Page 120 of Vipers and Vendettas
Toramun shrugs. ‘His lordship said everything is to remain the same. Slaves work. Take it up with him if you don’t like it.’
I put on the sack and let Toramun lead me out of the depths of the dungeons and up to the kitchens. I don’t struggle or try to run from him. There’s no point. It’ll just get my arm or my leg broken.
I’ve been letting myself think about Axel and Fluffy while I’ve been in my cell. I’ve allowed myself to be afraid for them because Robertson might well have killed them both. The others may believe I ran again. If they don’t, they still won’t know where to look for me. I searched for the connections I have with the clan for a long time, but I haven’t been able to feel them at all. I’m alone. Tears come to my eyes again. I blink them away ruthlessly and put everything except for the present out of my mind.
I’m not alone. I have Jellybean, and I have to survive.
In the kitchens, those who remember me forget their work. They stop and stare. Once Toramun leaves, they whisper amongst each other, but no one approaches until one of the lower fae overseers comes in.
I remember this one. She liked to pinch my arms and cuff my ears. She sent me down to the cellar for beatings all the time.
‘Back to work,’ she hisses when she sees no one doing their jobs. ‘His lordship’s house won’t run itself.’
I frown at her words as they niggle at me.
‘You!’ she says, a look of recognition and fury passing over her face. ‘I was punished when you escaped!’
‘Were you?’ I ask lightly as I stare at her, not even pretending to defer to her as I once did.
Her eyes widen when I speak. ‘Not so stupid a human as you pretended, I see,’ she mutters, striding forward and grabbing a chunk of my hair. ‘Let’s remind you of your place here, shall we?’ she snarls, pulling me towards the stairs that lead to the cellars where I used to get caned by the guards and overseers when I was a slave here.
That door used to terrify me to tears, but now, I stand up, letting her pull my hair as I take her by the throat and squeeze. She lets me go as she quickly begins to panic and tries a weak conjure on me. On pure instinct, I suck up the magick before it can do anything to me, and I feel it course through me, but it doesn’t hurt me.
I don’t show my surprise, but I didn’t know I could do that. It’s a lot like feeding, just a different kind of energy. I don’t let anyone see that I’m basically winging it, though.
‘I’m not so human anymore,’ I whisper low in her ear, and she squeaks in fear, ‘and my place isn’t under the likes of you.’
I let her fall to the ground as another female overseer comes into the room. She helps the first one up without a word and then commands me to go light the fires. There’s alarm in her eyes that she’s trying to hide from the slaves, and it makes a nice change that I’m not the one who’s scared in here for once.
I pick up the coal scuttle and leave the kitchen, not because I’ve been ordered to but because I want to talk to Tamadrielle, and this is the best way of doing that now. Halfway up the stairs, I realize the metal bucket is much easier to carry than it used to be.
When I get into his library and go inside, it strikes me as a smaller space than the grand one I remember, and I notice that it has much less square footage than the one I spend so much time in at Maddox’s.
I go to the grate and begin to build the fire, seeing Tamadrielle at his desk scribbling something in a book.
When he looks up and notices me, his face darkens with rage, and he rings a bell. Almost instantly, a lower fae comes in.
‘Why is this slave working?’ he thunders.
‘I–I don’t know, my lord,’ the little fae man stammers, clearly wondering why a slave shouldn’t be working but not able to ask his master such an impertinent question. ‘I’ll find out at once.’
When he’s gone, Tamadrielle stands. ‘Leave the coal scuttle where it is,’ he orders as he pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘Why am I surrounded by ingrates?’
He sits back down at his desk, and I keep building the fire, something making me take my time to think. Something always niggled at me when I was given this job to do. It’s not that I have to make the fire; it’s thatsomeonealways has to make the fire. I frown. What is it that I’m missing? Why does it seem to be such an important little detail?
I always hated this job when I was a slave here. Why couldn’t the fae just keep them lit if they wanted them lit? Why did I always have to build them and keep them fed? BecauseHigh Fae houses don’t run themselves… because there’s aconjure crisis, and that lab is on the cutting edge ofmagick recovery.
‘Holy shit!’ I exclaim, standing up as I realize what has been bothering me since I got here. ‘You and the Ten don’t have enough magick. You lost it, or you’re losing it.’
Tamadrielle’s eyes find mine, and I see the shock in them for a second before he covers it with disdain and ignores me.
‘I’m right.’ I step closer. ‘You and the other powerful fae aren't as strong as you pretend.’ I gasp. ‘That’s why you take the fae with stronger magick. You take them to that lab and suck their magick out and give it to yourselves!’
My horror is only kept at bay because Tamadrielle stops pretending that he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. He lets out a breath and laughs.
‘What an intelligent little demon you are,’ he mutters almost proudly. ‘You’re right. The eldest of us stopped being able to naturally create our own magick around the time that we eradicated your kind, though we didn’t know what we’d done to ourselves at first.’
‘But youkillsuccubi when you find them,’ I say in confusion.
