This was why she was wary of enchanted buildings in the city. They could have pleasant perks, but they could also be nosy and unpredictable. She made a habit of avoiding unfamiliar ones, even if they were few and far between.
Iris hurried to the counter to pay, suddenly noticing the rows of empty shelves. Only a few cans remained behind—corn and beans and pickled onions.
“I take it your shop has been overly keen to sell tinned vegetables lately?” she asked dryly as she paid the grocer.
“Not quite. Things are being shipped west, to the front,” he said. “My daughter is fighting for Enva and I want to make sure her company has enough food. It’s hard work, feeding an army.”
Iris blinked, surprised by his reply. “Did the chancellor order you to send aid?”
He snorted. “No. Chancellor Verlice won’t declare war on Dacre until the god is knocking on our door, although he tries to make it appear like we’re supportive of our brothers and sisters fighting in the west.” The grocer set the loaf and eggs into a brown bag, sliding it across the counter.
Iris thought he was brave to make those statements. First, that their chancellor in the east was either a coward or a Dacre sympathizer. Second, to tell her which god his daughter was fighting for. She had learned this herself when it came to Forest. There were plenty of people in Oath who supported Enva and her recruitment and thought the soldiers courageous, but there were others who didn’t. Those individuals, however, tended to be the ones who regarded the war as something that would never affect them. Or they were people who worshipped and supported Dacre.
“I hope your daughter remains safe and well at the front,” Iris said to the grocer. She was glad to leave the nosy shop behind, only to slip on a wet newspaper in the street.
“Haven’t you had enough of me for one day?” she growled as she bent to retrieve it, assuming the paper was the Gazette.
It wasn’t.
Iris’s eyes widened when she recognized the inkwell and quill emblem of the Inkridden Tribune—the Gazette’s rival. There were five different newspapers scattered throughout Oath, but the Gazette and the Tribune were the oldest and most widely read. And if Zeb happened to catch sight of her with the competition in her hands, he would surely give the promotion to Roman.
She studied the front page, curious.
MONSTERS SIGHTED THIRTY KILOMETERS FROM THE WAR FRONT, the headline announced in smudged type. Beneath it was an illustration of a creature with large, membranous wings, two spindly legs hooked with talons, and a horde of sharp, needlelike teeth. Iris shivered, straining to read the words, but they were indecipherable, melting into streaks of ink.
She stared at the paper for a moment longer, frozen on the street corner. Rain dripped from her chin, falling like tears onto the monstrous illustration.
Creatures like this didn’t exist anymore. Not since the gods had been defeated centuries ago. But, of course, if Dacre and Enva had returned, so could the creatures of old. Creatures that had long only lived in myths.
Iris moved to drop the disintegrating paper in the rubbish bin but then was pierced by a cold thought.
Is this why so many soldiers are going missing at the front? Because Dacre is fighting with monsters?
She needed to know. And she carefully folded the Inkridden Tribune and slipped it into her inner coat pocket.
It took longer than she would’ve liked in the rain, especially without proper shoes, but Oath was not a simple place to travel by foot. The city was ancient, built centuries ago on the grave of a conquered god. Its streets meandered like a serpent’s path—some were hard-packed dirt and narrow, others wide and paved, and a few were haunted by trickles of magic. New construction had bloomed during the past few decades, though, and it was sometimes jarring to Iris to see the brick buildings and shining windows adjacent to the thatched roofs, crumbling parapets, and castle towers of a forgotten era. To watch trams navigate the ancient, twisting streets. As if the present was trying to cobble over the past.
An hour later, Iris finally reached her flat, sore for breath and drenched from the rain.
She lived with her mother on the second floor, and Iris paused at the door, uncertain what would greet her.
It was just as she expected.
Aster was reclining on the sofa wrapped in her favorite purple coat, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers. Empty bottles were strewn across the living room. The electricity was out, as it had been for weeks now. A few candles were lit on the sideboard and had been burning so long the wax had carved a way free, puddling on the wood.
Iris merely stood on the threshold and stared at her mother until the world around them both seemed to blur.
“Little Flower,” Aster said in a drunken lilt, finally noticing her. “You’ve come home at last to see me.”
Iris inhaled sharply. She wanted to unleash a torrent of words. Words that tasted bitter, but then she noticed the silence. The roaring, terrible silence, and how the smoke curled within it, and she couldn’t help herself. She glanced at the sideboard, where the candles flickered, and noticed what was missing.
“Where’s the radio, Mum?”
Her mother arched her brow. “The radio? Oh, I sold it, honey.”
Iris felt her heart plummet, down to her sore feet. “Why? That was Nan’s radio.”
“It could hardly pick up a channel, sweetheart. It was time for it to go.”
No, Iris thought, blinking back tears. You only needed money to buy more alcohol.
She slammed the front door and walked through the living room, around the bottles, into the small, dingy kitchen. There was no candle lit here, but Iris had the place memorized. She set the dented loaf of bread and the half carton of eggs down on the counter before reaching for a paper sack and returning to the living room. She gathered up the bottles—so many bottles—and it made her think of that morning, and why she had run late. Because her mother had been lying on the floor next to a pool of vomit, in a kaleidoscope of glass, and it had terrified her.
“Leave it,” Aster said with a wave of her hand. Ash fell from her cigarette. “I’ll clean it up later.”
“No, Mum. I have to make it to work on time tomorrow.”
“I said to leave it.”
Iris dropped the bag. The glass chimed within it, but she was too weary to fight. She did as her mother wanted.
She retreated to her dark room and fumbled for her matches, lighting the candles on her bedside table. But she was hungry, and eventually had to return to the kitchen to make a marmalade sandwich, and all the while her mother had lain on the sofa and drunk from a bottle and smoked and hummed her favorite songs that she could no longer listen to, because the radio was gone.
Back in the quiet of her chamber, Iris opened the window and listened to the rain. The air was cold, brisk. A trace of winter lingered within it, but Iris welcomed its bite and how it made her skin pebble. It reminded her that she was alive.
She ate her sandwich and eggs, eventually changing out of her wet clothes for a nightgown. Carefully, she laid the sopping Inkridden Tribune on the floor to dry, the monster illustration more smudged now after being carried in her pocket. She stared at it until she felt a sharp tug within her chest, and she reached beneath her bed, where she hid her grandmother’s typewriter.