Chapter 13 The Second Day #2
Elke went away and brought back a small jug of water and a cloth, as well as a pile of clothes that she carried in two of her more minor legs.
I forced myself to use an ounce of the water to wet the rag and wipe my face and hands and under my arms and between my legs.
I drank the rest of the jug instead of rinsing the cloth.
The water was silty but so, so good. “Where’s this from? ”
“His Majesty’s spring. It’s His Lordship’s own water ration. He instructed me that you should have it.”
“Wow, so generous. I’ll make sure to thank him when he lets me the hell out of here.” I pointed to the clothes pile. “What’s that?”
Elke spread the pile on the bed. Dubiously, I picked up the first item. It was a white negligée, so sheer it was nearly see-through. The bust and hem were trimmed heavily with handmade lace.
The only place I had seen that lace pattern before was in Mrs. Stammerer’s closet.
My knees weakened. I had never held anything so expensive. But still, I held it up to myself — it barely skimmed the bottom of my ass! — and looked at Elke. “Elke.”
“You said you needed pajamas,” Elke said weakly.
I laid the negligée on the pillow — neatly, I couldn’t help myself — and turned my attention to the other clothes.
The next thing I picked up was a violet ballgown.
The lace on it was older and yellower and even more intricate than the lace on the negligée.
Corset strings dangled from every eyelet.
There were so many of them that you could probably choke yourself getting dressed if you weren’t careful.
I held the ballgown up to myself, too, wishing I could wear it. Even Mrs. Stammerer didn’t have anything as gorgeous as this.. But it was so impractical I couldn’t bring myself to even try it on. I smoothed it out on the coverlet and continued.
The next dress was little more than a pile of rags even more threadbare than the thing I was already wearing.
“Elke, come on. I can’t wear any of these.”
“I’m sorry. They’re the only human clothes we have.”
“How did you even — oh. Oh no.”
Elke looked abashed. But also a little defiant.
I dropped the threadbare dress like it was made of coals.
These clothes had belonged to the other tributes.
They’d been dragged underground in them, clawing at the earth.
Someone had stripped these clothes from them before their naked bodies were drowned in the glassy water.
The women who’d once worn these clothes were naked, now, in their cocoons high above the Lake.
The sticky spider-silk of the cocoons was pressing against their bare flesh as we spoke.
Suddenly the negligée didn’t seem so luxurious.
“Pants,” I managed. “I’ll be working all day. Don’t you have pants?” I had never worn pants in my life, but my mother had worn my father’s old clothes when she’d gone to work in the fields.
“Girls from your world don’t seem to wear pants,” said Elke doubtfully, but she considered a moment.
Then she went away, leaving me with the heap of clothes that had belonged to a bunch of dead women.
When she came back, she was carrying a thigh-length tunic and a pair of trousers that billowed before cinching tightly at the ankles.
They were as black as the bed’s coverlet.
I fingered them. The material was like leather, but thinner and slicker.
“These work,” I decided. “Did they also belong to a tribute?” I was already naked from cleaning my parts with the rag, so I began to slide into the trousers.
Gods, the fabric felt good. It occurred to me that I ought to be more uncomfortable changing in front of Elke, but I supposed she was used to this sort of thing, being a maidservant.
I realized that against my better judgment, I had started to like Elke. I made a mental note to cut it out. These people were my enemies and I could not forget it. This pile of dresses was proof of that.
I strapped myself into the tunic.
“Those clothes used to belong to His Lordship,” said Elke. “He outgrew them.”
I stilled. These were Hades’s clothes?
My fingers slipped over the slick fabric. I tried not to imagine that same fabric clinging to Hades’s skin. “Surely I’m not supposed to wear the Prince’s clothes. Isn’t there, like, a rule?”
Elke’s human mouth twitched. “We don’t do very well with rules here.”
I looked down at myself. Well, what did I care? If the Prince didn’t want me wearing his clothes, he could send me the fuck home.
“You need shoes, too,” Elke added. “I’m sorry I don’t have any.
His Lordship’s feet have always been larger than yours, unfortunately.
But sometimes people like, um, me, use this.
” She fished around in the pile of remaining clothes and drew out what looked like a roll of black bandages.
The fabric was similar to that of the tunic and pants, but more rubbery.
“What is it?”
“It’s a wrap,” she explained. “For when we are shedding our carapaces. The soft new skin underneath can be sensitive, so we cover it like this.”
She had me sit on the bed and showed me how to wrap the strips of around my feet as makeshift shoes. I wrapped it around my hands, too. Never mind that Hades had said manual labor was beneath me. Never in my life had anything gotten done unless I did it my own damn self.
I didn’t love the idea of wearing spider-clothes as shoes, but when I stood up, I had to admit that the fabric was thick and comfortable.
It melded to my hands and feet. It was certainly better than the alternative of wandering barefoot and having Hades pluck shards of rock from my feet while I writhed around in his lap… in a way.
“Okay,” I said, flexing my fingers. “I’m ready to go.” I picked up my spear.
“Oh,” said Elke, nervously.
“His Lordship says that what I say goes. And I say I’m not walking around this place unarmed.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
We set off. Infuriatingly, I needed Elke to show me how to get to the reservoir.
These fucking moving catacombs. But she did express a flicker of surprise when I turned left, right, left at the appropriate moments.
“It’s because the earth slopes downward here,” I explained, trying to gesture to show her how all the destinations stayed in the same place and so the reservoir had to be this way even if the roads had moved. But she didn’t understand.
And then we arrived at the reservoir.
It was full of godlings.
Spider-legs. Human legs. Sets of eight eyes.
Sets of two eyes. Vast expanses of spider carapaces and squishy, porous human skin.
Some of the human skin bore shades I’d never even seen on a real human: not only the pale, freckled peach flesh of the Iernians, and the deep olive and brown skins of visitors from the mainland, but skins the black oil-slick color of the spiders, and the glittering green and blue of a more venomous animal.
And the spider-godlings, too, were not only black and green and blue but peach-colored and olive and brown.
“Oh, good,” Elke whispered. “His Lordship has gotten most of them here. They do listen to him, you know.”
“Does that mean they’ll listen to me?” I whispered back.
Elke shifted uncomfortably in a way that did not inspire confidence.
I didn’t have to seek out Hades. He was standing at the lip of the reservoir by the far wall, where the digging would start. And he had already spotted me. He was gazing ferociously at me.
Me, wearing his clothes.
His face was white. His black hair was tucked behind his ears.
I felt myself flush. But I raised my chin at him anyway. I tucked my hands into his tunic’s pockets.
His gaze darted to Elke. Elke curled in on herself a little bit, embarrassed at having given me his clothes, but she also shrugged her spider-shoulders at him almost imperceptibly, like, What was I supposed to do?
Hades broke through the crowd and strode over to us.
Some eyes followed him curiously, although a lot of the godlings seemed like they weren’t really paying very much attention, or indeed like they’d forgotten why they were here.
A few, on the edges of the group, were even wandering off.
Certainly no one seemed to have taken note of the human woman in their midst.
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted.
When Hades reached us, he hissed at me, “What the hell are you wearing?”
“I refuse to wear those dead girls’ clothes.” Actually, I would have been thrilled to wear anything half as nice as that violet ballgown, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“She needed pants,” Elke put in.
“For what? I told you, Persephone, you’re not doing the digging. And you’re certainly not doing any stabbing. Put that thing away.”
“I need it to protect myself.”
“It won’t do shit. I’m protecting you. Put it away.”
Reluctantly I handed it to Elke. Even I had to admit that brandishing a weapon at my own staff was probably not going to help me in this circumstance.
Hades said, “All you have to do is stand around and boss people. You’ll be good at that.”
“Fine,” I snarled. “Let’s get started, then.” I marched up to the spot at the front of the reservoir where he’d been standing. I bellowed, “HEY!”
All eyes snapped to me. Even the godlings who’d been wandering off a second ago turned around.
My stomach chilled. Suddenly I felt like I was going to pee myself.
I had not thought this through.
I opened my mouth to talk. Only a rasp came out.
On instinct, I looked across the way at Hades. But he only crossed his arms challengingly.
Fine, I thought. I cleared my throat. “Um, hello. I’m Persephone.”
A loud, doubtful rustle among the crowd. I thought I heard someone murmur, “She doesn’t look that human.”
Someone else: “You look human, you’re one to talk.”
A third papery voice: “Is she wearing our clothes?”
“Why hasn’t she been sacrificed?”
“Drown her! Drown her!”