I set down my bag right outside the dumpster and dove in, getting straight to work. From what Fiona told me, the Elite would just burn this stuff, making the air over my home in the Dregs ashy and putrid, wasting perfectly edible food. I’d salvage what I could tonight and maybe sell the rest at the market in the morning. I slipped on my mother’s cloth gloves and started to sift through the trash. With each loaf of bread or tray of cookies, my stomach growled. There wasn’t anything nasty in the trash. It was ALL food. Like they’d taken one small bite for taste and tossed therest. Anger flared to life at such waste, and mounted higher when I reached perfectly good meat pastries. There wasn’t even a bite taken out of them. They were still warm!
Unable to contain myself, I shoved one in my mouth, chewing greedily as salty juices splashed across my tongue. I bit into a large piece of potato and moaned. There was a sharp tanginess I couldn’t place. Was it mustard seed? Cumin? Whatever it was, I loved it. My siblings would love it, too, I thought, as I counted nine full pastries and two crushed ones. I loaded them into my bag and wiped my greasy fingers on my pants.
The food was rich and filled with butter. I was already full. I didn’t eat anything close to this on a daily basis, only on feast days.
I decided right then and there that I’d have to do this more often. No wonder Fiona’s family was looking so healthy. Heap diving wasn’t glamorous, but it would feed my siblings a whole Hades of a lot faster than my assigned jobs in the Dregs.
The sudden sound of footsteps behind me caused ice water to flush through my veins. I recoiled, crouching behind the large trash can. I couldn’t be caught in this neighborhood. It would spell my death if the magistrate were to hear about it. You only lasted about five years working in the mines before the blackcough took you. I’d be dead by twenty-three. I’d heard the food was pretty regular there, though, so there was that.
I waited thirty seconds, a minute. There was nothing I could hear over the boisterous partying inside. Maybe I’d imagined the footsteps? Either way, I had enough food, so it was time to get the Hades out of here and back to my hungry little brothers and sisters.
I peeked out from the trash can and saw nothing but the dark alleyway and the light of the street beyond. I tiptoed over to my bag stuffed with food and hefted it over my shoulder. That’s when a scuffling sounded from the shadows, and I froze. I immediately lowered my head as low as protocol demanded and backed up slowly. Then I watched as shiny black leather shoes staggered closer to me in a drunken shuffle.
A highborn!
No one had shoes that new and that clean but an Elite.
I scrambled back away even more, lowering my head so far down that it pained my neck. But in my haste, I hit the hulking bag of bread and sweets and tipped forward, landing at the foot of the highborn, my fingers touching the tips ofhis shoe.
Oh Creator, I was going to die.
My fingerstouchedhis toes. Itouchedhim!
I scrambled to right myself and smooth my clothes. Keeping my head lowered, I held my hands out, palms up, as protocol demanded. I didn’t dare speak until spoken to. I barely breathed. I had broken enough rules tonight. Touching a highborn without permission was a full twelve marks. I was dead if he reported me.
Public execution.
Dreg rats, as the Elite called us, were known to carry the pox, the plague, and the wet lung, and there was a reason we were not to touch the highborn. My hands begin to shake with nerves. The thought of the cold, dark confinement of the mines would be a welcome relief compared to the public execution I was about to endure.
I risked a quick glance at the man and frowned. He looked so young, early twenties. His hair was golden and slicked back across his head, and he wore a tight, tailored black suit to match his nice shoes. His nose tilted slightly upward like most of the Elite class, and his skin was like a porcelain doll’s—he’d never worked out in the sun a day in his life. He was so clean, not a scrap of dirt between his fingernails. He fixed me with an inquisitive gaze, and for some reason, Icouldn’t look away. Twelve marks for me, and hanging by the rope come morning.
I noticed small black veins growing up the sides of his neck and wondered if it was his magic. Was he powering up to kill me? He eyed my bag and then the trash can behind me.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, his tone smooth and compassionate.
I’d met plenty of highborn before. They all spoke to my people with venom and hatred. He seemed different, and because he asked me a question, I was allowed to speak.
“I’m always hungry, sir,” I answered honestly. “Please don’t report me. I fell. I didn’t mean to touch you. I wouldnever. I got the pox when I was five, and I have the marks to prove it. I’m immune.” I pulled the sleeve of my shirt up to show the cluster of scars around my arm. Once you got the pox, you were immune. Surely he would see I wasn’t infected. If I had the wet lung or the plague, I’d be bedridden. I was healthy.
“I’m not worried about the pox,” he chuckled, and I blinked to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The black, vein-like magic was growing up his neck, closer to his face.
I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening. Was hegoing to report me? He seemed like he wanted to have a conversation, and I’d do that if it kept me from my death. He stumbled a bit backward then and began to pant.
I rushed forward, though careful not to touch him. “Are you okay?”
Something felt wrong.
I’d originally thought he was drunk, but his speech was normal. Now I wondered if he was ill.
“As okay as a man can be when he meets his death.” His voice was weak and resigned.
My eyes bugged. Death?
“What? Should I get help?” I eyed the back door of the party. If I did call for help, it would out me for sure, but the black veins were now clouding into the young, handsome man’s eyes as they turned the color of ink.
He stumbled until his back hit the wall and then slid downward, creeping slowly towards the ground until he was slumped at an odd angle.
“Help!” I yelled into the alleyway as I kneeled before the man.
