Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine, #1) (7)
“The king took pity on me because one of his warriors told him of my wife, and he could see I merely wished to have no part in the land that stole her from me.”
“The frosty king of Hellebore took pity on you?” I almost laughed. “But he is a known tyrant.”
“Tyrants have souls too, Flea. Besides...” He waved a hand, entering the swinging waist-length door to the small kitchenette and heading straight to the tea kettle. “Leaving Folkyn and leaving Crustle are two very different feats.”
“Perhaps the governor will take pity on me now that I’ve lost my guardian.”
“You are of age to no longer need a guardian, and the governor couldn’t give two shooting stars about anyone but herself.”
He was right. Ruthless in a way that was almost admirable, the half-fae female who’d fought dirty to earn her role as keeper of the middle lands cared nothing for exceptions unless it suited her own greedy desires.
And despite foolishly feeling like one, I was no exception.
I was far from the first faerie to be thrown out of Folkyn as a babe, and I certainly would not be the last.
Gane set the kettle on the stovetop, and I snatched a piece of cheese from the chopping board.
He glared at me.
“Rolina spent the last of her pay on wine, celebrating the arrival of the hunt for days prior to their visit.” I shrugged and took another piece. “I’m almost out of food.”
“Then I suggest you find yourself employment and quit worrying over finding a way into Folkyn.”
“So there is a way.” I grinned around the cheese, and he snatched the board from beneath my hand when I reached for more. Goblins did not like to share food with anyone but their families, no matter how much they tolerated someone else’s company. “I know there is, and I know that you know what it is.”
“Flea,” he said, beyond exasperated now. “Even if I did know exactly how to get you in, I would take the answer with me to my grave.”
Cheese and disbelief clogged my throat. I swallowed thickly with a wince. “You would do such a thing to me?”
“I would.”
I scowled. “Why?”
“Because I care about you, and I will not see you die because I gave in to your fanciful dreams. Go home and get to thinking about where you might like to work.” With that, he stole through the swinging door of the kitchenette with his cheese to his private quarters on the other side.
I waited to see if he’d return when the teakettle whistled. He didn’t.
It was odd to feel both relieved and saddened by someone’s absence.
Staring at the corner of the kitchen I’d cowered within as a youngling, I couldn’t decide where the sadness even came from. I healed quickly, yet I’d received a thin scar upon my arm at the age of seven years from a plate Rolina had thrown at me while I’d huddled with my arms over my head.
I shook off the memory and finished the last of the raisins.
The sadness wasn’t from missing her, I surmised as I changed into my finest gown of pleated emerald cotton with a cream satin bodice. Rather, it stemmed from knowing the woman who’d never wanted me had lived more than half of her life with nothing but grief and hatred.
And an unshakable belief that had failed her in the end.
I couldn’t bring myself to do anything with her belongings. This entire apartment, even the scant furniture and belongings within my own room, was all hers.
Never mine.
She’d always made it abundantly clear that I was a guest—an unwanted one—so the only comfort I found was when I could forget that fact by escaping into books.
I looked at Rolina’s room one last time.
The bed I’d made that she hadn’t slept in the night before she’d died. The clothing and wineglasses she’d left scattered over the large space for she knew I would clean up after her. The white and brown toadstool dust speckling the small mirrors upon her dressing table.
Then I closed the door.
It was time to search for employment, lest I head back downstairs to the library in a few days to beg Gane to help me when I ran out of food.
I was tucking my feet within my scuffed slippers when a tapping sounded upon the door.
We rarely had visitors. Rolina loathed for those she drank her time away with to pay any attention to me, and no one had come knocking since she’d died.
I wondered if word would spread, or if I’d need to inform all of whom she’d known.
Madam Morin stood upon the other side of the door, her high cheeks adorned in a bright-pink rouge and the tight rust-colored ringlets sweeping down from her updo. “Flea, darling.” Her shrewd apple-green gaze danced over me from head to toe. “My, how you’ve grown.”
I’d hardly dealt with the madam who was our landlord. There was no need when Rolina saw her every other evening at the pleasure house. The half faerie was also a friend of Rolina’s, which was how she’d gained employment after her husband disappeared.
Yet a slow blink of her kohl-painted lashes was the only reaction when I informed her of my guardian’s fate.
“Rolina’s gone.”
Morin’s ivory-gloved hand touched her ample chest. “I heard. Ghastly, isn’t it? What those wild ones can get away with.” Tutting, she said, “Such risky business, trading with the lawless folk. Why, you’re lucky to have escaped unscathed, dear darling.”