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I don’t catch Clara in time. Her fingers close around the magenta flesh of the mushrooms, snatching them up and cramming them in her mouth.
They work their poison quickly. Her moans shift into a hacking cough. She’s choking, and I watch, powerless, as bloody froth spills from her lips. She slumps to the ground, violently shaking one moment, perfectly still the next.
I wonder if I’m going to throw up, then hear footsteps behind me. A cluster of people—smaller than the original crowd—have followed us to the twining line. Jethro is there, and he has the audacity to tut at the withered corpse on the ground, as if chastising her for causing such a scene.
“Do you consider this fair punishment?” I hurl at him, clinging to anger to keep from heaving my guts up.
“It was her choice to end it,” he says gravely. “And it could’ve been worse.”
I want to laugh. I want to scream. What could possibly be worse? Gertie answers for me.
“Didn’t you hear about that dairymaid over in Berton who wanted her beau to come back to her? Her death wasn’t nearly so easy, nor so quick. But she got what she should have known was coming for making a deal with that Ruskin Blackcoat.”
I shiver at the mention of the name, and part of me wants to just let the subject drop—but my curiosity kicks in, as it always does. It bothers me that I can’t call to mind the dairymaid she’s talking about. “What happened to her?” I ask.
Gertie looks at me with a face full of warning, like she wants to knock some sense into me. “For two weeks she was the most beautiful thing that town ever saw…then she started coughing up blood. Day and night, she was in agony, and the medicine woman couldn’t do anything for her. She’d made a deal with Blackcoat, and he’d delivered all right. Except when he’d prettified her outsides, he’d rotted her insides too. It was the better part of a year before that poor soul left this earth. I hear she was begging for death in the end.”
Gertie nods at the body before me. “At least her suffering wasn’t drawn out. At least she got a say.”
Maybe the notorious dealmaker would’ve been more ruthless, but either way, these deaths feel awful. Cruel. Unnecessary. Everyone knows bargaining with the fae can cost you—but this much? Isn’t there a line? Some limit to what they can take?
I stare miserably down at what remains of Clara, streaked with mud and blood—just another broken toy discarded by the fae.
Chapter 2
If anything could cheer me up after the events of the morning, it’s the face that greets me on the road home. Chestnut hair tied in shambolic braids whips down the track towards me.
“Eleanor! I’ve been waiting hours for you. Come on, tell me all about it.”
Though Sanna is my closest friend, I’m sometimes very aware of the three years’ difference in age between us. Like today, when she’s clearly waiting for me to relay exciting tales of the fae market her mother, very sensibly, won’t let her attend.
“Not today, Sanna,” I say, wanting to shield her from the horror of Clara’s death. And maybe wanting to shield myself a little too, from having to replay the awful memory. “Tell me about your morning instead.”
“What morning?” she says with a sigh. “Every day’s the same—watching Dad worry about the crops having blight again. Wondering how we’re going to get through winter.”
I nod knowingly. “Dad hasn’t caught anything good at the river for weeks,” I say, trying to make her feel less alone. “He reckons it’s the water.”
“It’s the king,” Sanna says darkly, saying aloud what I was skirting around. “The rivers would be fine if it weren’t for the keep dumping all their slop in it upstream.”
“There are other places to get food from,” I say, thinking of the merchants from Grandom and their ships groaning with supplies—delivered straight to the castle. Heavens forbid King Albrecht provides for his subjects instead of just himself, after having dirtied our waters and overharvested our land until Styrland can’t feed its own anymore.
Sanna snorts. “Sure, and when you find your pot of gold to buy us all fancy Grandom grub, let me know.”
I bite my lip. I haven’t told her the other reason I go to the markets. She thinks I’m just selling my wares to make up for all the money Dad’s not getting fishing. She doesn’t know about my big project—nor will she, not until it works. I don’t want to give anyone false hope.
Sanna misreads my expression, however, and it’s her turn to look guilty.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just know that even with your dad struggling, you somehow find time to worry about everyone else in this place. You’re so kind. Freya told me about the rings you gave her so she’d have something for the twins on their birthday.” She gives a little shake of her head. “Shouldn’t you be saving things like that to sell? I know you can’t afford to be handing out your work.”
I shrug, even if maybe she has a point. “It’s fine. They were just an alloy I’d knocked together.” It had taken me ages to invent the delicate silver-like metal I’d made the rings with, but the materials themselves weren’t expensive. Really, they didn’t cost me anything but time. I may not have much else, but at least I have that. “Besides, everyone should get something pretty for their sixteenth birthday.”
Sanna smiles, shaking her head. “You could just take the compliment, you know.”
I huff. “Let’s talk about something else.” My stomach sinks when her expression takes on a mischievous edge.
“All right, then. Speaking of pretty things…Thatch was looking for you again.”
I groan, lengthening my step to get away from the conversation. She jogs to catch up.
