LOFTIN

“They say you are the best.” Nemain circled me. Her voice was smooth as velvet, the fingertips that brushed my neck soft and warm. But only coldness surrounded her. The warmth from her touch quickly faded away, leaving a thin layer of frost on my skin. The shadows in this place writhed at her command, each begging for a chance to do their mistress’s bidding.

The queen’s virulent power had ravaged the land. Her magic was so thick and potent, it seared my lungs from the inside, like she herself was a burning ember. I expected no less from the ruler of the Court of Ash, and I knew when her she-devils dragged me here that I was in deep trouble.

“I am the best.” I clutched my ribs. They were cracked, but would heal soon enough. It was the first time I’d been caught off guard by one of her Banshees, and I vowed never to repeat the mistake. Blood and saliva pooled in my mouth and I spat it away from both of us, lest the evil witch turn me to ash straight away.

“Your kind is a dying breed.”

“My kind?” I feigned innocence, unsure whether she was asking about my recent skills learned hunting the beasts she’d unleashed from the great mountain, or about my heritage. She would need to be more specific.

“Every hunter before you has failed to find my daughter. What makes you think you’ll succeed?” she asked. Her voice echoed over the vaulted ceilings, slithering down the walls.

She was right. Every hunter before me had failed, and either fallen upon their swords for fear of facing the Queen’s wrath upon their return, or fled and become the hunted. Nemain’s beasts always found them, feeding upon them or worse. But what choice did I have at this point? She wanted her daughter and I wanted to live. I had to play her game. And I would have to play it well to make it out of this mess alive.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t just end you now,” she proposed sweetly, as if I’d come to her and offered my services instead of her sending her mutts after me, having me beaten half to death, and then dragging me to her court.

“I’m not a game hunter, like those sent to find her before. I am a bounty hunter.” The lie slid off my tongue easily. Technically, you’d have to be paid to be a bounty hunter, and no fae in Faery would dare enter into an agreement with me. “Maybe we can come to a mutual agreement, so we both get something we want,” I suggested.

“How dare you make demands of me?” she scoffed, but then stopped in front of me as if considering my suggestion. “But your boldness is intriguing. I’m listening,” she acknowledged, tapping her chin. I could feel her hawk-like gaze on my face, searching for so much as a flinch in the wrong direction. There was no escaping her now. She’d caught me fair and square. But if I was going to die, I’d die for something I believed in. And who knew? Maybe I could find the girl and get what I needed. If I was being forced to hunt for her, I wanted to choose my reward.

“The prize I ask for is dear to me, just as the girl is dear to you.” I kept my eyes focused on the wall across from me, refusing to look into her eyes. I’d heard she could kill with a glare, turning fae warriors to stone with a flick of her eye. I just hoped she was as desperate as I was.

“What is it that you want, bounty hunter?”

“If I find the girl and bring her to you unharmed, you will restore the life force of the King of Autumn.”

“Your terms are impressive. I must admit, no one before you has had the courage to ask anything of me.” In my periphery, I could see her lips stretch into a smile. Nemain truly was beautiful, as if death itself had taken the form of a woman and formed her of perfection and poison.

“It’s a bargain, then? The girl for my father,” I replied.

She wanted me to locate her daughter and see her safely home, although I knew to what end. But what became of the girl after she was delivered was not my concern. My concern was my prize, and the Queen would pay heavily if she wanted the girl back, assuming I could find her. She had already consumed my father’s power. She broke his once-powerful form, leaving his shell of a body in the middle of the court he once ruled over; alone and discarded like the core of a rotten apple. I wanted her to restore him and bring his life force back, if not his power.

“I remember you,” she breathed, recognition dawning across her features. “You are King Kegan’s son, the Prince of Autumn. Heir to a ruined kingdom.”

Somehow, I managed to keep my teeth from gritting together. “What you ask is difficult and risky. Our kingdom is in ruin, but I would gladly risk my neck to find your daughter if you vow to bring my father back.”

She stepped closer and snapped her teeth together, grazing my chin. “I will not restore his power.”

“I’m just asking for his life, nothing more. Not his power or our court. Simply restore his life, and I will bring you the girl.”

She tutted. “Bring me the girl—alive—and I will restore his life.” Her eyes burned into me. “Look at me, bounty hunter,” she commanded.

I met her eyes, and couldn’t help but blink. They were a molten mixture of all the colors of fire and ash; shades of red-orange roiling within shades of black, white, and all the gradations of gray between them. “You do not want to fail me. My daughter is an abomination and I want her dead, but I need to be the one to end her life. Do not harm a single hair on her head, and protect her from the fae that would devour her.”

She didn’t say the words if you are lucky enough to find her, but they were implied. The rest was as much a promise as a threat, and I knew Nemain would torturously make good on that promise if I failed, and that my father would remain nothing more than a husk for all eternity.

No, I couldn’t fail her. For my father’s sake and for my own.

* * *

KARIS

Sometimes I wish I were deaf instead of blind.

I wasn’t sure which sound was worse; the constant tinkling of the millions of tiny iron bells that were strung from every available eave and limb in the city of Ironton, or Vivica’s feline voice. The bells were meant to repel the fae, but if I were one of the monsters, their collective sound would be equivalent to a dinner bell ringing out to announce that the feast was ready. And Vivica? I was only here because Iric was too afraid to leave me home alone while he ran up and into the Slopes to deliver a few packages.

“When is he coming after you?” Vivica asked too casually. Her impatience was growing with each passing minute, evident in the way she couldn’t sit still. Her movements were a whisper across the dilapidated floor, and I wondered how she could keep the boards from groaning as she moved over them. She’d stood with me at the door, then moved to sit at the small table with the single chair, then further into her hovel where she seated herself in front of her vanity—a piece of discarded furniture Iric had carried down from one of the mountain homes when they tossed it out for having a single scratch on it.

Boar bristles raked through the long strands of her hair.

Not soon enough, I wanted to answer. “He only had three deliveries.” And he was fast. Iric was the fastest runner in Ironton, and Slopers paid well for him to carry their goods up the mountain paths for them.

“You’re grown. You haven’t needed watching in years. Why now?” The brushing paused briefly as she listened closely for my answer. It was a skill that she’d honed over the years, one that many people didn’t have the patience to learn. Listening. The small bench beneath her creaked as she turned, and I felt her eyes on me.

Vivica, and my lack of sight, taught me that you could hear a world of truth in the smallest of inflections in a person’s voice, in the words they chose, and whether they thought before speaking or simply blurted things. A person who listened could discern lie from truth, and actual emotion from what the person was trying to project. Because listening led to hearing, and hearing someone was the most intimate thing two people could share.

“Someone painted something on our door again.” It’s what Iric told me to tell her; that he’d come home and found a slur, a nasty message meant for me. It had happened before, too many times to count. He would never tell me what the letters spelled, but his younger brothers had no qualms about it. It was always “Changeling,” “Monster,” or “Witch,” and according to the boys, the slurs were usually written in red, a color the fae supposedly loathed. A color the Slopers revered. Despite the fact that I was none of the three, I understood the vandals’ fear.

I’d be afraid of me, too. I was different and not just because of my blindness, but because of how awkward I was with anyone outside of my adoptive family (and some of them, too). And then there was my past…

Years ago, when I was only a child, Iric found me just inside the perimeter wandering around with muddy hands outstretched, taking tentative steps to avoid falling yet again, sobbing and afraid. Neither he nor I knew where I came from or how I got to Ironton without being eaten by one of the fae monsters our border wall protects us from, but I made it to safety. Somehow.

Iric helped me, and in no time adopted me into his life, and by extension, so did his five living brothers.

Vivica, their mother, was a different story.

“What did it say? It must have been something worse than what they wrote the last few times,” was her snappish reply. She turned back around and resumed her brushing.

There had been a hundred slurs painted across our door since we moved there a few years ago, thick coats of dark paint covering them, some of the layers peeling back from the top. But Vivica scented the lie I’d spoken. In truth, this time there was no painted slur. Two young men entered our house while Iric was on a run, and found me there alone. Their subsequent message was one of terror, almost as bad as the message I’d sent to them in return.

“I’m not sure what it said. Iric refuses to repeat it,” I answered softly.

The light rain that had lasted much of the morning and afternoon eased, but water still dripped off the roof in a soft pat-pat-pat rhythm. On the wall beside me hung one of Gregoire’s moths, its wings pinned to a small piece of wood. I’d traced the velvet-soft wing once, and Vivica beat me for touching it, screaming that I could have ruined it.

Iric pulled her off me and whisked me away. He’d just become a member of the Border Grays and was coming to tell us his good news when he heard the commotion. That night, Iric and I celebrated by ourselves. He bought food from the market vendors and led me to his assigned watch tower, leaving Vivica behind.

The following morning, he took me to a small cave on the outskirts of the Trenches where the earth heaved up into great mountains. The space was only big enough for two cots, but those and a door were all we needed.

He never told his mother about his new job, however, she heard about his position a month later and started asking him to pay for things she needed, even though she worked plenty enough to afford them. Iric confided she’d always been somewhat cold, but after she lost one son and then another, Vivica pushed her boys away instead of bringing them closer.

Gregoire had disappeared just before Iric found me. Some say he was pushed out of the wall as part of a prank and never returned. Others say he walked through the smoke of his own accord and didn’t look back. Either way, he entered Faery and was never seen again.

Roane died in a mine cave-in when he was just a boy. They used him in the mines because he could squeeze into spaces no grown man could. In memoriam, Vivica had sewn curtains for her window out of one of his work shirts.

“You’re lucky you have no sight,” she announced from her seat. “Mirrors are the most horrific things in the world. They can’t lie. They show the ravages of time, scars that won’t fade, and the fact that no matter what you do, you’re one day closer to death.”

The bottles on her vanity rattled as she applied her creams, powders, and perfumes. From the whispers I’d heard in town, she didn’t need them. If Vivica was known for anything other than being the best harlot in Ironton, it was for her strange and unusual beauty.

“Did you collect your alms today?” she asked.

My spine straightened. I hated to take the charity, but couldn’t refuse the iron the Governor gave the damaged. It was never enough for one person, let alone two, but Iric and I needed every sliver and chunk we could get. “Iric’s taking me on the way to the Reveal.”

“You don’t have to struggle like you do,” Vivica purred. All sound from her direction stopped. “Your hair’s long and straight. We could add some oil to make it shine. We could paint your lips and add rouge to your cheeks. You’d be able to afford new dresses after a week or so. The men of the Slopes would beat down your door. They can’t resist anything different than their Sloper wives, and you are certainly different, Karis.”

“I don’t want to be a harlot.”

My heart raced at the memory of hands grabbing at me. What happened next was the stuff of nightmares. But what I did to them...

The seat creaked when she stood. Whispers of fabric came from her direction as she changed into another dress. “Iric can’t take care of you forever,” she scolded. “He’s a young man with needs. Soon, he’ll want a wife. He’ll fall in love with some young woman and settle down with her. Children will come. What will you do when he leaves you for them? Because eventually it’ll happen.”

“I’ll take care of myself.”

She let loose a throaty laugh. “You’re a woman now. A young woman, but still a woman. And yet you require constant watching. How will you make a living if not by lying on your back? Will you go to the mines with Duncan? I suppose it is dark in there, which is no hardship for you. But the Governor won’t pay you to swing a pickaxe at a wall when you can’t see what you’re trying to unearth. You can’t be a runner or a Border Gray. Maybe Mage, Root, or Dusty could teach you how to pick pockets...” she mused.

She knew exactly where to cut me. She was well aware of the guilt I carried. Iric shouldn’t have to take care of me. Every time a girl had been interested in him, he’d either pushed her away or else she decided to leave when it was clear he wouldn’t choose her over caring for me. I was a wedge, separating him from what his life could be. Too many times I’d heard the pain in his voice when he told me not to worry about it, and that the girl wasn’t the right one after all. But there wouldn’t be a right one if I continued to stand at his side instead of leaving room for someone he could love.

And maybe I would have to pick pockets one day. Maybe I could learn a trade. One time, a Sloper threw away spun wool and wooden needles. Iric brought them to me and I taught myself how to knit – not that I sold any of the shawls I made. No one would buy from a Changeling, even though I wasn’t one.

A Changeling, according to superstition or legend, was a faery child. The fae would come in the night and take a human’s baby, exchanging it with one of their own. But if the Slopes believed the wall truly held the fae out of our city and kept them in Faery, that theory was blown to bits.

It didn’t matter who argued it or how many times; their minds were made up. To them, I was something they couldn’t explain, and anything without an explanation was suspicious and potentially dangerous.

Maybe doing something away from people would be better. Working in the gardens near the perimeter might be something I could ask about. They could let me work alone if it bothered other gardeners to work alongside me.

But one thing I was sure about: I would never be like Vivica.

She let out a sigh and I did, too.

Where was Iric? I grabbed my elbows and kept my face pointing towards the door. The scent of sewage was better than her cheap perfume. If she was almost ready, that meant the Sloper paying for her company would be here soon.

Grabbing my staff, I was about to make my way down the steps when a familiar voice called out. “K? Sorry I’m late. That took longer than expected.”

I could hear his smile and feel the sunshine on my face, bright and hot. The rain was gone, chased away by the sun itself. The earth exhaled steam from its surface. Its dampness soaked into my clothes, hair, and skin. Iric’s steps were fast as he jogged toward me and up the steps. He leaned in. “Be right back.”

Speaking now from inside her home, “Hello, Mother.”

“Set the iron on the table,” was her flat response. Her first concern was iron. Always iron. My stomach churned. Her fee for watching me for the last hour was likely more than an hour of his wages. Pieces of metal meeting wood echoed from farther in the house, and then the low tones of the conversation they had and thought I couldn’t hear.

That was the thing about being blind. My other senses more than made up for the deficiency ten-fold.

So, I could hear when he thanked her for letting me stay with her. When she observed how pathetic it was that a grown woman needed a babysitter. When he told her that he could find another person to help, someone who would take his iron and not complain. And when she chuckled as if she couldn’t possibly care less, and because she knew no one else would allow me to step foot inside their homes.

My fingers constricted on the smooth wood of my staff. I held it out in front of me, tapping the top step and making my way down three to the soft mud in front of them.

“Karis?” Iric called out. “Wait.”

I wasn’t waiting. I wasn’t spending one more second in that woman’s toxic presence today. I should’ve left after he did. Then he wouldn’t have owed her anything, and I wouldn’t have had to listen to her nonsense.

Knocking my staff back and forth across the ground, I strode away from that place, into the streets flowing with steaming sewage and into the incessant tinkling of the bells. My head began to throb from the stench and sound. I wondered if it was as loud in the Slopes as it was in the Trenches.

Were the Slopers as frightened as those who lived closest to the wall? If a fae somehow tore through it, the beast would devour us first, fill its belly, and leave. Why expend energy going up into the mountains when so many morsels could be found in the Trenches?

Quick footsteps came from behind me. “Hey,” Iric greeted, tapping my shoulder as he fell into step beside me.

“I’m not setting foot back in her house.”

“Okay,” he agreed gently.

“I’m not.”

He blew out a quick breath. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

“It’s my fault. I should have known.”

“It’s nobody’s fault but hers.” I sighed. “We should hurry, before they close for the Reveal.” I just hoped the Governor gave me enough iron to replace what Iric just lost.