I am sitting across from the Roach, eating cheese and buttered bread with apples. It’s the first food I’ve had that day, and my belly is making hungry noises, another reminder of the way my body is unlike theirs. Faerie stomachs don’t gurgle.
Perhaps hunger is why I am being snappish. My cheek is stinging, and though I turned the situation on its head, it was a nearer thing than I’d like to admit. Plus, I still don’t know what Balekin wanted to tell Cardan.
The more exhausted I let myself get, the more I’ll slip up. Human bodies betray us. They get starved and sick and run down. I know it, and yet there is always so much more to do.
Beside us, Vulciber sits, tied to a chair and blindfolded.
“Do you want some cheese?” I ask him.
The guard grunts noncommittally but pulls against his bindings at the attention. He’s been awake for several minutes and grown visibly more worried the longer we haven’t spoken to him.
“What am I doing here?” he finally shouts, rocking his chair back and forth. “Let me go!” The chair goes over, slamming him against the ground, where he lies on his side. He begins to struggle against the ropes in earnest.
The Roach shrugs, gets up, and pulls off Vulciber’s blindfold. “Greetings,” he says.
On the other side of the room, the Bomb is cleaning beneath her fingernails with a long, half-moon knife. The Ghost is sitting in a corner so quietly that occasionally he seems not to be there at all. A few more of the new recruits look on, interested in the proceedings—a boy with sparrow wings, three spriggans, a sluagh girl. I am not used to an audience.
Vulciber stares at the Roach, at his goblin-green skin and eyes that reflect orange, his long nose and the single tuft of hair on his head. He takes in the room.
“The High King won’t allow this,” Vulciber says.
I give him a sad smile. “The High King doesn’t know, and you’re unlikely to tell him once I cut out your tongue.”
Watching his fear ripen fills me with an almost voluptuous satisfaction. I, who have had little power in my life, must be on guard against that feeling. Power goes to my head too quickly, like faerie wine.
“Let me guess,” I say, turning backward in my chair to face him, calculated coolness in my gaze. “You thought you could strike me, and there would be no consequences.”
He shrinks a bit at my words. “What do you want?”
“Who says I want anything particular?” I counter. “Maybe just a little payback…”
As if we rehearsed it, the Roach pulls out a particularly nasty blade from his belt and holds it over Vulciber. He grins down at the guard.
The Bomb looks up from her nails, a small smile on her lips as she watches the Roach. “I guess the show is about to start.”
Vulciber fights against his bonds, head lashing back and forth. I hear the wood of the chair crack, but he doesn’t get free. After several heavy breaths, he slumps.
“Please,” he whispers.