Not good.
I need to keep her busy, and outside of the Guild’s spotlight.
She needs a job. After all, nothing in life is free for a Digger. Time for the Princess to understand what working for your living feels like.
“Set her up with laundry duty.”
Clay looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “The Elite? Think she’s washed a sheet in her life?”
I wave away his concerns. “Nope, but she’s going to learn. We all know that Dot takes trainingveryseriously.”
Clay shakes his head. “I almost feel sorry for her.”
“Don’t,” I say, though my chest feels tight as I watch her. “It’ll keep her busy. And hopefully, it’ll keep her out of trouble.”
And alive.
???
The next morning, I escort her down to the laundry rooms. She doesn’t complain. She barely even looks at me, just walks into that steam-filled room like she’s headed for a spa day at the Palace.
When I pick her up eight hours later, the "Princess" is gone. Her face is flushed a deep, feverish red from the heat, and her knuckles are raw, the skin puckered from being submerged in industrial bleach for too long. I’m not going to lie—seeing herworn ragged by actual, back-breaking labor sits a little too well with me.
Then Dot, who usually hates everyone with a pulse, grunts and tells me the girl actually pulled her weight. It’s unsettling how pleased I am to hear it. Is it because I want her to fall from her golden perch and get comfortable in the mud, with the rest of us.
With me.
It’s a dangerous, fucked-up thought, but as the week drags on, it starts to feel like an inevitability. Aurora is shedding that Elite skin revealing something much tougher, much sharper underneath.
She’s making allies among the Diggers faster than I expected, too.
Even Layla, who is about as warm as a penguin’s nutsack, has softened. I caught them huddled near the steam press yesterday, heads together as they shared a bartered-for square of chocolate. Their low-voiced conversation died the second I stepped into the room, a secret sisterhood forming right under my nose.
It reminded me of the way Lay and Chloe used to hang out back in Ashgrave—before everything went to hell.
Chloe. I quickly shut down thoughts about my cousin and concentrate again on Aurora’s transformation.
If she can win over a hard-ass like Layla, she might actually have a chance of making it out of here in one piece. She’s sure as fuck not the ice-cold bitch I assumed she was. She’s something else entirely. Something I’m finding it harder and harder to ignore.
I’m sitting on my cot, sharpening a piece of scrap metal against the frame, when she speaks up. “Taliesin?”
I don’t look up, but I slow the rhythmicscritch-scratchof the metal. “Yeah, Princess?”
“What happens to the new arrivals who get taken to the Hole?” She’s sitting on her cot, but the sheet she still uses for privacy is drawn back. “When do they get to the yard?”
My action pauses. “Why? You missing someone?”
“I’m thinking about London,” she says.
“The city?”
She giggles. I hate how much I like the sound.
“No, idiot. London the man. He was on the transport here with me. A total maniac. He took down four guards and bit a man’s ear off before they zapped him, but I haven’t seen him since.”
I set the shiv down. She’s been here nearly three weeks. If this London guy has been in the hole that long, he’s either a vegetable or a godsdamn legend. “Is he a first-timer?”
Aurora looks at me and raises an eyebrow.
