Page 10

There is nothing.

But at the bottom of the last empty crate, I find a single scrap of fabric holding a handful of seeds someone had laid out to dry from our last good harvest. When the snow didn’t let up, Mr. Crawly had tried to make a greenhouse out of his enclosed back porch, but no matter how deep the men tried to dig in the frozen earth, they couldn’t break through to good soil. No one came back for these seeds. Without thinking, I snatch the fabric up, bunch it carefully around the seeds, and stuff it into my pocket.

I debate sneaking over to Arlo’s cabin to see if he’s rustled up anything for his mother and sister, but if I’m caught there, it will be Arlo who suffers the consequences.

I creep toward the main house, dread coiled tight in my chest. My hands shake as I reach for the door. Even though Mr. Crawly and Claudia are kinder than most, there would be hard repercussions for any servant caught stealing from their home, but at least the punishment would be mine and not Arlo’s.

I’m one of the more favored servants here because of how hard I work, not that being favored by Mr. Crawly wins me any points with the other servants.

Besides Arlo, his little sister Angie, and his mother Marian, most of the others despise me. They see the way Arlo’s eyes always find me in the field, and since the lashings he took on my behalf, they know what trouble I can cause him.

He was born and raised here on this farm, like a lot of others, and he’s their golden boy in every way. My sister and I are still considered outsiders to the people who’ve spent a lifetime here, and I’m a threat to Arlo’s safety just for catching his eye.

My stomach flutters as I remember the way his hands caught my waist as I dropped from the wall, how his warmth seeped into me as he pressed close when we ran from the guards, and how his face fell when I didn’t kiss him.

It isn’t that I don’t want him. It’s that wanting Arlo feels like tempting fate. A fate that is never tipped toward anything good.

I was fourteen when I came here, and over the last six years, I have watched him grow. Almost without noticing. One day, he was just a boy with a sunburned nose, grinning at me from across the fields, tugging my braids when he passed, and the next, there was a man in his place, with rough hands and quiet hazel eyes, one willing to bear the weight of our broken world on his back if it meant keeping me safe.

It would be so easy to imagine a world where his forehead kisses turned into something more, where his mouth closes the distance without me pulling away. But that world can’t exist here. On this farm, affection is a liability, and love is a luxury meant for people who have never slept in a cage with a price tag on it.

Arlo has already paid in flesh for trying to get close to me, so I bury my feelings to keep him alive. Because keeping him at arm’s distance is better than kissing him goodbye forever.

His mother needs him; Angie needs him. I won’t be the reason his contract is sold at the flesh markets . . . or worse.

As I inch toward the kitchen, the sound of low voices makes me shrink back against the wall. Heart hammering, I peer inside.

Mr. Crawly is slumped over the table, and Claudia strokes his back calmly.

“There is nothing. We won’t survive this winter.” His head lifts. “I’ve heard rumors about another kingdom that’s covered with ice that refuses to thaw.”

“You asked for the extension, so hopefully the king will have leniency,” his wife tries to reassure him.

“We can’t meet the king’s levy on our crops with frozen fields, Claudia, let alone make up what we owe in taxes or pay the labor contracts. The Guard will come to collect again, and if the ground ever thaws, I’ll have no hands left to sow seeds and set things right. That’s if we don’t all starve first.”

Claudia turns to the window, eyes hollow, and I know it’s over. When Sable and I first came here, there were just over fifty servants who took care of this place. In the year and a half King Zander has worn the mainland crown, we’ve been whittled down to thirty. The rest were surrendered to the king and taken back to the flesh markets.

My hands curl into fists. Crawly always offers up the elderly or the ill first, then the mothers with small children that go with them. He’ll sell the servants who can’t carry their weight or anyone who costs him coin in medicine.

And that thought takes me straight to Sable and Arlo’s sister, Angie. They’re the youngest left. Angie’s heart is fragile, and Sable has been knocking on death’s door for weeks.

What if they take Sable? There is no way Crawly would send me with her, and I promised Mama I’d never let her be alone. The thought of losing her rips me open. I’d rather die than let someone take her.

“I’ll send word to the king. We can send what rations we have. We’ll—”

“That’s just it, Claudia, there are no rations. We are all going to starve to death. The fields are covered in snow. There is nothing,” Mr. Crawly states.

Claudia wipes a stray tear and nods slowly as his words sink in.

“Then we have no choice. We’ll get rid of some of the servants. Perhaps we can offer extra blood this month. I’m sure most here will offer to donate more if the alternative is . . .”

She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t have to. Mr. Crawly knows the alternative is the lot of us ending up in the flesh markets. Sable and I were lucky that Claudia took pity and bought us both. Most madams aren’t as nice; our last one certainly wasn’t.

Our contracts were resold after I burned our first madam for trying to sell Sable illegally to one of the local brothels. No contract transfers are to be made without the king’s approval—and by approval, I mean the king takes a cut in every sale. The underground flesh trade is profitable, and once you are caught in it, the only way out is death. Everyone knows it’s happening, but silence isn’t hard to buy in a world as broken as ours.

The scars on my back are forever a reminder of what happens when you go against your contract owners. Fifty lashes, and now my back looks more like a jigsaw puzzle. I was sure I was going to die. I’ve seen those older than me die from less, and at fourteen, death should have come for me that day. If it weren’t for Sable finding herbs to treat my back, the infection from it surely would have killed me.

I quietly leave the way I came in. Moving toward the fields, I scour for anything, but the earth is frozen, no color, just blankets of snow.