Page 33 of Queen of Nothing

I throw her a slack look.

“And of course, the monthly stipend,” she adds, all warmth to mask her rotten greed, “but that is to be agreed upon later—once your time here is over.”

Rogues, I decide, are just another gang of snakes.

5

The house is cluttered, from room to room, and that’s not even taking into account the other refugees that are staying here.

People come and go, some stay for days, some for weeks, some have been here longer than us.

Sometimes the only way I can get a moment to myself, to breathe, is to sneak out into the vegetable garden at the back of the house, past the animal pen, where the chicken coop and barn are nestled, and down the hill.

Sofía’s private garden is off-limits to guests, but that doesn’t stop me from stealing a reprieve in it every other day.

The vegetables in this imported, enchanted soil are delicate. So I never step off the narrow trails as I hide from the madness of Hell House.

Today—with the arrival of three made witches—I sit between the rhubarb and lettuce patches.

The apple trees loom above me, shading me from the harsh, endless sun.

I tug my mint-green baseball cap down, then hug my knees to my chest.

I won’t be found out in the garden for hours. Not between the made ones pulling up in an old, dusty car, and Mirriam—a long-time rogue and friend of Sofía’s—cooking up a storm in the kitchen for the dozens of guests.

Those other witches are constantly in my way. Whether it’s hogging the bathrooms, clogging the corridors and staircases, or in the main gardens working off their debts with labour.

But Serena and I paid off our debt with a chunk of cash. So we don’t have to do the hard labour.

Really, we do nothing at all.

I spend my days wandering, or sleeping in bed, rolling around under the blankets—and without wealth and luxury, it got boring, fast.

I pick at the stem of the apple I plucked from the tree. We’re not allowed to take any, but I think the fifty thousand euros we handed over to Sofía say otherwise.

I scrape my fingernails along the stem until it’s fleshy—then the shade darkens.

It stretches, growing over the path.

I touch my chin to my shoulder and look back at the silhouette advancing on me, a stick with a bulbous belly.

Serena waddles down the trail.

As slender as she was back at the academy, her belly is a round mass just stuck to her body.

Heavy and awkward, she somehow maintains an elegance about her, like she’s a model that has a fake belly strapped to her.

It reminds me of Dinara’s older sister.

Dinara Korolyov is one of those aristos women I see at the major collective events, where most of the covens come together, like the debutante ball.

Russia is linked with Iceland, Greenland, and all those icy little islands—making the Coven of the North—but it used to be a part of the Coven of Europe centuries ago.

The families grew too much, and covens should not be made up of more than five families, one for each point of the pentacle, one for each of the gods.

Serena is a mirror of Dinara’s sister, the pained smile on her sweaty, exhausted face, the thinness of her shape with a giant swell in her belly—and Elvira was carrying twins.

Dinara was only sixteen. I remember because we’re the same age. and I remember Elvira crying out in the ballroom of the Winter Palace, right in the middle of the debutante ball.