Page 3 of The Demon and the Broken Girl

We sit in tense silence for a moment before Silas shakes his head. “I’ll come with you. I’ll beg Overseer Tovel.”

My heart clenches. As comforting as the offer is, I know Tovel. She won’t allow it. “No. You’ll only get yourself in trouble.”

He sets his jaw. “I don’t want to see you vanish like the others.”

“I know. But I can do this.” My voice tries to sound certain, though a tremor betrays my fear.

He opens his mouth to argue but stops at the sound of approaching footsteps. A pair of elves in black armor appear, scanning us with the bored disdain they reserve for humans. Silas and I both drop our gazes. The guards pass by without comment, continuing down the corridor.

When they’re gone, I place a hand on Silas’s forearm. “Stay safe,” I whisper. “I’ll need someone to tell me jokes when I get back.”

He forces a grin. “Deal. But you owe me if you pull through this.”

“I’ll owe you everything,” I say softly. Because, truly, his friendship has been my anchor in this sea of cruelty.

That night, sleep is elusive. Every time I shut my eyes, I imagine creeping through dank corridors, hearing the drip of water echo in the darkness. I imagine ghostly shapes flickering in torchlight, walls that shift like living flesh. I think of the rumors that the Vaerathis family once performed rites of necromancy, summoning things that defy explanation.

My exhaustion eventually triumphs over my anxiety, and I have a restless dream—shadows swirl, taking on forms that lunge at me. A tall silhouette with white hair and violet eyes laughs, telling me I’m worthless. Chains coil around my wrists. The floor cracks open into a yawning pit, and I plummet.

I jerk awake, covered in cold sweat. The dormitory is silent, the other slaves’ breathing steady in the gloom. Through the narrow window near the ceiling, I see the faint glow of predawn sky. It’s time.

The guard assigned to me is a grim-faced elf named Sathrin. He’s lean, with a perpetual sneer. “Move,” he orders, jabbing me lightly in the back with the butt of his spear. I walk ahead of him down a descending spiral staircase, deeper and deeper into the bowels of House Vaerathis.

Stone passages give way to narrower tunnels. The temperature plummets. My breath mists before me, and goosebumps crawl over my arms despite my coarse tunic. Sathrin holds a torch that flickers, casting elongated shadows on the walls. Occasionally, a torch in a bracket lights the corridor, but many are unlit, leaving pockets of inky blackness.

We pass doors of varying shapes and sizes—some sealed with iron bars, others boarded shut. The scent of decay hangs in the stale air, intensifying as we descend. Eventually, Sathrin halts in front of an archway carved with runic symbols. My stomach twists at the sight.

He hands me a rag and a bucket of pungent cleaning solution. “You’ll scrub this hallway. The storerooms beyond, too. You have until midday. If you’re not at the top of the staircase by then, I’ll assume you’ve died.”

My voice cracks. “Alone?”

He raises one brow. “You want me to hold your hand, little human?”

“No, sir. I just—never mind.”

Sathrin snorts. “I’ll be upstairs, enjoying a warm meal. Don’t get lost.” He turns on his heel, taking the torch with him, and marches back the way we came.

His footsteps fade into silence, leaving me with only the dim glow of a single wall sconce. My pulse pounds as I turn to face the archway. The runes etched into the stone look unnaturally dark, like old stains that seeped into the rock.

I steel myself, stepping under the arch. Immediately, a chill washes over me, and the tiny hairs on my nape rise. Something about the air feels…wrong, as if it’s denser, clinging to my skin.

The corridor is narrow, the walls damp. I hold the bucket in one hand, the rag in the other, stepping forward cautiously. There’s no sound but the drip of water echoing somewhere unseen. The corridor extends about thirty feet before curving to the right. Along the walls, a few ancient tapestries hang in tatters. A thick layer of dust and cobwebs coats everything.

I want to race back to Sathrin, to beg for any other assignment, but I know that’s pointless. He’ll mock me and force me down anyway. Better to finish my chore and leave as quickly as possible.

I drop to one knee and begin scrubbing the floor where the mold is thickest, near the base of the wall. My rag soaks up dark stains that look alarmingly like old blood, though I refuse to dwell on that. I focus on the mechanical motions: dip the rag, scrub in a circular motion, rinse, repeat.

Minutes pass, perhaps hours. My fingers go numb from the cold. The flickering sconce behind me doesn’t do much to chase away the darkness. I move farther down the corridor, approaching the bend.

As I turn the corner, the sight before me makes my throat tighten. The corridor opens up into a broader chamber with three passageways branching off. Unlabeled doors, some made of heavy iron, some of rotting wood, line the walls. This mustbe the “storerooms” Tovel spoke of, though it feels more like a labyrinth.

I step into the chamber’s center, searching for some sign of which route I’m supposed to clean. The bucket sloshes at my hip, my own heartbeat thunderous in my ears. A low wind moans through the corridor, though I’m unsure where it comes from—there’s no visible window or opening.

The leftmost passageway beckons, perhaps because it’s partially lit by a single torch bracket. I inch toward it, refusing to think about how easy it would be to get lost here.

Just as I cross the threshold, something skitters across the floor behind me. I whirl, heart in my throat, but see only a flicker in the shadows. My mind conjures images of monstrous rats or twisted creatures living in the catacombs. My body tenses.

“Get a hold of yourself,” I whisper, though the sound of my own voice in this silent place is anything but reassuring.

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