“I’m going to drop my hand now. If you scream, I swear to all the gods I’ll put a hole straight through your spleen. Do you understand?” The woman nodded, trembling so hard that Aelia’s resolve nearly shattered. But there was no going back now. She lowered her hand and breathed a silent sigh of relief when the woman stayed quiet.
“Good,” Aelia said, to herself as much as the woman, swallowing down on the nerves that kept threatening to make her lunch reappear. If anyone peered into the alley, she was fucked. If the woman screamed, she was fucked. She gripped her shaking fingers more tightly around the hilt of her dagger. “Where do they keep the humans?”
“In a…” the woman tried to speak, but her voice cracked, her abdomen heaving against Aelia’s restraining arm. “In a w-ware…”
Aelia’s gut clenched as guilt coursed through her.
“It’s okay. Take a second. Just breathe.” Aelia scrunched her eyes closed for a moment, hating herself for doing this to someone. “What’s your name?”
“R-rhea,” she gasped, her breathing erratic.
Aelia tutted and sighed, wishing she could harden herself against the woman’s obvious terror. Get in, get the information, get out. That had been the plan. But if she carried on, she was going to leave this poor woman traumatised.
“Rhea,” Aelia said, resignedly. “I’m not going to hurt you. My friend was taken, and I just want to get him back. I’m not a murderer, I’m not a thief. Until a few days ago, I was just like you, just trying to get by.”
“Your friend is human?” Rhea asked. She was still trembling, but her breathing wasn’t quite so frantic.
“No,” Aelia replied, a hard edge entering her tone, unsure why she’d be asking that. Was she a supporter of the Astraea?
“Then he’ll be transported separately,” Rhea said, appearing to have mastered some of her fear. “The humans are shipped out daily, but there aren’t as many artemian prisoners, so they wait for there to be enough to fill a boat before shipping them out.”
“Why ship them separately?” Did that mean Fenrir stood a greater chance of still being in Llmera? “When was the last shipment of artemians?”
“Artemians are logged as high-value cargo. They’re shipped in better conditions than the humans to reduce the risk of fatalities on the journey.” Rhea swallowed audibly, her voice still laced with terror. “There hasn’t been a shipment of artemians for a fortnight.”
“Where do they keep them?” Aelia swallowed the bile that rose at Rhea’s words. She dreaded to think what conditions the humans were being kept in.
“In a warehouse, not far from the docks.” Rhea didn’t hesitate, the words pouring out of her now. “Well, it used to be a warehouse. The Astraea have kitted it out more like a prison now.”
“You’ve been inside?”
Rhea shook her head. “No, I’m just a dock clerk. I don’t have anything to do with cargo before or after it leaves the ship.”
“But you know where it is?”
“Yes,” Rhea breathed, her voice thick with horror. “Everyone does. They make no secret of what goes on in there, to scare the rest of us into submission.”
“Looks like it’s working,” Aelia sneered, accusatorially. Rhea may just be keeping her head down to survive, but if more peoplehad stood up to the Astraea, maybe things wouldn’t have got so fucked up.
Rhea paused before answering. “You don’t know what they do to us if we don’t cooperate.”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea,” Aelia said, darkly.
Rhea whimpered, her body wracked with another bout of tremors.
“Just tell me where the warehouse is,” Aelia said hurriedly. She’d already spent too long talking, it was time to leave.
Rhea rattled off directions, repeating them word for word on Aelia’s request.
“You better not be lying to me,” Aelia lowered her voice threateningly. “Remember, I know where to find you.”
“I’m not lying,” Rhea said grimly.
Aelia could do no more, she had no choice but to believe her. She moved as quickly as she could, loosening her grip on Rhea and flinging her hood up in one smooth movement, before she spun and legged it out of the alleyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Keeran was about to storm into the alley when Aelia rushed back out of it, hood low, eyes downcast. He threw himself back into the doorway, obscuring himself in the shadows until she was far enough down the street for his heart to stop pounding.
