“Very good, my sweet,” he said approvingly, as he dragged a claw through the box’s glittering contents. “Very,verygood. Although” — he drew out a garish, alarmingly familiar sapphire pendant, his smile fading into visible dismay — “what sort of jeweller forgedthis? Ach. Inverypoor taste.”
Geva’s mouth helplessly twitched into something dangerously close to a smile, and she lurched away, and returned to collecting the room’s remaining visible valuables. Stuffing them one by one into her little pouch until it was full, and then handing that over to the orc, too. He’d likewise finished emptying the jewel-box into another pouch, and he flashed Geva another approving, sharp-toothed grin as he tucked both pouches into his belt.
“A worthy yield, poppet,” he said, his voice even warmer. “I should never havedreamtof gaining such help from the schoolmarm, ach?”
But Geva couldn’t seem to stop glancing uneasily around the messy room, at that open empty jewel-box. While a dark, sickening awareness plumed up in her gut, surging past the walls she’d been desperately attempting to build around it.
She was really doing this. She was helping an orc plunder her employers’ house, just as Mrs. Fitzwald had feared. But then the orc would run off and disappear, never to be seen again. And she would be left behind, and then…
“Now, do not fret, kitten,” the orc said, with another satisfied grin, as he turned and snapped the jewel-box closed, locking it with the little key. “They shall find no trace of us here, you ken?”
There was a sudden, wild impulse to laugh — no trace, perhaps, other than all the missing jewels — but Geva choked it down, and silently hung the key back in the wardrobe. And then she followed the orc back out into the corridor, watching blankly as he locked the door behind them.
“And next, poppet?” the orc asked, raising his thick black brows, and flashing Geva yet another jaunty grin. “That way, mayhap?”
He was inhaling deeply, angling his head down the corridor, indeed in the direction of Mr. Fitzwald’s rooms. So Geva nodded, squaring her shoulders, and soon found herself helping the orc plunder yet another set of messy rooms. This time finding a large quantity of loose coin, as well as an excessive assortment of men’s jewels, snuff-boxes, and pocket-watches. And then — thanks to a loose-lipped tip from Sebastian this time — Geva pulled out an elegant, jewel-studded dagger, hidden in a secret compartment at the back of Mr. Fitzwald’s stocking-drawer.
The orc’s eyes widened as Geva handed the dagger over, his breath stilling in his huge chest — and then he snatched the dagger out of her hand, and turned it over with careful, disbelieving reverence. “This is orc-forged,” he said under his breath. “My father — he owned one just like this. How did your foul masters gain this?!”
He shot Geva a sharp, accusing look — gods, as ifshe’dsomehow acquired the dagger for Mr. Fitzwald — and she raised her hands as she stumbled backwards, shaking her head. “I — I don’t know,” she gulped. “I just remembered Sebastian — one of my pupils — saying it was there.”
The fury kept crackling in the orc’s dark eyes, and he leapt to his feet, and ushered Geva out of the room. “Show me the rest,” he hissed, as he swiftly locked the door behind them. “All of it.”
But Geva was again standing frozen in place, while that cold, clammy dread kept bubbling in her belly, even deeper and darker than before. Hestillwasn’t done? After she’d already betrayed so much, risked so much, and now…
We’ll need to leave these rooms very secure. Your greed is shocking, Miss Okoro. Unless you want to spend the next month out on the streets…
“All that’s left now is the — the children’s rooms,” Geva stammered. “And the servants’. You surely can’t mean to —”
The orc cut her off with a hard, bitter laugh, a menacing grip of his clawed hand to his sword-hilt. “Ach, are these the same children I heard speak to you earlier today?” he asked coldly. “Such soft,sweetlittle ducklings, were they not?”
Geva’s words were failing her again — this damned orc had been spying on the house, he’d beenplanningthis, of course he had — and he laughed again, even harder this time. “Ach, you are not a fool, woman,” he snapped. “These spoilt brats shall be well served by losing a few trinkets. Show me!”
So Geva once again obeyed, numbly guiding the orc through the children’s rooms. Not offering any assistance this time, most of all in Cecily’s room, which had precious little to steal to begin with. And thankfully, the orc didn’t bother demanding Geva’s help, and emptied all their drawers and jewel-boxes on his own, before ordering her to take him to the servants’ quarters.
But as Geva led him up the narrow back staircase, she only felt that dread deepening, coiling in a hard, nauseating knot in her stomach. Enough that she had to hold her hand over her mouth as she watched the orc ducking in and out of her fellow employees’ rooms, moving far more quickly than before. Most of them had hidden their small amounts of coin in painfully obvious places, in drawers or under mattresses, though Cook’s was under a floorboard, and several of the junior maids had nothing at all.
And finally, at the very end of the row, was Geva’s own room. A fact that the orc clearly understood at once, hesitating as he stepped inside. His eyes sweeping over the neatly made bed, the wardrobe, the little table with her tidy stack of books, before glancing over his shoulder toward her.
“Come, then, poppet,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “It shall be done faster if you just show me, ach?”
The bitter fury plunged harder in Geva’s belly, so forceful that bile surged high in her throat. And even as she opened her mouth to protest, or perhaps begin begging, her hand twitched reflexively to her neck, and found… pain. The cut the orc’s huge blade had made, fresh enough to still be sticky and hot against her finger.
So she bit her lip, blinked back the water pooling in her eyes, and stalked past the orc to her narrow wardrobe. And with shaking, prickling hands, she reached up inside. Groping for the familiar little bag, which currently held fourteen copper coins inside it.
She nearly betrayed a sob as her fingers clutched it, but she somehow spun back around, and thrust it out toward the orc. Keeping her blinking eyes on the floor as she waited, as she felt the little bag’s weight lift from her wavering hand.
And surely, this was all this orc could take from her. Surely this part of this nightmare would finally be over, and he would leave her alone to weep and despair, and frantically plan for the hell that would come next. For her total, immutable destruction.
Because it would be destruction, Geva now knew. This vile orc was destroying her. He was destroyingeverything.
It was a certainty that had only grown as she’d watched him move through the servants’ rooms, emptying them one by one. Because even if the Fitzwalds’ missing possessions went unnoticed until they returned in a month, the servants would surely discover their own lost coin within a day or two, at most. And despite all Mrs. Fitzwald’s grand claims of pilfering orcs, the other servants would be well aware of the house, and who had been alone inside it.
Geva.
And earlier that very day, Mrs. Fitzwald had openly reprimanded her. Mrs. Fitzwald had freely insulted her, and threatened to fire her, and called her greedy, while flaunting her priceless jewels, and sharing her concerns about thievery. All this, while those two maids had watched and listened to every word — and one of those maids hadn’t gone on the trip, either.Hide the key properly, Mitzy. We’ll need to leave these rooms very secure.
Now you’re trying to get a free vacation? As if it isn’t enough that we’re allowing you to stay here, in our house, free of charge, for an entire month? Your greed is shocking, Miss Okoro, as is your impertinence…
