“And what will happen if they catch us?”
“They’ll find some clever way to punish us. Sometimes, it’s a week-long stay in the castle dungeons. Sometimes it’s…something else.”
He’s survived Harvest Night five times.
She rolled her shoulders, ruffling her feathers. “I’m not scared of them. I’ve got the protection of the blood vow.”
Silas grimaced. “Don’t fully depend on that. The Koenig and his steward are cleverer than they seem. If they wanted to do you harm, they’d find a way around it. Best to be safe. If anyone approaches, I’ll come in and fetch you.”
Cassandra’s nerves prickled, but she wouldn’t let fear stop her from doing even a tiny bit of good.
She walked into the Kennel, and Silas shut the heavy metal door behind her.
“Back again, eh, do-gooder?”
The old woman’s raspy laughter snaked out of the corner cell as Cassandra approached. She’d dispersed all but one of the healing tonics, her cheeks flushed with pride.
The old woman’s greeting took her down several notches.
Cassandra tucked her wings and settled cross-legged onto the floor. She held out the last vial of tonic, swirling the clear liquid within.
Tremors wracked the old woman’s body, and her pupils dilated. She wrung her hands in her lap, as if she were fighting against shoving an arm through the bars and snatching the vial.
The old woman wanted the tonic,neededthe tonic. And it was abundantly clear she’d rather die than ask for it.
“Fresh batch,” Cassandra said, rolling the vial between her fingers. “The apothecarist just finished brewing it today.”
The old woman huffed, pulling her knees against her chest and wrapping her threadbare blanket around her shoulders. “I don’t need your fucking Fae potions coursing through my system.”
“You sure? It’d help ease your aches. Might help you get a good night’s sleep for once.”
“What makes you think I have trouble sleeping?”
“Because you look like the dog shit someone scraped off the bottom of their boot.”
The old woman blinked, the silence stretching between them for a long moment before she exploded into body-shaking, limb-trembling laughter.
It turned into a hacking cough so phlegmy that Cassandra fought an urge to run a soothing hand down her back.
The old woman composed herself, coughing lightly and rubbing at her wet eyes. “At least you’re honest. I’ll give you that. But like I told you the other night, I don’t need your fucking charity. Bugger off.”
Cassandra shrugged, trying to maintain her nonchalant facade while her insides were churning with guilt and shame and anger. There wasnothingthat separated her from this woman, other than the wings on her back that she hadn’t asked for. She could easily be looking at some alternate version of her own future.
“It’s notfucking charityif you pay me for it,” she said.
The old woman sat up a little straighter, then she laughed again, a bitter hiss, as she swiveled her gaze around the cell. “Oh yes! Let me pay you with all thedrachasI have laying around my palace.” She lifted her tattered bedroll, then smacked her palm against her forehead. “Darn, forgot I’m fresh out. Spent it all on these gorgeous rags. I’d offer to feed you some of my emotions, but I think you’ll find they’re a bit rotten.”
The old woman moved closer to the bars, grasping at her hem with knobby fingers and hitching up her filthy skirt. “Or maybe you’ve got another payment in mind. It’s drier than the fucking Desolation down there, but if you’ve a taste for some desiccated human flesh…”
The old woman stared Cassandra down, her rheumy eyes daring Cassandra to flinch, to show any sign of disgust, any small tell of anger.
But Cassandra wouldn’t do it.
This woman had been enslaved, locked up, malnourished, sleep-deprived, and the-High-Gods-only-knew what else during the time she’d been here.
A tear crawled down the woman’s face as she flicked her skirt down and turned away, folding herself into a fetal position.
“Like I said, do-gooder, kindly fuck off. Leave an old woman her dignity. It’s all I have left.”
