Chapter 13
Maddox
Moans, grunts, and warbling screams of ecstasy reverberate off the walls like an auditory kaleidoscope of pleasure. I can’t tell if I’m terrified or turned on.
“You are not supposed to be up here!” Fern scolds a pair of masked, nude dryads with thin, multipronged antlers taking up half of the topmost stair. “This is not a free sex space. Go back downstairs to the first floors. Shoo!”
The two dryads laugh, ignoring her as they clumsily move from one position to another.
Fern huffs, shaking her head. She takes me by the hand and maneuvers around the writhing bodies, descending the staircase.
“It is not usually so chaotic here, I promise. We are already understaffed, but then with the Crown Masquerade, it’s simply…
urgh, and I feel like I am doing the worst possible job.
New visitors do not know how business is conducted here.
Anyway, I will find you a room. Follow me, Oleander, darling. ”
“It’s actually Maddox, but—”
“Oh, we don’t use our given names here,” she whispers. “Safest that way.”
“Because of the Unseelie, yeah.” My dad never told me anything about the Seelie vs. Unseelie fae, but I’ve read enough fairy lore to know I don’t want an Unseelie knowing my name.
The weight of the past few days presses on my shoulders and the top of my head; it pulls at my hands and feet as if trying to drag me down into the pits of hell.
As it always does, the maddening thoughts of the state of my blood sugar crowd my mind.
The tarts were likely overkill. The sugar-crusted berries, the carb-filled crust. Each tart was probably thirty carbs at least. A low blood sugar typically only needs fifteen.
When I had a CGM and insulin pump, the roller coaster of this disease was at least something I could monitor.
But now I have to wait until I’m able to prick my finger and jab myself with an insulin-filled needle.
Anxiety hums beneath my skin. I clench my fists more tightly.
The more stairs we descend, the louder the sounds become.
I act as though it doesn’t faze me. I’m no prude, far from it.
But even the illegal brothel Javen and I once visited in San Francisco was a convent compared to this place.
There is sex happening everywhere, on every available surface. And some unavailable surfaces.
I try to look away, but it’s sort of like a car crash situation.
When the arborfae and dryads aren’t licking or grinding on one another, they’re taking a break for a drink or puffing on what look like thin joints. Billowing milky clouds hang in the air, smelling of burnt sugar and dead roses.
I sidle closer to Fern. “What are they smoking?”
“Nepenthe. It calms everything down. Settles nerves, you know. I am not one to smoke usually, but tonight I may have to change that.”
We descend all the way to the main floor, walking past a new couple taking up residence on the piano, this time bent over the keys. The continuous music is punctuated with rhythmic crashes of the highest-pitched notes, like a serial killer movie.
The extra bedrooms are located just beneath the theater stage, which is now occupied by at least ten dryads with various sizes of horns, antlers, and other appendages. One of the horned ones looks up from the thighs he’s sandwiched between and calls out for us to join.
“Maybe later,” I say, following a petulant Fern into a stairwell tucked beneath the stage.
The lowest floor looks nothing like the dazzling spectacle above.
It has a cabin-in-the-woods feel, with an open layout and a massive kitchen with an island and two long wooden tables.
Tragic nostalgia twists in my belly as I run a hand along the back of a leather sofa, flares of memories burning like a thousand bee stings.
This place reminds me of the only real home I knew as a child—the one with my mom and dad.
Small and cozy and warm. When my dad was home, that was.
Fern’s voice lifts me out of my reverie. “The orchids take turns cooking lunch for everyone. It’s our family meal, I suppose.”
“That’s wholesome.”
It really is, to be honest…But also, how the fuck am I going to stealthily take insulin to cover all the things I’ll eat here?
I could tell them of my disease, but who knows if they would understand?
If they would believe it wasn’t just some mortal drug I’m shooting up?
Even some humans have thought that after seeing me inject insulin.
“The extra bedrooms are this way,” Fern continues, stepping into a darkened hallway. “We’ll give you the biggest one.”
Inside, a simple bed covered in a downy white comforter takes up half of the space.
The only other furniture is a small bureau and a cherrywood desk with a stack of blank parchment, a single quill, and bottle of ink.
Maybe I’ll write letters to Javen that I’ll never send, like a sad character in a Jane Austen novel.
Though the weight of the dagger at my thigh might suggest this plot belongs to Poe.
A round, clouded glass window lets in a lavender glow from the nightshade blooms outside. On the left is a latch. Perfect escape route.
“Everything is clean,” Fern assures me.
“Are these rooms…used? By the orchids, I mean.” How else can I say, Will people be fucking in my bed when I’m not sleeping in it?
“Oh no! Of course not. I mean, it is your decision if you use your room for your own personal suitors, but you can’t charge for that. Or I suppose you could, though Madam Debray would not approve. But I guess you technically—”
I press a hand to Fern’s bare shoulder. “You know what, it’s okay. I’ll just take my suitors to the stairway if I feel the need.”
“Oh, the stairway is not—”
“—a free sex space. Ah yes, I forgot. Well, I suppose I will just wait in line for the piano, then.”
Fern nods as if this is a logical choice, then waves her arm at the bureau. “The last girl to stay here was about your size. All her clothes are still in the chest of drawers.”
“What happened to her?” I open one of the drawers, pulling out a lace camisole. My thumb smooths over the delicate fabric, neither traditional silk nor satin but something similar. Spider silk, maybe?
Sad eyes cast down to the fabric in my hands. “She was punished for making treasonous remarks. I just found out today, in fact.”
“Punished by the king?”
The arborfae nods again.
“Why would he punish someone here when he seems to have such a close relationship with the madam?”
At this, Fern stiffens, lips pursing. “Oh. Well. The king has…many sides.”
“Mmm.” I drop the camisole back into the drawer, closing it slowly. “Does the king come here often?”
Fern looks everywhere but at me.
“He, er, yes. I suppose he does. Well, occasionally. It depends on what you mean by ‘often.’ But I must return to the front desk. Who knows how many visitors are milling about up there. Here you are.” She presses the black iron door key into my palm.
“Sleep as late as you like. Sleep through lunch if you desire. But I am making my famous rose cream stew.”
With a wink, she retreats through the door.
~
Shockingly enough, it is not easy to sleep soundly beneath the stage of a raging sex party.
The vibrant purple light streaming through the window is replaced by the warm glow of sunrise.
Feeling not at all rested, I groan and slide out of bed, slipping on a modest cream dress made of spider silk and lace, and a pair of thin black flats with leather soles.
Again, I tie the golden dagger to my thigh, just in case I get my chance earlier than expected.
I take a dose of long-acting insulin, then fill a syringe with five units of fast-acting, tucking it into the bun at the crown of my head. Just in case.
The window lets out onto a rounded platform just beneath the main level of the District Center. I climb out, fairly certain I flashed the whole of the trees below and anyone living within them. Unfortunately for them, the forest appears to be asleep. Even the birds are quieter.
Moving like a wraith, I traverse the path to the Crown District. I’m not about to take one of those flying seed carriages to spy on the king. My dad always said I had the uncanny ability of finding my way back home when I wandered into the forest.
Even in the day, it’s darker between districts.
Castor and Tamarind’s casual mention of blood nymphs and spider wraiths doesn’t ease my building anxiety.
My feet go from strolling to speed walking to jogging.
Something monstrous and spindle-legged moves in the periphery of my vision, and my jog turns into a dead sprint.
My heart spasms in my chest, lungs screaming for air, but I don’t slow down until I spot the tree-walled citadel in the distance with the massive spire of the Sovereign Tree shooting into the sky, climbing up past the clouds.
I glance behind me into the trees, but there’s no sign of what I may or may not have seen.
Get it together, bitch, I tell myself in Javen’s voice.
Through the thin slits between the walls and webs of branches, I can see the black and twisted tree, ignored by the three sentries standing obediently by the king’s.
Guards. Even at this hour.
How the hell did my dad get to the last king’s heartwood without being spotted? Even without guards, it seems impossible. And how did he kill it? An axe? A chainsaw? Even the smaller trunks would take hours to cut through.
A familiar hollowness returns to my chest. The longing to talk to my dad, ask him these questions, but not being able to do either. All I have are the echoes and memories and hastily scribbled words of his past.
Never trust a dryad.
Yeah, well, I think I would have figured that out for myself after they killed both of my parents in front of me.
Stalking the paths around the circular wall of mammoth trees, I look for a weak spot, a place void of protection.
I find none. Guards dot the perimeter like mushrooms in a fairy ring.
The only way inside is through the twisted iron front gate.
All those ridiculous stories of fae being burned by iron are clearly bullshit.
Perhaps the tall tales were started by the ironfae themselves, just them trolling one another through mortal folklore.
I approach the dryads guarding the gates, pretending to be lost and hungover from a night of masked debauchery. The guards eye me closely as I try to discreetly survey the home of the dryad king I’m meant to kill.
Built in dark red wood around the Sovereign Tree’s trunk is the throne room, its doors flung open to let out the straggling partygoers. Beyond that is a sprawling palace made of stone, wood, and stained glass.
That’s where King Castor is. A thousand impossible miles away.
“The masque is over, mortal,” one of the guards tells me as I take a step closer. “No new visitors are permitted entry.”
Avoiding further interrogation, I nod to the golden guard and breeze away with an overexaggerated smile to play my ensorcelled role. I follow a twisting wooden road I assume will lead me back around the citadel. An incorrect assumption.
Because now I find myself rooted in place, standing before a tree gruesomely ornamented with a thousand dryad skeletons wrapped in silken cocoons.