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They’re unlike any vegetable I’ve seen in the First Dimension. About the size of a basketball, they’re dark gray to black with hard, wart-like knobs all over. It takes a large, sharp knife to cut the thick outer peel off, but inside it looks and smells like a potato.
While the work is hard and the pads of my fingers are shriveled from the wetness under the peel, I get to talk to Will whenever Rhynda isn’t around.
“…and she’s pretty nice, for a Dark Fae,” Will continues, talking about a friendship he struck up upon his arrival in the Underworld.
“Like is it a romantic thing?” I ask in a low voice, glancing at Rhynda yelling at someone near the ovens.
“God, no,” Will exclaims.
“A sexual thing, then?” I prod.
“No.” He sounds just as offended. “We’re friends, and that’s all. Besides, I can’t have any type of relationship down here.”
“Why not?” I saw my knife blade over some particularly hard knobs.
“For a million reasons, but a few stick out. One, she’s immortal and I’m not. Two, she could kill me with not much effort. Three, she’s evil.”
“But she’s nice,” I remind him.
“Yeah… for a Dark Fae.”
I laugh, finding the entire situation amusing. I then find it amusing that I findanythingamusing in the depths of Hell.
“Most of all,” Will says, his tone turning sad, “I’m mortal, and everyone else here is immortal. I’ll be dead in a blink of their eyes.”
My skin prickles at the thought. Yes, I know Will is here as a sacrifice, but he wasn’t killed. Merely sent to the Underworld as a gift. He’s going to age, and at some point, he won’t be useful anymore.
“Can you go back to the First Dimension?” I ask.
“Of course.” He glances at me before going back to his peeling. “But chances of finding a way to escape through the veil are nil.”
“Maybe I could find a way for us to escape,” I muse.
Will’s hands still and he turns to me. “You can’t escape, Nyssa. You’re dead. If you go back through the veil into the First Dimension, you’re nothing more than a spirit. You only have a body here by the king’s good graces.”
“Oh,” I murmur. I knew that, actually. Or, I should have known that. Just because I have a body now and can feel everything doesn’t mean it’s mine to keep.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that I’m dead, and my life there is over.
“Well,” I say, sawing another hard bump, “I can probably helpyouescape.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Will says hesitantly. “I mean… if we get caught, it’s the Crimson River for us.”
A wave of anger hits me, not because I’m trapped here—I deserve this—but for Will, who did nothing and is stuck here.
It’s not fair.
I lean into the table, trying to saw harder but my knife slips. Luckily, it angles down away from my hand and lodges in the wooden top, but the round vegetable squirts free of my hold. It shoots across the table, dropping over the edge and rolling down the length of the kitchen where it stops at Rhynda’s boot.
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath as her head whips our way. She focuses in on the fact I’ve got no vegetable before me and my knife is lodged in the wood.
She bends over, picks up the vegetable, and walks toward us. I cringe inwardly. I don’t know how this is going to go.
Rhynda sets the vegetable in front of me, then clasps her hands behind her back. “It helps if you lay a thick towel under it for stability.”
My jaw sags and I stare at her in disbelief that I’m not getting a tongue-lashing.
I dip my head. “Noted. Thank you.”
