14. Glass Manners
GLASS MANNERS
ERIC
F or two weeks, Kai and I have enjoyed what passes for freedom here in Sheffolk.
We’ve been given the run of the estate, but always under the watchful eye of Pascoe or Philip, sometimes even Ms Thorpe, the head of security.
The Duke and Duchess are detained at Rosenthal orchard because, on their final day, a footbridge failed a safety inspection, forcing Duchess Sylvaine to remain and do a complete redraw of stall placements.
I know this information because Kai was interested enough in that fucking fair to ask Francesca all about it.
For those same amount of days, I enter a one-sided war against the smell of mildew.
It’s everywhere. In my hair, bedding—even in my fucking bathroom.
I’ve fought my way through three different linen sheets, had my towels boiled and sprayed so much room fragrance that I’m half-certain I’ve already died from asphyxiation.
In an act of resistance, I’ve started taking morning jogs around the estate in the hopes that the wind velocity might shake the stench loose.
Which brings me to this fine morning.
“Remember that footman that spoke with Philip when we first arrived? Andrew or something,” Kai yaps, wiping sweat from his brow as he keeps up with me along the woodland paths.
“Caught him mid-wank last night—straight-up choking his cock—while one of the kitchen girls watched. Fingering herself like it was some sort of team-building exercise. What’s her name again?
Arabella… I think so. The one that served your coffee this morning. ”
“I didn’t need to fucking know that.”
But he goes on. “You think she stirred it with those same fingers?”
“Please shut up.”
“Order up from Café au Clit, am I right? A little bit of pussy macchiato.”
I taste the ghost of this morning’s cup and make a deal with myself to never consume any sort of liquid ever again. “Your cock would shrivel out of mortification if it knew how often your mouth speaks for it,” I quip before jogging faster, hoping to lose him.
But like the mildew, he fucking latches onto me like a parasite.
“Don’t tell Handrew you drank his girl’s Latte de Labia?—”
“Handrew?”
“Yeah, Hand rew, because…” He makes a vile wanking motion at his crotch but goes silent when we pass the western gates, where we find a mob chanting about bloodlines and demons.
It doesn’t take us long to clock they’re members of the SRS.
“God, this place is just insane , isn’t it?
Tell me that isn’t the textbook definition of a cult. ”
One woman goes down on her knees when she spots us, begging me to have the king save them.
Kind of difficult to take her seriously when she’s holding up a sign that says “SYLVAINE DRINKS BLOOD FOR brEAKFAST” in bold Arial.
I would stay and engage for my own amusement, but then that same woman steps closer to the gates and tells me to warn Lady Francesca that her days of hiding behind the castle walls are over.
We won’t kneel to another Sheffolk bitch.
So I keep moving and beckon Kai to follow, because the other option would land me in trouble—the sort that isn’t worth it at all.
Especially when it involves a group that looks like Facebook made flesh.
I get Philip’s hatred now. Might even beat him to whatever he has planned for them, even just to get them to fuck away from the damn gates.
Nobody, not even Kai, tells Francesca that they’re there.
It takes me four full nights to conclude that she doesn’t sleep in the castle, not if she can help it.
Her absence at supper goes unremarked on by the servants as they dress the table for the two princes they’re forced to attend to.
When she graces us with her presence at breakfast, she’s all adorably dazy and well-rested, carrying herself with the ease of somebody clocking in for volunteer work.
Meanwhile, the rest of us wake up looking like we survived an unsuccessful exorcism.
Whatever plagues these halls keeps a respectful distance from her cottage.
I’m almost jealous, but mostly suspicious.
The moment she’s finished eating, her uncle, that yapper, corrals her into his office for another locked-door conference.
Due to Hamish’s dramatic need for secrecy, our interactions with the family are mercifully brief.
Every few hours gossip drifts in, whispers between the staff about Hamish’s daughter being ‘out of the city’, which I presume is code for ‘don’t ask’.
His wife, according to one housemaid, has him by the balls and sharpens her knife whilst he isn’t looking.
If I were Hamish, with my hairline in freefall like that, a wife whose mouth waters for my fortune and children allergic to my company, I’d have shaved my head and started researching private islands to disappear to.
At least his niece tolerates his presence.
He hovers around her, waiting for a crumb of attention, and she smiles at him the way a parent smiles at scribbles on a paper that their child insists is a unicorn. I can almost hear her thinking: Bravo, Ham-Ham, but Mummy needs a few minutes of silence before she commits another crime .
Her tolerance is admirable.
And, speaking of tolerance, mine deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
The mildew is back, and here I am breathing it in halfway down the east corridor where Kai abandoned me.
This time, I don’t flinch from the smell; I decide to grab it by the neck and wring out whatever logical explanation I can find.
I should’ve ignored it, really, but Redford has a way of getting under your skin, sentient enough to prod at me as though I’m a curiosity.
So I follow the scent, obviously unable to accept that it exists only in a bubble around my body.
It takes me down a narrow corridor that I don’t remember seeing on Francesca’s tour and through a massive chamber with arched ceilings, leading towards a set of stairs dipping down into the underbelly of the castle.
Uneven flagstone makes a pathetic attempt at tripping me up every few steps.
The smell intensifies, spitting me out at a door rotted with age. I’m thoroughly chewed up, practically drenched in the scent, and as I stare at the rusted hinges and rain-soaked wood, I wonder if this is where I’ll be digested.
There are symbols engraved into the door, but I can only make out one—the ouroboros.
Lovely.
Inside is a dilapidated circular library, shelves cutting through the middle and forming a sort of maze.
They stretch like ribs, and one step forward has the shelves groaning beneath the weight of the knowledge they carry.
Some books are bloated with moisture, others stacked haphazardly, and it becomes clear that this place has been thoroughly abandoned.
As I turn around a left rib, a single book tips off a top shelf and lands before my feet.
It hits the floor spine first with an echoing bang , then splits down the middle, pages breathing dust as it fans out.
The sketch is what grabs my attention, and I scoop up this haunted little book before rationality can tug on my leash.
Ink covers half of the right page, swirling in gentle lines to form a familiar face plucked directly from the palace library’s collection of ancestral texts.
Texts I was forced to read as a child. Those endless books catalogued every traitor, bastard and cousin down our line, and I used to recite them like a prayer whilst the king watched, insistent that repetition would beat ‘poise’ into my speech.
Cillian . That’s the name beneath it, the same one I find myself still hesitating over.
Cil-Cil-Cil —followed by a belt meeting skin and ‘Again, Eryxon, until you sound like an Atherbourne’ .
Suppose you don’t forget the man who earned you punishment. How poetic.
Beneath his name is: loyal steward to Lord Godwyn Hildebrand.
The longer I stare at it, the more irritation boils in my gut.
Seems Sheffolk enjoys its propaganda as much as my family does.
I’m debating tearing the page free when rusted metal creaks once more.
Not from the door I entered from, though.
I edge forward and peer around the last row of shelves, and there she is.
Francesca steps through an almost hidden doorway, draped in a red cloak drawn tight across her shoulders.
The fabric is fresh blood against her skin, the colour of every warning sign I’ve been ignoring thus far.
She paces in a circle, murmuring words too soft to fully grasp.
One brief second has me wrestling with whether I’m staring at the girl or the ghost of her.
But then she trips into the corner of a table, and the spell breaks.
“ Oi ,” I call out before I can think better of it. She spins around so fast that her hood slips from her head. “Lose your wolf, or what?”
Her brows scrunch, and she looks towards my left hand. With the way it’s tilted, she spots the little sword tattooed on my middle finger. “What?”
“Red Riding Hood. Basket of secrets and a wolf that stalks her…” She continues to stare as though I’ve grown a second head, and frankly, I’m a little offended at what her perplexion says. “You do realise I was five once, right? Did you think I was born twenty-four?”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Yes, well, contrary to popular belief, I was raised on fairytales too, not just tax forms. I also wore onesies and ate porridge, if you can believe it.” She bites the inside of her cheek to avoid smiling but ultimately fails and raises her hand, pretending to scratch the side of her nose.
That’s when I notice the blood staining the tips of her fingers. “What happened?”
Startled by my observation, she chooses to busy herself by shutting the door she just stepped through. “Um, nothing. I was just practising something.”
I clock the stray pieces of thread she’s yet to realise cling to her skirt. “Stitching?”