"Forgive me, Hedera, I didn't want to cause a fuss," Kian said, giving her a dashing smile that seemed to pacify her, at least until she saw Elise.
"Master, what is that behind you?" she said, her face screwing up like Elise was something he had stepped in.
"I was hoping you could find a use for her."
"It's a human, so it'll have plenty of meat. I could make something with pastry-"
Kian chuckled. "No, Hedera, she's my new pet. Not for eating," he clarified and then flashed his fangs at Elise. "At least not yet."
The kitchen tittered with laughter, and she tried not to tell them all to go fuck themselves. Elise's bravery had its limits, but her anger was abundant.
"Well, master, I suppose we have to find some use for their kind in general when you conquer Albion."
Conquer Albion? She couldn't be serious. Albion was the ancient name for England, and the humans wouldn't allow anyone to conquer it. Elise risked a glance at Kian and wished she hadn't hesitated so much with the dagger. Her cuffs heated again, and the vow she'd made never to hurt him made her tongue ache.
Oh, you fucker. The prince seemed to know precisely what Elise was thinking because his smug smile widened.
"I'm sure she's good at something," he said.
"Well, you were a bit too enthusiastic with the castle building yesterday, and most of the rooms are a mess. I'll make her clean them," Hedera replied, wiping her hands on an apron.
"Excellent. Don't worry about her running away. If she leaves the castle grounds, I'll know." This was more of a warning for Elise than a reassurance to Hedera. His scarlet eyes flashed as he looked over her. "Keep her out of the northern tower. I don't want it smelling like a human. I get enough of their stench on the battlefield." He left the kitchen without a backward glance, leaving Elise alone with his frowning servants.
Hedera looked her over again like she was assessing Elise's usefulness for hard labor. "Can't imagine why he'd want you except for food."
Maybe because I saw through his glamours, and he likes to have someone to torment. Elise didn't dare mention that. The fact she saw him on the train seemed to confuse him, and maybe it meant she could see through any of the glamours that the other fae tried to trick her with. Elise didn't say anything, so Hedera grunted and shoved a mop and wooden bucket into her hands as well as some cloths.
"This way, slave, and don't spill that water, or I'll beat you bloody," she said and opened another door.
Elise followed her into a series of long hallways with archways and high ceilings made of obsidian. She didn't dare stop and look at the strange and beautiful murals on the walls. The same insignias were repeated all through the castle; a pair of antlers, a blade of ice, and black wings. At the center of each was a cluster of roses.
Hedera might have been short, but she moved quickly, and Elise had to work to keep up and not drop everything. Hedera pushed open a set of wooden doors covered in vines of bronze. They had small white flowers blooming from them, and when Elise passed them, she saw that they were real. She went to touch one, and Hedera slapped her hand away.
"Hurry up!" she barked. They went through the doors and into a feast hall with one long massive table. Chairs, candlesticks, cutlery, and china were scattered about the room as if it had been in a snow globe and shaken.
"Put this room back together, dust and mop it," she said, and with one final glare, stomped off.
Elise stared at the chaos around her. She fucking hated cleaning, but maybe she'd be left alone to figure out a way around the castle. Just because she had magical cuffs around her wrists didn't mean she wasn't planning on running away as soon as possible. If the prince really was trying to conquer England, then he would be too busy to worry about what a lowly slave was doing. Here's hoping.
Elise studied the cuffs around her wrists. The gold was in one entirely forged piece, not a catch or hinge that could be used as a weakness. Gold was a soft metal, but she needed tools to cut or saw through it. She wasn't going to hang about and let the prince use her before he got bored and decided to bake her into a pie.
Elise started to lift the heavy, carved wooden chairs and arrange them around the table, all the while making plans on how to get the hell out of there.
7
Elise needed to pee so badly that her stomach was aching. The sun had only just set, but she couldn't wait for her regular late-night visit to the outhouses.
Move quickly, and they won't see you.
Checking outside the kitchen door, Elise took a quick, cautious step into the shadows. Fae warriors had returned earlier and were drinking around their tents. If she was careful, she could avoid them altogether. Elise thought she'd soil herself by the time she finally made it, locking the door behind her so no one would accidentally walk in, and breathed a sigh of relief.
It had been weeks since Elise was taken from the train, and she had learned a lot in that time. Mostly, how to hide.
In the beginning, she had been naïve enough to think that if she did as she was told and behaved, she would become an invisible fixture in the castle and be ignored. That was impossible because the fae were in equal parts disgusted and intrigued by Elise and weren't about to forget she was there for a minute.
Elise had taken to sleeping by the fireplace in the kitchens at night wrapped in Kian's cloak that still seemed to smell more like him than her. She had woken up more than once from someone poking her with long implements to see if she was real. Elise was polite enough not to do the same to them, even though no two of them were alike in appearance. They all smelled differently, too, especially the ones with the flowers growing on them. The food they prepared, while recognizable, was often created using magic as another utensil. It was hard not to watch them work, even if they snapped and snarled at her.
When Elise was awake, she was stared at by every passing fae and occasionally spat on by the warriors. The lesser fae stayed out of the way of the warriors for good reason. They were fierce and beautiful to look at, but they were assholes one and all.
Elise had tried to leave the castle grounds only once. She wanted to see what her limits were and if she'd be stopped at all. She had waited until the dead of night and made a run for it. She had managed three steps out of the castle gates, and the cuffs had burned so severely, Elise had almost screamed and woken everyone.
She had run back through the gates, sobbing and stomach heaving in pain, even though the skin under the cuffs wasn't burned. She hadn't tried it again but refused to give up on finding some kind of a tool to get the cursed bloody things off her.
Elise's days turned into a blur of scrubbing, dusting, and arranging. Her hands were red and dry from the hours spent trying to clean up the disarrayed castle. She would collapse on the warm stones by the fireplace at night with whatever crusts Hedera tossed her if she remembered to feed her at all. It was the worst diet she had ever been on.
Elise knew where all the best hiding spots were about the grounds and only used the communal washhouses and toilets when everyone had gone to bed. She tried to keep her clothes clean but learned that you really could wear the same pair of underwear four times before washing them.
Elise also did her best to eavesdrop on conversations, desperate for news of the outside world. The fae warriors would come and go sporadically, and the castle staff would titter with gossip.