“Esme.” She keeps her voice low, probably thinking she can still avoid a scene. “Sweetheart, come down. Come down now, and we go home, and nobody speaks of this again, I promise you. Nobody has to know.”
“The whole city knows, Mother.”
My father doesn’t reach for the stage. He stands with his hands folded and speaks the way he always does. Controlled, definitive, with only a hint of anger underneath.
“Get down from there, or you are finished. Do you understand me? You’ll ruin yourself. You’ll ruin this family. No man will want to marry you after this spectacle.”
“Good,” I say. “Then stop offering me to men. You wanted me sold? Watch.”
“Esme…” my mother starts.
“Leave me alone.”
“One thousand credits,” the auctioneer calls over us all, sweating. “Dear gentlemen. Honored guests. One thousand.”
The silence gets worse. The clerks have stopped writing, and my parents standing in front of the stage have turned this into something else, because the galleries aren’t watching a bride being auctioned off anymore. They’re watching a full-on family quarrel.
My face burns. I came here to be publicly sold, and I’m being publicly refused instead, which is the one outcome I haven’t planned for. I’d laugh if my jaw would just unclench.
I must take this into my own hands. I lift myself on my toes and raise a hand to get everyone’s attention. When I speak, I try to project my voice as far as I can.
“Whoever buys me,” I call out to the galleries, “takes my companion as well. Two women. One price. She’s healthy, clever, and considerably better tempered than I am.”
No one laughs. I frown. It was a good joke.
Below the stage, Darina’s face turns up to me, white, her mouth open. She didn’t agree to this. She didn’t even hear it coming, and I’ll answer for that later. I’ll take her with me anyway, because I’m not walking out of here and leaving her to my parents’ mercy.
Still, not one paddle rises.
“Eight hundred,” I say.
The auctioneer turns to stare at me.
“Miss, you can’t lower the price. That’s not how it works.”
I ignore him.
“Five hundred.”
The galleries have gone very still. My mother is calling my name over and over. My father is red with fury, and I can see he’s starting to consider violence.
“Four hundred,” I say through gritted teeth, and hear my voice come out thin.
No one moves. They all stare at me like I’m putting on a weird show they’re not quite comprehending.
My knees are barely keeping me upright. I lock them, because I’m not going to collapse in front of everyone.
Nobody is going to bid, and there’s no floor under my price low enough to make my name cheap. I’ll walk down these steps and join my parents. I’ll ride home between them in a closed carriage, and I’ll never hear the end of it my whole life. I’ll be married quietly to Garron Wycliffe, if he still wants me, and if not, my father will find another old, sleazy man.
At the back of the hall, a paddle goes up. I blink twice, because I can’t believe my eyes.
“I’ll buy you,” a voice says.
I see the tail first. It rises behind his shoulder as he stands, thick where it leaves his spine, narrowing section by section to a curved point that shines in the light spilling through the windows. I understand that point is a stinger before I understand anything else about him. Then I see his eyes, dark blue and gleaming, with no pupils at all. Insect eyes.
There’s no mistaking what he is, because everyone in Concord knows the Scorpii. He’s a male out of the Waste.
The other monsters make room for him as he walks toward the stage. The orcs find somewhere else to stand. One of the shadow beings drifts back into a dark corner. As he approaches, the hall gives him a wide lane to move.
