She glanced sidelong at me, the lamplight toying with her features, making their sharp edges flicker. “Why would I not?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. People don’t normally. Not people like you.”
“What do they call you then?”
“Slave…sometimes other names. Names Mama says I can’t repeat.”
“Does that bother you?”
Nobody had ever asked me that before. “Slave” was one of the first words I had ever learned, alongside “master.” It was as familiar to me as my own name.
“I’m Melantho,” I answered instead. “And you’re Princess Penelope.”
“Just Penelope will do.”
“Penelope,” I repeated with a nod.
“Melantho,” she mirrored.
We grinned at each other.
“So how’d you do it? Keep winning that game you and your papa were playing?”
“Because my father always expects me to lose,” she said. “Being underestimated is a woman’s greatest power. That’s what my mother says… Used to say.”
“She doesn’t say it no more?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s dead.” These words held no emotion, as smooth and flat as a pebble in Penelope’s mouth.
I had no idea what to say to that.
“It’s the way of things,” she continued, eyes set on the darkness ahead. “Death is part of life. It is as the gods intended.”
“How old are you?”
Penelope’s eyebrows lifted. “Ten summers. Why?”
“You don’t talk like you’re ten.”
“How do I talk?”
“Like a grown-up. Not like the kids I know. But kids down below are thick as mud. Well, the boys are anyway. The other day, I saw one trying to shove worms up his nose.”
A laugh burst out of Penelope then, the force of it seeming to catchher by surprise.
“Why was he doing that?” she asked.
“I dunno.” I shrugged. “Boys are stupid.”
She laughed again, and the sound reminded me of lemons, sharp and bright. I found myself leaning into it.
We came to a familiar set of stairs, and I was met with a rush of disappointment. There was still so much I wanted to ask Penelope, but the questions tripped over themselves, tangling up inside me. Penelope kept quiet, too, though the echo of her laughter still clung to her face, lightening it.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, it was like waking from a dream. The walls here were narrow, the paint faded and cracking, floors coated with dirt, air as stale as old flatbread. It seemed impossible to think that a beautiful world existed just above our heads.
