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I haven’t forgotten . . . OR
Soon . . . OR
Be ready . . . OR
Have you chosen yet? OR
I hadn’t seen her a single time, though, and the more I tried to talk to the others about the deal we had made, the more I realized I couldn’t. I would push so hard that I popped a blood vessel in one eye, and still nothing.
It was Violet who had finally delivered me from the futility of my obsession.
“You’ve been an idiot, haven’t you?” she asked me one night, pulling up an overturned bucket to my cot when all the others had gone to bed.
The only sounds filling the warrens were the slapping of crafted flesh against crafted flesh and the snores of the others.
“Usually. You’ll need to be more specific.”
I wished I could see her face. I wanted to gauge her expressions. I had started to learn more about those around me and the micro-tells that they tried so hard to school.
Not that Violet tried to school any of her reactions. On the contrary, unlike the others, she was rather generous with her expressions. She could get away with it, too. Not only was she the eldest of all the humans in the warrens but also the hidden power behind them. If a Fae wanted favors but could not afford the price of their own daora, they needed to bargain with her, and she was the shrewdest of hagglers.
“You’ve made a pact,” she hissed, the sound of her porcelain pieces sliding against each other telling me more than the flat tone of her voice.
“And if I had?” I strained my eyes, trying to see the outlines of the cracks in her face.
“Then, I’d tell you you were a fool and beat you bloody myself. The fact that you cannot tell me yes or no but have been skirting around this place, trying to spit something out for the last few weeks, tells me I’m right.” She growled and grabbed a fistful of my shoddy nightgown. “What did I tell you about the Fae, Cricket? I told you they were not to be trusted. I told you that all of them were bastards. And you’ve got a contract swirling in your head now. Let me guess, it was with that Raven, wasn’t it? Did he oath-swear you into fucking him? Tell me true, girl!”
In the blackness, my lashes fluttered. “What? First off, what the fuck, Violet? Second off, why the fuck would he do that? He can barely tolerate me, and I him. Plus, I sort of stabbed him a few times.”
“You could stab that boy until he bled ten rivers, and he would swim across them and ask for more. And he’d do that because of exactly what you just said. You think that boy can barely stand you, so you haven’t given him so much as a swish of your skirts or a flutter of your eye. Fae aren’t used to being told no by something they want. And, yes, I said something because that’s all you are to them. A thing. So, was it him?”
The venom in her voice sounded personal, like a festering old wound was bleeding out.
“No. I haven’t seen him since before the last Hunt. He’s avoiding me because I stabbed him.” I pushed her hand from my nightgown and sat up, flicking a match to the small tallow candle near my bed. It cast barely a flicker of light, but it was enough to see the rage and hurt and concern pooling between the fissures in her doll face.
“Blind as a bat. Yet still I believe you.” She sat back and considered. “But you’ve made a pact, yes?”
I tried to say yes but couldn’t, so I simply nodded.
“For what? Magic?”
I shook my head.
“Money?”
I shook my head again.
“Please tell me you haven’t been fool enough to oath-swear for freedom.”
My head didn’t move. It couldn’t. It wouldn’t budge a single inch.
“You damned fool of a girl!” Her voice raised and echoed off the alcove to be met with vitriolic hisses for her to shut up. “Cricket, you fucking idiot. None of the Fae can free you from this place but the one who owns you. And even then, how would you get out! None of us know the way.”
She sighed heavily and scratched the palm of her hand down her face. “Well, it’s done as day now. Can’t break an oath. You’ve got yourself into a mess and can’t even talk to anyone about it. Foolish child. I hope it was worth the price you paid for it, but it never is. I’ve seen enough of us fall prey to the Fae and their damned deals that I know whatever it was that you swore away was not worth the price of whatever it was you are getting in return. Mark me on that. You may think you were smart enough to outwit the Fae, but you’re not. You know how I know you aren’t? Because you were fool enough to agree to an oath with a Fae to begin with.”
I had been a fool. And as the days wore on, with not even a single petal from her stupid roses showing up, I felt more and more foolish. She had been so sincere. She had held my hand so tightly. I had not felt like she would trick me. Why would she? She had nothing to gain from our deal except something I didn’t even want. I had made sure that the wording had been very specific, nothing I wanted. Nothing I valued but something I had anyway. It would be something I wouldn’t miss.
My hunt was drawing me up the stairs, a wave of drudgery and flesh washing out and across the palace. I had lost count of how many times I had walked these corridors. So many times that I could find my way from the warrens to the King’s chambers without a guard and without even opening my eyes. I knew every nook and cranny of the passage, knew what sights and what scents to expect. Where each of the mirrors I avoided were. So, when the scent of leather, cloves, cardamom, cedar, campfire smoke, and the warm scent of clean, masculine skin filled my nostrils, I didn’t miss a single step when I closed my eyes and drew in deep lungfuls of it.
