I knew she was being sarcastic, but she didn’t know how far I was willing to go to save the man who’d treated me like a person when no one else would.
“Okay,” I said, dropping her hand and moving across the kitchen into my little room. The sleeping roll on the floor was a mess, I hadn’t made my bed like he’d asked and I regretted that now.I should be a more obedient daughter.
Dropping to the ground, I smoothed the two thick blankets and folded the corners how he liked them and then went to my little storage trunk.
“Uh, Fallon…” Sorrel’s voice came from the doorway as I pulled my small dagger from the trunk and slipped it into my boot. “What are you doing?” she finally asked.
Sorrel was a dear friend; she never made fun of me for my condition and she was very careful not to touch me. When we were little, she threw rocks at the kids who made fun of me by touching their arms and pretending to cry and convulse like I did.
She was a gem. But she was also a rule follower. As an outcast people from The Gilded City who carried no magic, the people of Isariah already had a lot going against us. Sorrel was one of those people who thought she could make up for it by learning to read and trying to become an herbologist. She tried to elevate her status in scholarly ways, and I respected her for it, but she would not agree with what I was about to do. In fact, she might try to stop me, so the less I told her, the better.
I stood, pulling on my heavy grey cloak that was six inches too short and had far too many holes in it. I donned my thick suede elbow-length gloves next, and Sorrel started to pace in the doorway.
“Fallon, I was joking! You can’t go and nab a healer from The Gilded City.”
I nodded. “I’ll go for the tincture first.”
Her eyes grew wide. “The only apothecaries that stock anti-germ tinctures areinsideThe Gilded City.”
I nodded once, and then stood to face her. “Keep him alive until I get back or I’llneverforgive you.”
Her face fell, and I knew it wasn’t a fair thing to say, to put that pressure on her, but I was desperate.
“You can’t be serious. We are banished. The price of unlawfully breaking into The Gilded City as a magicless is death.”
Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision, and then spilled over onto my cheeks. “If he dies, I’ll be dead inside anyway, so they might as well kill me,” I told her. “Now pleasemove.”
She knew I couldn’t fight her physically. All she had to do was reach out and graze a small piece of exposed flesh and I’d be brought to my knees in agony.
She swallowed hard. “You’re stubborn.” But there was defeat in her voice. She was two years older than me, and I thought of her as somewhat of a big sister. She and her mother lived right next door and we’d grown up together. There was no one I trusted more to keep my father alive.
I nodded. “I know.”
She reached up to wipe a stray tear from her cheek. “And if I could hug you, I would. Dammit.”
“I know that too.” My voice caught. We couldn’t risk it—even hair from a person brushing against me triggered my curse.
She pulled herself out of the doorway with her head hung low. “May the Light protect you.”
May the Light help me break into the apothecary shop and get out unnoticed,I wanted to say.
I strode over to my father and reached out with my suede gloves, stroking his cheek. He stirred a little, his waxy, grey skin beaded with sweat. Now in his early forties, he had some slight greying of the dark hairs at his temple, but was one of the strongest men in our village. I wasn’t letting the Light take him with an infection from a stupid tree branch!
“Hang on, old man. I’m not letting you go that easily,” I told him, and then set out for the forbidden Gilded City.
I’d never been inside, I didn’t know where the apothecary shops were, and I had no coin or status to achieve my goal. The odds of my returning to Isa alive and with help for my father were slim, but I couldn’t sit there and watch the only man who’d ever loved me die.
I wouldn’t.
Consequences be damned.
* * *
The walk from our village,on the outskirts of The Gilded City, to the golden gates themselves was three hours, give or take. I made this trip twice a year to watch the light show in the sky during summer and winter solstice. The Gilded Citizens played music and danced and did incredible light shows, and all the people of Isa came just to get a little glimpse of it from our place outside the gates. But I’d never actually gone through the gates themselves, which were rumored to be electrified. The Gilded City was the richest in the realm, and they paraded that in the name itself and on the barrier they used to block out poor, useless fae like me.
There was a rumor that the gates weren’t made of actual gold, but a mere glamour Queen Solana used to make the city look pretty. Either way, I was getting over them, or going through them, no matter the cost. Beyond those gates were healers, and tinctures, and magic, and a whole world I knew nothing about. A world that could help save my father.
I’d seen magic on only two occasions: Once, when a Gilded Royal soldier was passing through our village on his way to an outlying city. He’d casually used magic to make the salt jar float across the table and into his hand at Hipsie’s Tavern, where I worked.
