by Abbie Lyons
“Did you kill somebody?” I asked. Seemed like as fair a guess as any with this girl.
“Getting warmer! Guess one more time!”
I gulped. This wasn’t something I wanted to fuck up. “Did you kill, uh, more than one person?”
Her smile grew even wider, like something out of a cartoon. “Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! I killed each and every one of my ex-boyfriends. Ugh, they were all such assholes! I don’t wanna say they had it coming, but...they had it coming.”
Again, I found myself at another loss for words. What do you even say in response to something like that?
“That’s not even the fun part!” she said. “Now all the different ways I killed them. That’s the good stuff! But we’ll save that for another time.” She pulled the basket of not-fries out of the oil. They were burnt to a crisp. “Oh no! I got distracted! Babs always says that one of the first rules of working in a kitchen is to never get too distracted. But I always forget about that one until it’s too late.”
She dumped the burnt food into a trash can, then proceeded to pour more frozen ones into the basket, once again dropping it hard into the oil and splashing her arm.
“So you’re the quiet type, huh?” she asked.
The truth was that no way had I ever been the quiet type. I was always the girl at the party whose voice you could hear from the next room over. I had one of those annoyingly endearing loud laughs, especially when I was, you know, having a drink or two. But this past week or so had definitely put an end to chatty Em.
But did I really want to explain that to Delilah? She probably wasn’t the kind of girl I wanted to open up to. I got the impression that she could just as easily turn on me with any personal information I was stupid enough to share.
“That’s okay!” she said, giving me a pat on the shoulder. She looked me straight in the eyes. “I can do plenty enough talking for the both of us. I could talk all day. The Fae in the cells next to me are always telling me to shut up, but why should I listen to them?”
I glanced over at Babs, who was cooking up something unidentifiable over on the grill. Nothing Delilah was saying seemed to be phasing her. Was she just tuning her out?
“Let’s gossip,” Delilah said. “There’s so much good gossip these days! Like, have you heard about Crown Prince Tarian? It’s just the juiciest!”
“Yeah, what’s his whole deal?” I asked with maybe a little too much enthusiasm.
Okay, so maybe I also loved some good gossip.
Delilah was quick to notice my change in tone. “Oh, so I get talking about royalty and suddenly you’re interested, huh?” She frowned, again looking like something out of a comic strip. Every little expression she made was so extra. “I see how it is. A Crown Prince is way more interesting than little old me. That makes me sad.”
Judging by the whole “killing her ex-boyfriends” thing, it was probably safe to say that making Delilah sad wasn’t a smart move.
“No!” I insisted. “You’re interesting, too! Super interesting.”
“You don’t sound like you mean that.” Her eyes were starting to look a little more threatening, like an animal with rabies sizing up its prey.
I’ve totally fucked this up, haven’t I?
She collapsed into a fit of giggles, nearly falling to the floor. “Oh, wow! I really scared you there, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to!” She was nearly crying of laughter. “Of course gossip about a prince is more interesting than I am! Duh!”
I breathed a sigh of relief. She probably wasn’t gonna shiv me or throw cooking oil at my face—for now.
“I love some good gossip about the royal family,” I said, trying my best to win her over.
She pulled another batch of burnt food out of the fryer, and like clockwork poured them in the trash just like before.
I have a feeling we aren’t going to get much cooking done.
“Do you know what Prince Tarian is here for?” she asked. “It’s absolutely wild.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“He wanted to be king as soon as possible. Didn’t want to wait his turn! So he poisoned all the Fae in the royal court who would oppose him. Hundreds of Fae. Dead! What a loser, right? I mean, who uses poison? That’s so cowardly! Blood and guts or nothing!”
Babs still seemed one-hundred percent unconcerned about one of her cooks talking about how much she loved violence. At this point, she was going to single-handedly make the entire lunch herself. I was beginning to feel a little bad about how unappetizing all the mess hall food I’d had so far was. Babs was doing her best.
“So he got caught?” I asked.
“One of the Fae who he got to do some of the poisoning turned on him. Now he’s never going to be the king. Never ever!”
I had a feeling that I wasn’t getting anywhere close to the full story. How much of this was Delilah just making up? Who would even be telling her any of this?
“Damn!” I exclaimed, making sure to do my best to sound like I was absolutely eating this all up. More than anything, I think Delilah wanted an audience.
“He won’t be here for long.”
“Why’s that?”
There was that smirk again. “Because he’s gonna be executed, silly! You think they’re not gonna make an example of him? They’ll chop him up into little pieces. Maybe they’ll even have us cook him up into a nice stew.”
That was definitely just Delilah being Delilah. I was pretty sure that Fae society, as conservative as it could be sometimes, usually wasn’t cool with executions. And it definitely wasn’t cool with cooking anybody up.
“Holy shit,” I said. I put my palm to my mouth. Delilah needed to think I was hanging on her every word.
She sighed. “That poor boy. He’s cute, too. I’d love to have a go at him if you know what I mean. What a hunk! Don’t you think?”
“Totally! So handsome.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Hands off of him, Em. He’s all mine!” This time she couldn’t even go half a second without breaking into a laugh. “Kidding, kidding! I’m not gonna go for him. You’re a pretty cute girl yourself, maybe you should make a pass at him. Get yourself a little bit of royal action!”
Babs walked over and looked into the fryers, observing that Delilah hadn’t even bothered to try her hand at making another batch. But if she was upset, she sure didn’t show it
“You ladies are free to go,” she said pleasantly. “I’ve got it under control from here.”
“Really?” I asked. “We didn’t get much done.”
That could’ve won the Understatement of the Year Award.
Babs laughed. “Don’t you worry, hun. It’s only your first day. It’ll take some gettin’ used to, I’ll tell you that much.”
“We got a lot accomplished,” Delilah said, throwing her arm around me. She was squeezing just a little too tight. If I said something she took offense to, she could probably have me in a chokehold gasping for air. I seemed to be in her good graces right now, but for how long? I wasn’t going to get too comfortable around her anytime soon. “Em and I are going to be great friends! I just know it!”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
Chapter Eight
AFTER THAT OVERWHELMING day, I needed some serious alone time. And lucky, lucky me: that was basically what Enchanted Penitentiary was designed for.
I paced my cell for a while, until I realized how completely cliché that was, and so opted to flop on my bed instead and stare at the ceiling. Which was probably also cliché, but as I said, there wasn’t a lot to do besides just be alone and contemplate things. I guess if I were guilty, this would be when I thought about the errors of my ways, or whatever, or come to the conclusion that once I was free I was going to turn my life around. But my life didn’t need turning around, at least not in the way that actual criminals’ did. I needed to turn things around by setting the record straight, and, more importantly, by finding out how April actually died. And I couldn’t do that if some psycho Fae
criminal used a magical shiv to fry me up during lunch duty.
I rolled to my side. Now that I was familiar with how things worked here—more or less—I needed to figure out how to work within the system. Game things. Get people to do what I want. In the real world—well, the real human world—that had kind of been my specialty, because, you know, Fae powers for the win. Here, though...who even had the power to help me?
I thought back to what Delilah had told me. Despite being majorly freaked out by her entire...everything, I wasn’t not intrigued by what she’d revealed about Tarian.
If anyone had the power to do something to help me, I’d have to think it’d be a Fae Prince.
“Emerald?”
I jolted up so quickly I almost pulled a muscle. At the entrance to my cell, a tall and straight-backed figure was waiting for my response. Gage.
“Gage,” I said, getting to my feet. I drew to the front of my cell, the barrier radiating between us, throwing electric shadows on the chiseled lines of his face. He nodded, but even behind the military posture, I could see something deeper, softer in his eyes. Concern.
“I just wanted to...” He cleared his throat and looked around. “Perhaps it’d be easier to speak within your cell.”
Wait, what? I mean, Gage was the guard here, so I’d kind of have to do whatever he wanted, but so far, I hadn’t seen any of the guards actually enter prisoners’ cells. Gage looked around again.
Maybe this wasn’t in the rulebook for him. But I wasn’t about to turn down a visitor.
“Of course,” I said, gesturing at the splendor—not—of my small room as though I were welcoming him into our house in LA. “Please, be my guest.”
The briefest shadow of a smirk flashed over his face before he waved his hand in the short, powerful gesture of a guard unlocking a magic barrier, and he darted inside. Once we were both within the cell, he waved his hand again, sending the barrier back up, this time with a kind of wavy...obfuscation, I guess, some kind of Fae magic I’d never seen before. But one thing was clear: the view from the corridor was not clear. I had—we had—for the first time in what seemed like forever, a little bit of privacy.
We were also standing incredibly close. It was so nice to be beside someone and be able to relax, and not worry that they were going to jump me and slice me up with a magical blade of spellcasting.
“There we go,” Gage said, his voice deep and rougher than usual. He turned his piercing gaze to mine. “I just wanted to check on you, Emerald.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed, his hands still clasped at the small of his back. “Your first few days here have been...unusually eventful.”
“What can I say?” I shrugged. “Trouble follows me wherever I go.”
Now it was my turn to smirk, although I realized too late that joking about being Trouble with a capital T was probably not a smart move when I was trying to argue for my innocence against murder charges. Ugh, Emerald, get it together.
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” Gage mused. My heart stuttered.
“It’s not,” I said, pressing forward. “Because I really...I mean, you can tell I’m totally not like these guys, right? I haven’t broken a single rule since I got here. I’m basically a model inmate, right?”
Gage’s mouth twitched. “You’re not the most troublesome charge I’ve been given, that’s for sure.”
Suddenly, it felt weird to be just standing basically at the entrance of my cell. “You want to sit?” I offered. Not that I had much space to entertain in. But Gage gave a sharp nod and took a seat on the lone chair. I sat on the bed, facing him. He actually relaxed a bit when he sat, putting his hands between his knees.
“It’s really weird to have you back in my life like this,” I said at last. It was the truth, for once. But I also wanted to see if I could get at the real Gage in there, the one who existed before he took the vows of the Azelorian guardsmen. “Right?”
“Right,” Gage admitted. When he met my eyes, that softness was back. “I don’t like that you’re here, Emerald.”
“Yeah, that makes two of us,” I said. I wanted to burst out with more, tell him for the thousandth time that I was innocent, but at the same time, I felt weird about maybe getting him in trouble, somehow. Being a guardsman seemed really important to him, even if I didn’t 100% understand why (especially the whole...celibacy thing. Because, honestly, look at the guy. What a waste).
And if I had the chance to go over his head and appeal to actual royalty? That felt like a much better solution.
So instead of insisting for the zillionth time that I was innocent, I took us down memory lane.
“The last time I saw you, you were definitely not Azelorian Guard material,” I said. “If you don’t mind my saying so.”
Gage smiled, a gesture that warmed me right down to my toes. And, honestly, other places too. “I don’t. You’re right. You weren’t the type to escape to the human world yourself.”
I shrugged. “I think I was halfway there. April was the other half.” In more ways than one. I gave my head a little shake, not wanting to talk about her.
“What’s it like?” Gage asked. “The human world.”
“You weren’t ever curious enough to visit?” I asked. Gage shook his head.
“No. Once I decided that I wanted to enlist...well, it takes a lot of focus and dedication. I didn’t really have room for anything else. And I figured...” He trailed off.
“Figured what?”
“Well, I guess I figured that if you’d gone to the human world, you’d done it to escape the world of Fae. And maybe you wouldn’t want to see more people from our realm.” Gage’s cheeks were pink above his uniform collar. Emotions flamed in my chest.
“You mean you would’ve come to see me? In LA?”
“Maybe.” Gage was practically mumbling now, the guardsmen inflection totally gone from his voice. “You were always so much fun. I never felt bored when our families hung out. I looked forward to it, actually.”
“You did?” This stunned me. I’d thought of Gage as a close enough friend, the kind of playmate who you can always count on to turn up, but until he said that, I hadn’t realized how foundational our relationship had been for me. And I’d just left it behind when April and I went to LA. Had I even said a real goodbye to Gage?
“We didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye,” Gage said, as though he was reading my thoughts. “Which is fine,” he rushed on, looking me in the eyes again. “You didn’t have to say goodbye to anyone you didn’t want to. I figured you had your reasons.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. Maybe I had—it was hard to remember now. That time felt so distant, almost inaccessible until now, when this Fae boy reappeared in my life.
A tense moment crackled between us—not unpleasant, but powerful. If things were different, if we weren’t where we were, I would’ve crossed the room, gotten closer to him.
But then Gage straightened his posture, a guardsman once again.
“I don’t want you to suffer when you’re here,” he said, as though continuing a thought from before. “Enchanted Penitentiary is for punishment, not torture.”
That’s not what the warden’s announcements make it sound like, I thought. But I nodded. “I mean...so far so good, I guess.”
“Good,” he echoed. “And I’m here to protect you until you adjust. Show you the ropes. It may be a bit informal, but...” He glanced back at the blurred door to my cell, as though checking to see if anyone was trying to peer through the magic barrier. “You can ask me questions, if you need to.”
I did need to, I realized. Gage would have official information, better than gossip or whatever bonkers lies Delilah might be making up. “So...what’s the deal with Prince Tarian?”
Gage stiffened. “I told you to stay away from him.”
“Yeah, and I have,” I said. For now. “But I just can’t help but wonder like, what’s a prince doing here with the rest of us? You know, common criminals.”
If Ga
ge thought my joke was funny, he didn’t show it. “I’m not at liberty to discuss Prince Tarian.”
“But you just said I could ask you questions!”
“Well, maybe I shouldn’t have.” His cheeks were pink again. He got to his feet, briskly. “I’m glad you’re doing well. I should get go—”
“Hang on,” I said, and got to my feet myself. “Gage, it’s me. It’s Emerald. Just clue me in, here. I’m like a freakin’ lost puppy.” And I might need some kind of royal intervention to survive.
“No,” Gage barked, and I took a step back. The power in his voice was stunning, how he could just turn it on like that. His eyes were blazing now, the softness gone. “I’m not telling you about him beyond what I’ve told you, which is to steer clear. And you’d do well to respect my orders, inmate.”
“Gage,” I said, but I could tell it was too late. We’d crossed a threshold. Gage stalked to the door and waved it unlocked, the partition gone.
“I’ll see you later,” he said shortly.
I sank back to the bed. One thing was clear: Gage disliked Prince Tarian, more than he disliked anyone else, I’d wager. And that just made me even more convinced that the prince was someone powerful. Someone who could help me.
But I’d worry about learning more another day. All I wanted now was to close my eyes and sleep. Maybe I’d get lucky with a good dream or two.
“Attention all inmates,” boomed the warden’s voice, interrupting my plans. “Another day here at the Enchanted Penitentiary has passed. As you lay down for slumber, I encourage you to remember that sleep is only a temporary escape. Tomorrow you’ll wake up, and you’ll still be here. You shouldn’t take much comfort in these brief hours of rest. Your sleep simply provides you with the energy to take on another miserable day with the false hope that it’ll be better than the last. But trust me when I say that in confinement each day will always be worse than the one that came before.”
I guess that’s the warden’s idea of tucking us in for the night. It isn’t exactly Goodnight Moon, is it?
Who exactly was the warden anyway? I hadn’t seen him patrolling the prison at all. Or if I had, I didn’t know it was him. Maybe it wasn’t even a dude. A few enhancements could easily distort a woman’s voice to sound that deep.