut, my voice biting out, “Of course not. I didn’t ask to go upstairs with him.”
She huffs. “Sure.”
“I’m not his whore. He hasn’t touched me,” I say vehemently, but my mind whispers with memories of how he has touched me. The hand at my neck, the thigh across my legs, the ministrations down my back, and the stroke of his finger up my horn . . .
“Then why is he keeping you in his rooms?” she demands.
“I-I don’t know,” I reply weakly, but instantly, I hear his voice in my head.
There’s something about you.
Nell refuses to back down. “I don’t believe you.”
Funny. That’s what the Piper told me too.
Locking my shoulders, I meet her glare. I don’t deserve her judgment, don’t deserve for everyone to look at me like a traitor. “Well, it’s the truth,” I say flatly.
She rolls her eyes. “You’re in as much denial as the new group.”
“Hey!” someone calls.
The unfamiliar faces shoot Nell irritated looks, but then one woman steps forward. She has wheat-blond hair with horns as creamy as butter, though the tips are sharp as knives. “We respect your opinions about the Piper, but in our burgs, he saved us.”
Nell turns her ire on the woman. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard you say.” She shrugs. “It’s either denial or delusion.”
“It’s not,” the woman insists. “You were lucky to have the protection of a city. In our outlier burgs where we’re from, we fiends don’t have any laws protecting us.
In the past month, there’s been a group rallying against us.
Blaming us for everything—the Plagues, bad weather, even a lost game of dice.
Fiends have been turning up missing or dead, and nobody cares.
If the Piper hadn’t taken us out of there, we would all be doomed—and I’m not even talking about him getting rid of the Rats. ”
“Look around,” one of Hamelyn’s men calls, his horns bloodred and curved back. “You’re doomed here too! He’s not some savior. He’s our jailer.”
The woman shakes her head adamantly, and I see several others from her group bolstering her, agreeing with vehement looks.
“From where I stand, we’re far safer here than we were at home.
We weren’t even allowed to wear veillets or hats.
They didn’t permit us to hide our horns.
Every crime or hardship was blamed on us, whether or not we did it. Every punishment harsher.”
I wince, my mind bringing up the memory of being on the punishment post. My hands twist in front of me as I try to bury the images back beneath my skull.
“You think he took us out of kindness?” The man scoffs. “Don’t be naive. He’s taken us for a reason to benefit him. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
Nell tastes blood in the air, and she strikes. “Yeah, I’ve been listening to you lot for the last half hour go on and on about how the Piper rescued you. You all walked from a trap straight to a hunter, and you’re celebrating it.”
“No. I-I refuse to believe he’s not helping us,” the woman argues, though her expression has lost some of its conviction. “He was so kind—”
I snort.
A knee-jerk reaction I thought no one would hear, but my face flames when the woman’s gaze snaps to me. Her stars bloom slowly, like a petal unfurling on her right cheek. Open. Caring. Finds favor in others.
Ah. This makes sense.
A flash of indignation appears upon her pretty face. “I’m Odelina,” she tells me. “Did I hear them call you Esti?”
I nod warily.
“According to this woman, you’ve been spending private time with the Piper. Tell me, has he ever hurt you?”
I fumble at her question, nearly wilting under everyone’s scrutiny. He’s hurt me, but not in the way she means. “I don’t trust him,” I answer simply, because that’s all I can say. That’s all I’m willing to say.
Disappointment crinkles her gaze, and she tosses her attention away, looking back to Nell. “Well, I’m going to trust him until he gives me reason not to.”
“Good luck with that,” Nell retorts with derision.
“He was kind to me,” Odelina insists again, and it suddenly dawns on me. Is she the fiend woman the Piper was talking about? The one he bragged about showing her appreciation to him?
What exactly does she mean that he was kind to her?
Acid crawls up my throat, something sticky and bitter that gums up my gut.
I study Odelina even closer as she breaks away and turns her back on Nell to join with her own group to talk in hushed tones. Her hair is coiled in curls, her form perfectly proportioned. There’s a softness about her beauty, a blend of blond and pink that reminds me of sunlight in spring.
A frown pulls at my brows until a nudge at my arm distracts me. “Hey, you okay?”
I turn to look at Kaetir’s friend who came up to stand with us. Her gaze meets mine as she smiles softly, and five stars flare to life at the dip between her eye and nose. Patient. Collects hobbies. Values companionship.
“Yes,” I say quietly.
Her eyes are crystal blue, clear enough to drink in. “I’m Rimona, by the way. Sorry about Nell. I’d tell you it’s just the stress, but she’s actually always like that.”
A small laugh escapes me. “Thanks.” I look between her and Kaetir. “Did you two know each other back in Hamelyn?”
“We were in the same abandonment house when we were little. He was always like a brother to me,” she says with a smile, but then it quickly fades. “But we fell out of touch after we aged out. No one really wants to remember our childhoods all that much. Not many happy memories.”
My stomach twists. “Of course.”
“Anyway, just ignore her,” Rimona tells me. “Nell loves to point fingers.”
“I can tell,” I reply, before letting out a tight breath. “How many new fiends are here?”
“Thirteen,” Kaetir answers, his face turning somber. “Two of them are kids.”
My thoughts jumble as I look back to where Odelina is. “I wonder if she’s right. If they’re better off being here.”
“They’re alive,” Kaetir says quietly. “I guess that’s better than some of the other fiends from her burg.”
He’s got a point.
“The Piper really hasn’t told you anything?” Rimona questions.
I shake my head. “I wish. I’ve tried asking, but—”
I’m cut off when the entry door opens, and guards suddenly file into the room with heavy steps, dressed in full silver armor with cloaks hanging off their backs. Ten of them come in, followed by Frid and Ciona.
Everyone inside goes silent and tense, a panic pressing in as we’re surrounded.
Ciona walks to the front and looks around. “Oh, good. Most of you are already gathered. We’ll be leaving today.”
Unease treads down my spine.
The same red-horned fiend who was arguing with Odelina steps forward, his eyes hard. Behind him is another fiend man, the one who jumped from the ferry into the water. “Where are we going?” he asks.
“You’ll have more information soon, I promise,” Ciona says before looking over at Frid and the guards. “Let’s go.”
Without warning, Red-horn and Ferry start rushing at the guards, their hands suddenly loaded with kitchen knives they must’ve stashed. Someone cries out in alarm, and fiends are shoved aside from the rush, but Frid is there in a flash.
He leaps in front of them, halting their momentum as he grabs hold of each of their arms, yanking them so high the men shout out. Both fiends falter under his strong grip, their faces bulging in anger. It looks like they’re in serious danger of having their arms pulled from their sockets.
Frid tsks at them like naughty children. “That wasn’t very nice. Would you like to walk out of here with all your limbs intact or not? Up to you.”
The men grumble but deflate, and the knives fall to the floor with a clash.
“Good choice,” Frid says lightly, before letting their arms drop. “You two can lead the way.”
Looking mutinous, the two fiends stomp forward, while the guards start herding the rest of us.
Ciona sees me in the group and her blue eyes light up. “Oh! You’re here too. Wonderful,” she says with a clap, her dress and veil swishing around her.
Two guards do a sweep of the quarters, checking all the rooms, rounding up every fiend in sight, including the children. Together, we’re all led through the side door and up the steep stairs that go outside. My stomach pitches, filling me with worry.
“What do you think is going on?” I hear Rimona ask behind me.
Kaetir’s reply is tight. “I don’t know.”
I slow my steps and nudge him lightly with my elbow. “Hey, thanks for standing up for me against Nell,” I say quietly.
His eyes soften. “You don’t have to thank me. I should stand up for you.”
We share a look, and in it, I can see the rest of what he’s saying.
His lips twist up. “You can’t have ‘friends’ without ‘fiends,’ right?”
A knot forms in my throat. “Right.”
We go up the stairs, and my knees shake so badly I have to lock my legs to ensure I don’t fall. I go first, with Kaetir and Rimona behind me, and that’s the only comfort I have. That I’m not alone.
Outside, pollution streaks overhead like a bubbling burn, inflamed with an ooze of red pus.
We’re in a sectioned-off area, boxed in with hedgerows and trimmed grass, and there’s a guard standing at a fence just ahead.
He lets our line pass, and then I hear the garden gate shutting behind us, just like it did in Hamelyn.
My heart pounds, palms going clammy.
All forty-one of us are led past a stretch of lawn, while the castle watches our departure with its stony-faced stance. When I see a familiar pathway of marble and pillars up ahead, my stomach twists.
The leyline.
I look around, wondering if I could try to make a break for it, but there are too many guards watching.
As we get closer, I eye every pillar. Even though they’re weathered, they don’t look very old.
I scrutinize them, trying to spot the pair where we appeared from the forest. Some pillars have different designs, like pitted edges or carved embellishments.
Some are beside a tree, or a bush, or wrapped in vines or moss or leafless branches.
How many places is this leyline tapped into?
“Are we . . . Do you think they’re taking us back to Hamelyn?” Kaetir asks quietly, his expression filling with hope.
But I shake my head. “No. I think they’re taking us somewhere else.”
I pick at my fingernail, scratching over the dark purple tint blooming from the base. Is this why Piper let me go with the fiends today? He knew we were going to be taken somewhere?
The secrecy, the unknown, the confusion, it all keeps driving a spade into the pit of my stomach and scooping more of me out.
At the front of our group, Ciona strides to the men guarding the leyline and speaks to them. The fae nod and then step aside, and she looks to our own guards. “Lead them through right here.”
I glance around. I’m sure this is a different spot from where we first arrived. There’s moss instead of vines that cover the pillars and ground. But one thing is the same—the hum of magic that tingles against my skin like the charge of lightning before it hits.
My nerves crackle.
One by one, fiends are led forward from the grassy ground, up the path’s bulging vein, between two pillars, and onto the marble tiles.
As soon as their feet hit the middle of the tiles, they disappear.
“Esti . . .” Kaetir murmurs, a nervous tremor breaking through his voice.
“It’ll be alright,” I whisper back, though I’m not sure if I’m telling the truth.
When it’s my turn, a guard motions me forward. I step ahead in front of Kaetir and Rimona, and that tingling magic grips me in a vise.
I walk forward on an inhale.
And on my exhale, I’m gone.