I go to bed before Papa. In my cot by the fireplace beneath a thin blanket, my eyes closed, I listen to him scratch notes in his ledger. I know he’s tallying up his time, as if by checking and rechecking the figures he’ll suddenly find a way to pay for all the things we can’t afford. Then the cottage door creaks as he goes to fetch water from the old well outside; the fire crackles as he puts on another log. Eventually, he kisses my forehead and retreats into his room, sighing as he goes.
I wait until his breathing has evened out into sleep. Then, I slip carefully from the cot and gather my things, as quietly as I can. I take a few rolls of dark bread from the cupboard, just enough for a meal or two. I pick out my nicest dress, though the threadbare blue linen will seem humble beside the ladies of Everless. I tuck my hunting knife, sheathed, into my belt and fold a few belongings into a knapsack.
My eyes settle on the wall, on a drawing of my mother that Papa made. He loved to draw, before his eyes went bad—one day, I found the drawing tucked away in his mattress, as if he couldn’t bear to be reminded of what we’d lost. I had to plead with him to let me hang it up on the wall. The paper is yellow and curled with age, but the likeness is striking: a young woman with my curly hair and brown eyes looking over her shoulder and laughing. I reach out and trace my mother’s face. I wonder if she would approve of the choice I’m making. Her statue of the Sorceress is still tucked in my pocket. Luck, I think, my heart slowing.
On the back of one of the papers he’s left scattered on the table, I scribble a note, deliberately casual: Went to see the butcher. Back before dark.
I leave it on top of his ledger. Papa won’t realize the lie right away, I hope. If he does, I wouldn’t trust him not to limp into the village himself, trying to chase the Gerlings’ carriages down.
When he realizes what I’ve done, what will he do?
If I think too long about Papa—how worried he’ll be—my nerves will fail me. So I pull on my boots as silently as I can and take up my bag. I’ll be gone a month, two at the most, and I’ll write him a letter from Everless to reassure him that everything is fine. When I come home, the purseful of blood-irons will make up for my deceit.
It’s two hours before dawn when I finally bring myself to walk away, judging by the lightening sky and dewy smell of the air. I walk fast as the sun’s light bleeds into the sky from the east. It’s colder than it was yesterday, and the raw wind makes me shiver. The smell of decayed earth rises through the snow. Soon, the village of Crofton looms before me, its lump of thatched roofs like lopsided mushrooms in the dawn. The only signs of life are a few beggars sleeping in doorways. As I watch, a thin hand lights a candle in a window above the bakery. I’m not afraid—the Gerlings keep us safe from external threats, if not starvation. But it’s eerie.
A few blocks from the marketplace, I hear a murmur of voices. Turning the corner, I see the largest gathering of girls I’ve ever encountered in one place. There must be more than fifty of us crowding the open square, all clean-scrubbed and dressed in our finest clothes. Some of them I know—there’s Amma with her little sister, Alia, tiny and solemn at twelve; and Nora, a seamstress, for whom I used to do some mending before she could no longer pay me. Many girls I don’t recognize. Perhaps they’ve come from the farms that stretch for miles outside the borders of our village, drawn here by the opportunity to work at Everless.
Moving through the crowd are men with badges bearing the Gerling insignia. They’re shouting, herding the girls into one long line. My stomach drops when I recognize one—Ivan Tenburn, the son of the captain of the Everless guard, now on his own horse and wearing his own badge. He was vicious as a child, and constantly at Liam’s heels; all the servant children were terrified of him. Once, while his father was away, he made the stableboys stand in a line, and struck their knees with a riding crop in turn. If one cried out, he’d give the boy next to him five strikes in a row. He called it a game—snaps. I remember the dark bruise across my friend Tam’s shins. It remained for weeks.
I also remember Roan’s voice, demanding that Ivan stop.
Fear courses through me, sharp as the blade Ivan wears at his side. Ten years have passed, but by the way Ivan barks at the girls to move, I know that nothing has changed.
I head toward where Amma and Alia are huddled on the other side of the square. Amma looks uncertain. Her own knapsack is slung over her back, and she’s wearing a traveling cloak. When she sees me, a relieved smile breaks out across her face.
“I don’t believe it!” She grips my arms and draws me in for a quick hug. “Convinced your father to let you come after all?”
“Just for a month or two,” I fib. “If they even choose me.”
“Well, I’m sure he’ll be pleased enough when you come home with two years of blood-iron.”
I try to take comfort in Amma’s words as she tugs me toward the line. I feel her pulse, quick and light, against my palm. “I’m glad you’re here. It’ll be marvelous, us all together.” Next to her, Alia smiles up at me.
As we take our places, Ivan and the other Gerling men hold conference, talking in low voices before turning to face the line of girls. Behind them, two large open-topped hay carts, driven by skinny, bucktoothed boys who can’t be older than twelve, roll into the square and halt. Meanwhile, Ivan and his men walk down the line, examining chins and eyes and arms, spinning the girls like tops.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to Amma. She just shakes her head.
Uneasiness pools in my stomach. I’ve heard Lord Gerling likes his servants young and pretty, but I never expected to be treated this way, to be herded like cattle and checked like a horse for good teeth and legs. I’m tempted to run, but I can’t make my feet move.
Down the line, a man examines a round-faced, frizzy-haired girl I don’t recognize. He frowns and shakes his head. The girl’s lip trembles. She starts to speak, but the man ignores her and moves on to the next girl in line, a willowy woman in her early twenties. He smiles greedily at her and speaks a few low words. Her face turns red and she breaks from the line, hurrying toward the hay cart.
The evaluation goes on like this. About a quarter of the girls are directed into the cart, and the rest are rejected. My skin crawls every time one of the Gerling men leers or makes a girl hitch her skirts to better show off her calves, but if I want to win a place at Everless, I don’t dare say anything. Amma has gone as white as the snow still piled in drifts at the edges of the square. I give her hand a reassuring squeeze, as much to comfort myself as her.
Five girls away. Three. Then one. I bite the inside of my cheek as the Gerling guard appears in front of me, hoping my disgust doesn’t show on my face. I’m just thankful it’s not Ivan. He’s smiling, close enough that I can smell the stink of his breath. To my dismay, he takes my chin in his hand, dragging my face upward. I flinch—I can’t help it. The man chuckles and goes for my breasts instead.
Reflex takes over, and I see everything happening slowly, as if we’re suspended in honey. It’s happening again—time pausing, even the air unmoving, though no one seems to know it. The man’s grin fixed on his face. Amma’s horrified expression, a gasp caught halfway from her throat. I reach for my knife in my belt and bring it in front of me, meaning only to stop him.
But then the buzzing in my ears abruptly fades, and the world catches up again.
The guard and I both look down in shock at the hair-thin red line that crosses his overhanging gut, the drop of blood gathering at its end, staining his uniform. I’ve barely nicked him, but still. My stomach plummets as I realize what I’ve done.
There’s a beat of dead silence as he glares at me, and then the other men break into laughter. The man’s face colors a deep, angry red.
“Little bitch,” he spits, stuffing a handkerchief to the scratch. “I’ll bleed you ten years . . .”
I lower my knife, tears pricking at my eyes, and begin to back away. Stupid, so stupid. One moment of impulse, and I’ve thrown away any chance I had of getting to Everless.
But then—
“Hang on, now, Bosley.” Ivan, his velvet cloak whipping behind him, saunters over to us. His mouth is twitching, and I brace myself—what if he recognizes me?
But then I realize that the sound coming from his throat is laughter, not rage. His smile is thick—oblivious. “I like this one,” he chortles. “Quick thinker. Knows how to handle herself, too. It’s a wonder she didn’t stick you like a pig.” Some of the other men laugh, and the man who tried to grope me casts me a hate-filled gaze, but he doesn’t argue.
Instead, he turns his attention to Amma. “Not with that scar,” he says nastily.
Amma blinks in disbelief. “I’ll work hard,” she says. “I swear it.” She glances helplessly at me.
“We’ve no shortage of hard workers, girl,” the man snarls. “Just pretty faces. Home with you.”
Tears spring to Amma’s eyes. “Please, sir . . .” But her plea is ignored, the man already moving on to Alia, who stands trembling beside her older sister.
Belatedly, I realize Ivan is still staring at me. But he’s no longer smiling. My legs tense, prepared to run. “Well? Into the cart with you.”
I glance at Amma, panicked. I hadn’t even considered the possibility I might have to go without her. “Sir,” I plead. “She’s my best friend. Please, let her come.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see the other man give Alia a little shove toward the cart, as she glances over her shoulder.
“I don’t care if she’s your bleeding mother,” Ivan says lightly. “She’s staying here. Do you want to stay with her?”
“Go.” Amma is blinking away tears.
Even though I feel Ivan’s eyes on us, I wrap my arms around my friend, pulling her close. “Look after my sister,” she whispers into my hair.
When I don’t break our embrace, she gives my shoulder a little push. “Go!”
Numbly, I obey, feeling the eyes of the crowd like a weight. I clamber into the cart and seat myself amid the other favored girls—all young, all pretty, but silent and stunned as we look back at our rejected friends, our sisters. The line is already half dissolved, and those who haven’t been chosen drift away into the rising fog. It’s only when the square starts to thin out that I see the tax collector, leaning under the grocer’s awning, watching the proceedings with his arms crossed. I stare hard at him until he notices, glancing up to meet my eyes. He gives me a short nod, like a stamp on our agreement—he’ll come for his time when I’m back. I let out the breath I’ve been holding, and murmur another prayer to the Sorceress.
Keep my father safe.
And: May he forgive me.
The men move through the remaining girls. Thirty-year-old Nora’s sent home with a jeer. Little Alia is already in the hay cart. Suddenly, I remember that as a child, I asked my father why there were so many children at Everless. They work harder for less, he answered, his voice brittle. They have no place else to go.
When the men are finished, about twenty girls sit crammed between the two carts. I’ve won my place at Everless, but I don’t feel favored at all. I feel like Amma has won this game, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
But it’s too late to turn back. The hay cart moves forward with a jolt. It smells faintly of manure. There are twelve of us inside, packed shoulder to shoulder on bales of hay. I put my arm around Alia—she’s crying silently, her eyes fixed on the town receding behind us. On my other side is a woman, Ingrid, from a farm a few miles from ours. She seems determined to remain cheerful, despite the morning’s nauseating selection process and the wind that bites at our faces as we trundle along the unpaved road.
“I heard Everless is five hundred years old,” she chirps as the village fades behind us. I refuse to turn around and watch it disappear. I’m half afraid that if I do, I’ll simply hurtle out of the cart and run home. “Imagine! They must have lesser sorcerers holding up the walls with spells.”
They’ve no need of magic to hold up their walls, because money serves just as well. But I have no desire to join in the girls’ excited speculation, so I turn away instead and feign interest in the low, patchy green curves of the Sempera countryside. When Papa was in better health, he’d borrow a horse from a friend and take me for rides outside the village. We should know our country, he’d instruct, and I wonder if he’d planned to flee Crofton someday, if we ever drew the notice of the Gerlings again.
Aside from Ingrid, no one says much. I can feel the others’ nervousness as the plains give way to woods, huge old pine trees that tower over us. This forest is owned by the Gerlings, but even they don’t hunt here—these woods are frightening, older than the one I roamed yesterday, and much darker.
Alia finally speaks up. “Calla said there’s fairies in these woods,” she says. Her eyes are wide. Like most in Crofton, she hasn’t ventured more than three miles outside its borders, except for the trip her mother made to save her.
“Fairies, indeed!” a girl in front calls out. “They’ll lure you in with their beauty, then drink the time from your veins.” She’s obviously teasing, but there’s a note of strain in her voice.
“It’s true!” declares another girl, her red hair coiled in a way that can only be deliberate. “Happened to my aunt. She got lost in the woods one day and woke up an old woman.”
“Lied about selling time, more likely,” someone else mutters.
“Fairies aren’t the worst of it.” This girl has beautiful dark skin and vivid blue eyes: she was one of the first to be chosen. “This forest is where the Alchemist roams. He still carries the Sorceress’s heart with him in a paper bag.”
“No, he ate her heart,” Ingrid corrects.
“Well,” the other girl says, with a roll of her eyes. “He’ll take yours, too, if you wander among the trees. Even the Sorceress won’t be able to save you.”
Alia squeaks in alarm. “Why? Why does he take hearts?”
“He hates people, so he gives the time in their hearts back to the trees!” the girl starts.
“Stop your nonsense,” someone else cuts in. Meanwhile, Alia’s lip is trembling, so I lean close.
“Pay them no mind,” I whisper. “The myths are only stories. The woods are nothing to fear.” I sit up without finishing the thought: I don’t know about the Alchemist, but the monsters she’ll meet at Everless are more dangerous than any fairies.
Then, the forest abruptly peters out, and we are in Laista, the small, prosperous town surrounding the Everless walls, where no buildings are permitted to be more than a story high. I remember Papa telling me that the Gerlings’ ancestors razed the trees and leveled the hills for miles around Everless so that the men who walk the parapets can see anyone who approaches. The sandstone walls come into view, each dotted with dozens of guards. From this distance, they look like figurines.
Instinctively, I slump down in my seat as we creak through Laista’s narrow streets toward the gates. When we’re close enough, one of the guards at the top of the wall commands us with a shout to stop.
The world is silent, still, frozen except for the beating of my heart. Next to me, Alia’s mouth is open, a wisp of hair sticking to her bottom lip. At the top of the wall, the guards are stone-faced, motionless. I have a sense the whole world is coming to an end, collapsing into that single moment.
Then, there’s an enormous scraping noise—the foot-thick, iron-studded slabs of wood and metal shuddering into motion—and our cart lurches forward again.
A shadow passes over us, and we are inside.