Chapter Three #2
“Oh?” I straighten. This can’t be true. Is it time? He gestures, and I outstretch my arm. Another prick and I watch in awe as the first ring on my right arm tingles with the feeling of a hundred tiny needles.
“Benji,” I say. “Come look.”
He rushes over, small hands clasping my forearm. We watch my wrist as the first tattooed ring shrinks, thinning in half. I’ve paid down enough interest in the ring to make a visible difference.
“Oh my planes!” He bounces next to me, and I pass two copper coins into his pocket.
Jeremee gives a nod of thanks, mouth tight, before stepping up to the counter.
Benji slips his fingers into mine, and tears prick my eyes.
Perhaps I should resent that this child has not endured as many dues as we have.
Many older faeries feel this way, but why should those who come after me suffer because I have?
“It seems there’s a complaint against you,” the teller tells Jae.
My stomach plummets.
“What House?” Jeremee demands.
“Illusion.”
“Wait.” I join Jeremee at the counter, dropping Benji’s hand. “What’s this complaint?”
“Damage of property. Which means he needs to pay the value of the damaged property. Three hundred silver coins.”
The world spins. “But…”
“Jae-jae?” Benji starts. “What’s happening?”
A roaring in my ears drowns out everything else. I had splashed water on her silk robe and slippers. I sullied her clothes and slung insults. All to distract her from the violation of a Scarp daring to be seen aboveground, daring to interrupt her slapping my face with beautiful fucking butterflies.
“There’s been a mistake,” I say. “This complaint is meant for me.”
The teller shakes his head. “It’s labeled for him.”
Another Illusion, another cruel trick. Kassandra letting me think I’ve been spared only to punish us both. This would set Jeremee back almost a century. He’s already saving his brother, paying off three generations of lives lived.
“Let me pay,” I demand.
Jeremee starts. “Avery—”
“I deserve the debt.”
The teller sighs. “You know the laws. You cannot pay off another’s debts until you have fully paid off your own.”
“There must be some way—”
“Can you afford to free yourself? Looking at your accounts, the answer is no. No, you cannot pay for him, either.”
We stand in numbed silence. That could take centuries, and by the time I would get to his, he might be entirely consumed, even the whites of his eyes black with ink.
“Avery.” A small hand weaves through mine. “I’m sure it’ll be okay, right?”
I can’t meet Benji’s eyes.
It’s not okay. It’s very much not okay, I want to cry.
Instead, I can only watch in horror as the teller gestures for Jeremee’s ringed hand. Reluctantly, he slides it across the counter. A prick from the quill.
I blink away the tears, staring down at the small space beneath his chin. If that amount pushed him to a new level, then a ring would sear along the empty skin there.
A palace vendor once told me of an Unluckie’s corpse found on the edge of the Peri, picked over by vultures. Even the bones were carved with the debt that marred the flesh in life.
“You could declare the Desert Walk,” I offer weakly.
Jeremee shakes his head, mouth set.
Of course he will not abandon Benji here, with no family. Even for the sliver of a chance at freedom. Very few survive crossing the Amyrian Desert, but those who do join the House of Death in banishment with their balance wiped clean.
“Why is Avvie crying?” Benji asks, voice shaking.
Avvie, what he used to call me when he couldn’t pronounce my name.
A baby’s babble. Benji needs his big brother, and his big brother needs him.
The palace pays more than the market, the farms, the building projects in the cities beyond Versara.
It is not the torture of the mines. It’s our safest bet, even if it isn’t safe.
Jeremee cries out, doubling over, then collapses. Benji screams, and I pull him away.
“It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay,” I rush to say, holding the child to my chest so he doesn’t see.
Jeremee scrabbles at his ankle, pushing up his trousers. Three thick black tattoos curve around his calf.
He is only a limb away from becoming an Unluckie. The line behind us shifts uneasily, whispers growing, sympathy and fear alike in the onlookers’ voices.
“Next!” the teller shouts over the noise.
I grab Jeremee’s arm and haul him to his feet. He leans against me, breathing through the last of the pain, tears streaking down all three of our faces now. I slip my remaining three copper coins into his pocket.
“It won’t make a difference,” he rasps.
“I’m going to pay this off, every single coin.”
“Me too,” Benji sniffs.
“No,” Jeremee snaps. “No. Please.”
“Bee, keep your money,” I say. “And, Jae, I swear to you that I will.”
“How?”
An idea comes. “The night shifts. They pay more.”
He shakes his head. “Because they’re dangerous. I can’t let you.”
“Becoming an Unluckie is dangerous. Think of it as repayment.”
Jeremee raises my chin with an inked finger, his eyes overflowing. “You will never be indebted to me.”
My throat pinches with pain. I force out my next words. “But you are indebted to them, so we’ll fight it together.”
We reach Jeremee’s room, a four-cot space he shares with other male faeries. I lower my friend to his cot, and Benji climbs onto his brother’s lap. The siblings cling to each other, weeping.
“I will hurt them!” Benji wails.
“Shh!” Jeremee clutches him tighter. “Shh, do not say that. Never say that.”
Kneeling before the pair, I clasp on to Jae’s arm.
“I will fix this,” I say.
I speak my wish into existence, send my hopes along the plane like dead leaves floating down a stream. Jeremee and I lock gazes over his brother’s shoulder. He shakes his head, swallowing, and I know what he holds back for the sake of the child between us.
You can’t.
But I will, I think. I have to.
Even if it takes all my energy, all my time, my days, my body, my life—I will pay it all. I will free this family of mine.