Fairy Queens: Books 5-7 Page 6

  Her gaze darted around the room. She needed one window—just one. But there were only four cloistered walls, covered by city maps with markings she couldn’t read. She closed her eyes, and rocked, counting.

  “You?” a voice said in surprise.

  Cinder forced her eyes open. Standing before her was Darsam, the lord’s son who’d nearly killed her with a chariot. She tried to glare at him but was afraid it came off as begging. “What do you want with me?”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “You followed a woman from the House of Night into the tavern. Eavesdropped on her conversation. I want to know who you’re working for. Did Zura send you? Jatar?”

  Trying to keep up with his questions, Cinder shook her head. “Send me?”

  Darsam loomed over her, his hands bracing the table on either side of her. “Girls go missing in the city all the time. The streets aren’t safe at night.” Fear churned in Cinder’s belly. “Now, tell me who you’re working for and—”

  Two beads of sweat raced down each side of her temple. “I’m not working for anyone! Ash is my mother! I saw her sneaking out and followed her.”

  Darsam stared at Cinder then, his eyes widening with understanding. She had never been this grateful to look so much like her mother.

  “If that’s true, why are you acting so guilty? And why did you follow her?” Darsam asked in a softer voice.

  One, two, three, four hot tears of fear and exhaustion and anger rushed down Cinder’s cheek. She hated them—wished she could make them stop, but they only came faster. Five, six, seven, eight. “Zura punished us by locking us in the cellar. For days, sometimes. I can’t—” Panic welled up again, stronger than even before. “I don’t do well underground. I followed my mother to find out why she would risk her life . . . had to make sure she was all right. She doesn’t know the streets like I do. It’s dangerous out here.”

  The guard at the door took a step closer and said to Darsam, “What do you want us to do with her?”

  Darsam gazed thoughtfully at Cinder, then straightened and removed her scissors from his pocket. When she stiffened, he held out a placating hand. “I’m just going to cut you free.”

  Not completely trusting him, she leaned forward. Three seconds later, her hands came free. She rubbed out the stinging in her wrists, wiped the tears from her face with her sleeves, and pushed to her feet. “Why did my mother come here?”

  Darsam handed the scissors to her and watched as she pushed them into the pocket of her robes. “Ask her that for yourself, Cinder.”

  Surprised he remembered her name, she asked, “What do you have to do with it?”

  He didn’t answer. Grunting, Cinder edged around him and headed for the door. The man standing before it shot a questioning glace at Darsam, who must have given some sign that she could go, for the guard stepped aside and let her rush out into the dark night. She pounded up five steps before she stumbled and fell, bruising her knee.

  A hand behind her pulled her to her feet. “I’ll see you there safely.”

  Cinder resisted the urge to pull out of Darsam’s grip. “I would prefer to get there on my own.” He didn’t respond but simply walked beside her, his pace matching hers. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?” she asked him.

  “That’s your mother’s secret to tell.”

  “I saw the earring she gave to the man she met with. When Zura finds out it’s missing, there will be beatings. And someone will be sold. Even killed.”

  After a long pause, Darsam said, “I mean you and your family no harm, Cinder.”

  “You’ve already done us harm,” she replied through clenched teeth. She had to think of a way out of this. Some way to stop the events already set in motion. “Give the earring back to me. I’ll make it look like it was merely dropped. Ash will be caned for losing it, but—”

  “It’s too late for that now.”

  Cinder glanced up at the lightening sky and picked up her pace. “Too late for the spoiled son of the city lord to care about some lowly prostitutes?” When Darsam didn’t answer, she felt a moment of fear at the memory of his unforgiving grip.

  “If you are free, as you say, why must you go back?” he asked.

  “I’m 160 attalics in debt.”

  “And if you leave, your mother and grandmother would suffer for it,” he surmised tightly. “Why were you counting, back in the basement?”

  A flush of shame worked its way up from Cinder’s neck. “It helps calm me.” Now she could see the rear gate to the House of Night.

  “Do you have a way back in?” he asked.

  “I hope so.” She took the last thirty-three steps, then paused at the ornate door and rapped lightly. There was no answer, no snicking of the lock.

  Heart pounding, she said as loudly as she dared, “Let me in.”

  “See, there was your mistake,” said the guard’s voice. “Zura would have known that I let Ash go. But she’s back now. And you aren’t—you, the girl with a history of sneaking out.”

  Cinder slapped the flat of her hand against the door. “And you who let me escape!”

  “You should have let me have my fun. Then you wouldn’t be in this position. Of course, I am the forgiving sort.”

  She swore at him, promising more than one kind of violence. The guard chuckled lightly and his feet scuffed as he moved away.

  “Is there another way in?” Darsam asked.

  Cinder rested her forehead on the gate. “I doubt he’ll let me pick the lock and slip back inside.”

  “You can pick a lock?”

  She patted her breast wrap. “I never go anywhere without my tension wrench and rake pin.”

  She turned to find him watching her with something like admiration in his gaze. He headed north. “Come on.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she followed him and said, “Why?” He didn’t answer. She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure this is all terribly exciting for a man for whom the consequences don’t apply, but I need to find a rope. So unless you’re heading to one . . .”

  Darsam looked back and forth as if searching for something. Now it was light enough that she could make out his well-muscled body and the features of his face. He was breathtakingly handsome.

  He found an abandoned cart and took hold of the edge. “There’s no way you can move that without a couple donkeys or an ox,” Cinder commented.

  He dug his shoulder in, straining, and the cart inched toward the wall. Her mouth fell open. She’d seen a pair of donkeys struggle to move a cart smaller than this one. A beat later, she settled in beside Darsam, pushing for all she was worth. Once the cart was lined up against the wall, he climbed to the top and held a hand out for her.

  Cinder considered not taking it—it had always been hard for her to touch men—but he had helped her without any obligation. She let him pull her up and was surprised to find thick calluses on the hands of such a rake. Darsam squatted down and braced himself against the wall. “Straddle my shoulders,” he said quietly.

  Tapping her fingers in indecision, she looked at his broad back, then up at the slate-gray sky. There wasn’t time for another option. Cinder sat on his shoulders and he rose smoothly. “Now, stand on my shoulders and haul yourself up,” he told her.

  She’d seen street performers do this before. Darsam held his hands up for her. She placed her sweaty palms against his dry ones and rose to her feet. Wobbling a little, she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the top of the wall, but she didn’t have the arm strength to haul herself up the rest of the way. Without hesitation, he stepped up onto the raised edge of the cart and rose onto his tiptoes, boosting Cinder just high enough to hook her hands on the other side of the brick. She took hold of the wall and scrambled up. Straddling it, she looked down at him.

  He shot her a grin and hopped off the cart.

  “Were you a street performer at one point?” she said quietly.

  “No, but I know a few.” He dug his shoulder into the cart and started pushing it back into
place.

  Cinder was reluctant to leave without answers to her questions, but she could already smell the smoke from Storm’s cooking fire. She swung her other foot over the wall and dropped to the ground.

  Cinder paused at the door to the kitchen. Her grandmother was already at the long table, muttering to herself as the knife skinned mangos. Cinder didn’t see any of the other girls about. She swallowed hard, her fingers tapping frantically against her thigh, and stepped inside the room.

  “Where have you been?” her grandmother demanded.

  Cinder hesitated, reluctant to admit she had followed Ash when she didn’t even know what her mother was doing yet. “I went to one more place to see about a job.”

  Her grandmother pursed her lips. “You should be working on getting Naiba ready. Her auction is tonight!”

  Cinder nodded. “I’m almost finished with the dress.”

  “I got up early this morning and worked on it a little for you,” Storm informed her. “If you take it to your mother, she can stay up today while you do your chores.”

  Cinder’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.”

  Her grandmother smiled. “Now, hurry up and rouse the others. I’ve let them sleep too long because I was waiting for you.”

  Cinder sent the other servants downstairs so she could finish the hems. Naiba lingered by the window, staring out over the city. “Last night, where did you go?”

  “The privy,” Cinder answered.

  “With your cloak and scissors?”

  Cinder tried to keep the shock off her face. “You must have been mistaken.”

  “When you didn’t come back,” Naiba went on, “I sat by the window, waiting. I saw Ash come back through the gate. I saw the guard . . . touching her. Zura came into the back gardens. She would have seen them. I managed to distract her long enough for your mother to get away.”

  Cinder gaped at her. “You did what?”

  Naiba shrugged off the shoulder of her robe, revealing fresh welts.

  “Why—why would you help us?” Cinder asked. She didn’t think any of the other servants would risk so much, and they’d known each other their entire lives.

  “Because your mother would have suffered a lot more than just a beating.” Naiba pulled up her robe. “I don’t know what you two are doing, but I’ve seen slaves killed for less.”

  Cinder winced. All this time, she’d thought of this girl as an irritating child. But there was steel beneath the surface. “Thank you, Naiba.”

  The girl’s hands curled into fists. “Yula. My name is Yula.”

  Cinder placed her hand over her heart. “You have to keep your true name in here, where they can never take it from you.” She wouldn’t even dare think of the girl as Yula, in case it slipped out.

  Naiba bowed her head. “I wanted someone to know.” She turned and headed downstairs after the others.

  Cinder stared at her retreating form. Naiba had saved her mother’s life, and possibly Cinder’s as well. She swore that from now on, she would do everything in her power to make sure Naiba survived this.

  When it was time to take the food into the mansion, Cinder was so tired she wasn’t sure how she would finish all her cleaning and the dress. Her eyes felt gritty and her head heavy as she carried the trays to the rooms. Before she pushed into her mother’s room, she paused to collect herself.

  As always, Ash was sitting at the table, her lip stain faded and cracked from her escapades the night before. Unable to meet her gaze, Cinder lifted the tea pot and asked, “Do you believe I’m good enough to become the seamstress for the House of Night?”

  Her mother looked up in surprise. “Yes.”

  As Cinder poured the tea, she said softly, “Then why did you risk everything I’m working for to visit the Sand Snake?”

  Ash’s hand shot out, gripping Cinder’s arm hard enough to leave a mark. The teapot slipped from her grasp and shattered on the tiles. Hot water sprayed on Cinder’s legs and soaked the bottoms of her sandaled feet. Hissing in pain, she jumped back. Ash dropped to her knees and soaked up the liquid with a tea towel before it could escape along the six grout lines. She didn’t shy away from the heat as she brushed the fragments into the center.

  “You followed me.” Ash’s lips barely betrayed the words.

  Cinder tried to stop her brain from calculating the cost of the china. “I saw you with the guard at the gate,” she whispered, the tears she refused to shed making her head throb. “And I wasn’t the only one.”

  “Who?”

  “She won’t tell anyone.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Cinder nodded.

  Ash’s eyes slipped closed. “It isn’t anything I haven’t done before—a thousand times before. What’s once more, especially when that once more serves me instead of her?” Still on her knees, she looked up at Cinder. “You have to trust me.”

  “Not until you tell me why.”

  “The walls,” Ash pleaded.

  “They can’t hear us.”

  “They don’t have to hear us.”

  Cinder knelt on the floor, which still felt hot from the water. “You have to get the earring back,” she whispered. “When Zura finds it missing, she’ll come after you.” Her mother didn’t answer. “Do you know what you’re risking?”

  Ash leaned forward. “I have survived as a slave longer than you have been alive—and I did it because I understand people in a way you never will. Now, you will keep silent. Do you understand?”

  Cinder felt the heat swelling up to her head. “I’m going to be a seamstress in a few days. Then I can buy all of your freedom. You just have to trust me.”

  Ash laughed, but there was no humor in it. “There are pockets of darkness and cruelty in the world, Daughter. And Zura revels in those shadows. Do not mistake her kindness for anything other than the mask it is.”

  The main door swung open. There stood Magian, watching Cinder and Ash with narrowed eyes. “What’s going on here?” she barked.

  “I knocked over the teapot,” Ash said immediately.

  Did Magian know they had snuck out last night? Cinder gathered six fragments into her hand and transferred them onto the tray without looking up.

  “Whispering is not allowed in the House,” Magian said.

  “We don’t want to wake my patron,” Ash replied.

  Magian huffed. “Ash, you will come to my rooms for your five lashes after your patron leaves.”

  Ash inclined her head in submission. Cinder let out a breath—Magian and Zura didn’t know about last night. “Cinder, the broken pot will come out of your wages,” Magian went on. “This whispering stops or Ash will be sent to live with Rugur for a time. He’s been requesting it.”

  Rugur was a big man with a mean streak. Ash’s hands closed into fists. “It won’t happen again, Magian.”

  “Cinder, this arrived for you.” Magian nodded to a small wooden chest on the floor by her feet. She must have set it there before knocking.

  Eyes downcast, Cinder took the chest and opened it. Inside were hundreds of glass jewels, all of them faceted. Fighting the urge to sort and count them, she closed the lid. She could do this. She could save herself and her family. If she could just manage to keep her mother from dooming them first.

  Magian started away. After casting a pleading look at her mother, Cinder hurried to catch up with Zura’s daughter and asked, “Might I work on the dress today?”

  “You went without sleep for months while searching for a job and sewing your own clothing. You can go without sleep now.”

  Gradually, Cinder became aware of a low murmur of conversation. It suddenly occurred to her that she was asleep, and that the auction was tonight and the dress still wasn’t ready. She bolted up in her chair to find the dress on the form, the glass already sewn onto the fabric. In the muted evening light, it glittered like light sparking off the tops of waves. Cinder glanced around the room to see Ash sitting beside Naiba on the bench, containers of colored powders and brus
hes littering the makeup dresser beside her. Cinder’s mother leaned forward, her expert hands applying the powders to the girl’s face.

  “The dress is done?” Cinder asked.

  “We finished it while you slept,” Ash said without taking her eyes from her work.

  “You fell asleep with the needle in your hands,” Naiba added.

  Feeling a rush of affection for the girl, Cinder walked to the dress and lifted one of the panels. She was shocked at how beautiful and unique it was—even more so than the other robes she had made.

  “There.” Ash tossed the brushes back onto the table. “What do you think?”

  Cinder looked up, her vision stained crimson from the dress. A light powder dusted Naiba’s face. Kohl lined her eyes, and a pale pink stained her mouth. She looked like a scared little girl. Cinder’s heart nearly broke as she thought of everything that had been taken from Naiba. Everything that would continue to be taken from her. “She looks lovely,” Cinder said softly.

  Naiba drew her knees into her chest and hugged them. “What will it be like?"

  Ash rested her hands on the girl’s. “There will be music and fine food—the best you’ve ever tasted, and unlike me, you’re skinny enough that Zura will let you have all you want. You will serve the men and then sing for them.”

  “I can’t,” Naiba squeaked. “I can’t talk to them. I can’t sing in front of them, knowing what they mean to do to me.”

  Cinder came to kneel beside her. “I promise you, all you have to do is sing for them. You’re too young for the rest.”

  Ash shot Cinder a disapproving look she didn’t understand.

  Naiba dropped her head. “What if I fail?”

  If Naiba failed, Cinder would never be truly free. But for Naiba, it would be far worse. “You won’t.”

  The door swept open, startling all four of them. Farush stepped into the room, followed by his brother, who bore a large chest. Zura and Magian entered last. Zura’s eyes swept over Naiba, and a small smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “Are you ready to prove that you belong in the House of Night and not in some back alley?” demanded the mistress.