Reckless Cruel Heirs

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Good riddance.

  My next stop was the GENERAL STORE. There was no sign up front, but burlap sacks filled with grain trimmed the windowsill, a black iron register sat on a counter, and tall shelving units ran across the three other walls. The highest one was weighed down by porcelain canisters and brown medicine bottles with the words witch-hazel, arrowroot, and ether scratched across peeling labels. I poked one. Stuck. And empty. I climbed the ladder to check the canisters. The lids were screwed on too tight, but my guess was that there’d be nothing to see. The rest of the shelves were bare except for the dust.

  I hopped back onto the wide-planked floor and crossed the store toward the burlap sacks. I lowered my hand inside, expecting my fingers to comb through the grains, but the seeds were pasted to one another. Were they even real? Edible? Although I wasn’t hungry yet, if I didn’t find a way out of here fast, I’d need food. My gaze snagged on the ladder I’d just climbed. Three of them were propped against the shelves. If I nailed all three together, I might reach the portal. Remo would have to hold it up. Would he work with me, or would he assume I was using him to leave and refuse to help?

  I thought of my gajoï then. I could use it to make him hold up the ladder. Optimism flooded me until I went around the counter and gripped one of the ladders. Like everything else, it didn’t move. Another decoy. If only I could get my hands on a saw. Unless the ladders weren’t made of wood but crafted from a magical, unchoppable material. I wouldn’t put it past the whackjobs who’d created this place.

  As I retraced my steps to the glass door, I wondered what had gotten into the wariff and my grandfather to build a fake frontier town. What sort of twisted torture was this? It must’ve driven the prisoners mad. Oh, Skies, what if making fae lose their minds was the goal of their secret jail?

  When I stepped out of the store, launching into a new tune, I squinted at the barren land stretching beyond the town, all gray dirt and clumps of glass. What if the vegetation was fake too?

  I entered the bank next door. Or what I assumed was a bank from the teller windows and large vault in the back, which was gaping and empty. Pappy and Nana Em’s favorite movies were Westerns, so I’d watched plenty during our sacred Saturday night sleepovers, which coincided with my parents’ weekly “date-night.”

  I walked back out, no longer on my guard. There was clearly nothing and no one around. Of course, the moment I thought this, a lace curtain fluttered in a second-story window across the street. My heart leaped right into my throat, interrupting my song. I grew silent and still, pulse rustling through my ears until the figure passed in front of another window, and I made out tufts of red hair amid caked ochre.

  It’s just Remo, I reassured myself, running a shaky hand through my own hair, weighed down by so much dried mud.

  A new tune forming on my lips, I headed to the penultimate building on my side of the road—a small clapboard structure filled with desks and benches. A red apple was propped on the largest desk. Was this a schoolhouse? Had Gregor sent children to this supernatural prison?

  I walked over to the apple. Expecting to be met with resistance, I almost took out my eye when the fruit came loose and my fist arched through the air and struck my face. I uncurled my fingers and stared at possibly the most perfect apple I’d ever seen—glossy and unblemished.

  Since I wasn’t hungry, and Gejaiwe only knew if I’d find any other source of food in this ghost town, I didn’t bite into it. Just held it delicately and possessively. I called out another, “Hello,” and was met with complete silence. Even though I hadn’t wanted to run into prisoners, not running into anyone was downright eerie.

  Singing softly, I backed out of the schoolhouse and scanned the road for footprints. Someone would’ve had to leave this apple not so long ago for it to be so fresh . . . I squinted, eyes stinging from the dust and white light. Unfortunately, the wind raking through the town had erased my own boot prints.

  I returned my gaze to the brothel. No curtains undulated in any of the windows. I looked at the building next to it—BARBER SHOP. I doubted there was a barber, and if there were any scissors or razor blades, they were surely fake. Was Remo inside the shop? I waited for him a few minutes under the porch of the schoolhouse.

  When he didn’t emerge from the rustic parlor, I began to worry and reassess my decision to part ways. I despised his company but preferred it over no company. Especially once night fell. I checked the sky, still white as toothpaste with no hint of impending dusk. If night wasn’t falling, was it too much to ask that the sun poke through the thick cloud cover and warm up the valley? I hugged myself and rubbed my arms to drive heat into my chilled skin, then plodded toward the last building—the brick structure.

  In all of the Westerns I’d watched, there had been wild horses and coyotes. This seemed like the sort of place where herds of mustangs should be running wild. Then again, the grass was sparse and I had yet to spot a body of water. Could any animal, besides those freaky fanged flowers, survive in such barren wilderness?

  I circled the brick wall, peeking through windowpanes caked with so much dust they distorted the details of what dwelled inside but not its shape or color—long, black, with a chimney and wagons. A vintage wrought-iron locomotive.

  I sped up until I reached the opening, then paused on the platform to take in the wide trench filled with black tracks tunneling into the rocky mountain. Did this road lead to the prison barracks or more ghost towns? Unless this was it . . . One giant, derelict cell where nothing and no one could thrive.

  Great Gejaiwe, what had I gotten myself into?

  I discarded my pessimism and decided the railroad had to lead somewhere. Somewhere where there were people. Like Joshua’s sister. I approached the deep trench, peering at the contraption parked on the opposite platform. To call it a locomotive would’ve been an exaggeration considering it consisted only of a closed blue carriage stamped Property of the Scourge and a black conductor car topped with a chimney.

  My sense of adventure had always been tempered by a great sense of caution, unlike my cousin Sook who lived for exploring. I wished he were here and instinctively looked down at my Infinity to comm him before I remembered it wouldn’t work. I stared at the glossy surface as though I could magick it to turn on, but however long and hard I stared, the band didn’t reboot.

  “I’d tell you to jump, but the train here seems to be as fake as the rest of this goddamn place.”

  I jumped, and my precious apple rolled into the trench.

  12

  The Pack

  Gritting my teeth, I lifted my eyes off my fallen apple and set them on the insufferable fae who stood on the opposite platform. “Go to hell, Remo.”

  His face, which was still streaked with dried ochre mud, swiveled slowly to take in our surroundings. “Pretty sure I’m already there.”

  I wouldn’t agree with him out loud, but he was right. This place was the gold-rush version of human purgatory.

  Even though I didn’t want to engage Remo, I also needed to know what he’d found. Or not found. “Have you run into anyone else?”

  “Nope.” He stroked the massive nose of the black locomotive. It must not have been pure iron because his fingers didn’t ignite and carbonize. Too bad. “So, do you always talk to yourself?”

  My head jerked back. “What?”

  He lifted his hand off the train car and inspected his palm, then flicked his fingers, making tiny dust motes spring into the chilly air. “You know, emit words when no one is around?”

  I glowered at him, my hands finding purchase on my hips. “I wasn’t talking to myself, you brainless firefly; I was singing.”

  One corner of his mouth ticked up. “Is that what that was?”

  Had he not been standing on an opposite platform, I would’ve punched him, and this time, my knuckles would’ve done more than graze his jaw.

  “Perhaps that’s what drove the detainees away . . . your singing.”

  Why was I even trying to have a co
nversation with him? He was obviously incapable of acting civilized.

  His gaze returned to my fugitive fruit, which had settled against the black rail. “Didn’t happen to bring a hydro flask from Neverra along with that apple?”

  He thought I’d brought an apple with me? I almost laughed. Almost because I was really in no mood to laugh. If I’d brought anything with me from home, it would’ve been a chainsaw.

  “I didn’t bring the apple from Neverra.” I gestured to my skintight suit, which made his eyes roam over my body. “Where the heck would I have put it?”

  His eyebrows knitted, cracking some of the dried mud on his brow. “Where did you find it then?”

  “In the schoolhouse.”

  A beat of silence echoed around us. “You didn’t bite into it, did you?”

  “No.” My heart picked up speed. “Why? Do you think it’s poisoned or something?” His answering silence made my throat tighten. As I stared at the perfect red apple, my stomach decided this was the right moment to grumble. “What if it’s not poisoned, though?”

  He tipped his head to the side and squeezed one of his eyes a little shut, sending me a how-big-a-fool-are-you look.

  My stomach protested. Just because fresh produce was improbable in a place like this didn’t mean it was impossible. Maybe it was some sort of gift to prisoners. A way to keep them alive so they could be tortured one more day.

  “Does your father know this place exists?” Remo’s question towed my attention off the apple.

  “I don’t think so.” He’d never mentioned it to me. “Your grandfather really never mentioned this place to you?”

  “Not once.”

  “Do you think anyone could actually still be alive?”

  He pressed his lips together and slid them back and forth, as though mulling my question over. “Well, I’ve found zero traces of life, and no water, so my guess is that if anyone’s alive, they’ve moved away from this quaint little town.”

  Little, sure, but there was nothing quaint about it.

  He stared at the tunnel in the mountain. “Until we know the extent of—”

  “We?”

  “As much as it pains me to suggest this, Trifecta, it might be safer to travel together than alone.” Must’ve pained him a hell of a lot because he couldn’t even meet my eyes when he suggested it.

  My hands slid off my hips. “If we travel together, then we need to lay down some rules.”

  “Rules?” His green eyes snapped to my face. “Shall I remind you that you are nothing here, Amara Wood? Neither princess nor queen. Nothing. There is no calling Iba or Nima for help.” He pronounced the Gottwa names for Mom and Dad that I’d adopted over the Faeli designation with disgust. “There are no servants to do your bidding. No guards to protect you. And your little collection of powers . . . it doesn’t work here.”

  And here I thought I’d reached the pinnacle of my aversion for this boy, but there was so much farther to go. “Screw you. You don’t know the first thing about me. And as far as traveling, I’ll make my own way because I’d rather have my own back than be followed by someone who wants nothing more than to plant a knife inside of it.”

  Had he brought one? Lucionaga usually carried weapons, but Remo was still wearing his formal engagement attire. “I wouldn’t be following you. I’m not a dog.”

  “No. Dogs are devoted and kind. You don’t know the first thing about kindness.”

  I jumped down onto the tracks, which were much lower than I anticipated. Ankles and shinbones smarting from my leap, I grabbed my apple, then straightened up. Chin raised high, I marched along the tracks toward the mountain, because like everything in this damn town, the locomotive was surely a useless prop.

  “You walk away, and I shelve my offer!” Remo called out.

  Like. I. Care.

  “Don’t count on me to save you next time you get in trouble, Amara Wood.”

  I spun around. “Save me? Why don’t you shelve that hero-complex next to your stupid offer? I don’t need saving. Besides, I never asked you to save me. Wouldn’t want to waste our gajoï on something as silly as my wellbeing when I have such a great plan for it.”

  Remo’s entire body seemed to expand as though he were flexing each one of his six hundred muscles.

  I turned back around and walked. This time, I didn’t sing. One, because my teeth were too firmly wedged together to let out anything other than huffs and grunts. And two, what Remo said had gotten to me. However much I wanted signs of life—if only to reassure myself that this place didn’t kill fae off—I’d rather come upon them than they come upon me.

  But mostly, I didn’t sing because of number one.

  Right before I reached the arched mouth of the mountain, a low growl had me stuttering to a stop. Instinctively, I tried to push off the ground to fly, but my boots didn’t lift off the rails.

  Crap crap crap. I squinted into the darkness, praying that whatever had made that sound wouldn’t launch itself at me like the shrieking pink flowers.

  Another growl sounded, this time louder, as though its source had moved closer. Heart blasting, I backed up.

  Another growl, and then another.

  Aw, fae. Did all animals travel in freaking packs here?

  I edged closer to the embankment right as enormous, four-legged animals materialized from the entrails of the tunnel. I released a breath when I realized they were lupa. Neverrian wolves were harmless. Well, as long as you didn’t pet them, because petting them opened a mind-link, and all they thought about was hunting small game and running. Something I’d learned first-hand.

  A lupa pup had gotten dragged into the Pink Sea, and since fae wolves didn’t know how to paddle to save their lives, I’d jumped in and saved the floundering fur ball. For the next two years, every time the animal was near, I was privy to its inner musings. It had been strange, at first, receiving thoughts that weren’t mine, but then I’d gotten used to the strange little broadcasts and the day they stopped coming—my wolf had met an untimely death at the fangs of a tigri—I felt a twinge of loss.

  I counted seven wolves. They were much larger than the ones back home but scrawnier, which confirmed the scarcity of food. Their ribcages poked against their white coats, which resembled their habitat—scant and filthy. Large patches of fur were missing on some; others were covered in so much grime, they looked like they belonged to another species.

  One of them raised its head as though to sniff the air. As it leveled its face back on me, its tail came up, and then its fellow packmates’ tails straightened too, poking out from their skeletal bodies. I held my breath, expecting them to start wagging.

  “Amara!” My name was like a bucket of ice water waking me from a doze. “Get away from them!” Remo was moving down the platform in slow but long strides, as though worried that going any faster would spook the wolves.

  “Is the golwinim scared of a few little lupa?”

  A chorus of low growls reverberated over the corroded tracks, over every rock in the mountain and every brick in the station. Good doggies. I assumed they were growling at Remo and his palpable hostility.

  Still moving fast, Remo growled louder than the wolves, his frustration traveling down the trench.

  I turned back toward the pack, intent on proving I wasn’t scared, that these creatures, although almost as tall as I was, were as sweet as creampuffs, but then a growl turned into a bark, which turned into a snarl.

  I frowned. “Stop running, Remo.” I spoke gently so as not to freak the animals out any more than they already were. “You’re scaring them.”

  “I stop running, and you’re a chew toy.”

  “Don’t be ridi—”

  The wolf, which stood slightly in front of the others—the Alpha, I surmised—let out a piercing howl before bounding forward. The others followed, their great paws pounding the trench. This wasn’t normal lupa behavior. The wolves back home weren’t aggressive. If anything they were skittish around fae.

  “A
mara! Get off the fucking tracks! Now!”

  My body temperature dropped as fear flooded my veins. I backed up and then I spun and ran at the embankment, my legs not shuffling like they did back home. I launched myself at the steep wall, attempting to clamber up, but my foothold skidded, and dirt rained down. I landed on my ass but bounced right back onto my feet and jumped at the packed earth, attempting to claw my way up as the wolves galloped closer. Remo crouched and stretched an arm out. I slapped my palm into his, and he swung me up just as one of the beasts launched itself at where I’d been a second earlier, scuttling like an uncoordinated spider.

  I shut my eyes as the force of Remo’s pull had us both tumbling into the hard-packed soil of the platform. The ground shook, and I thought it was from our fall until it shook again and again as lupa after lupa slammed into the dirt wall, trying to reach us. The creatures snarled, the sound bloodcurdling.

  I sat up, my head swimming, my blood thrashing. A wolf jumped at the embankment, its curved claws finding purchase on the ledge. For the longest second of my entire life, I thought it would manage to pull itself up. And probably so did Remo, because he shot to his feet and grabbed my arm, almost dislocating my shoulder in the process.

  The wolf tumbled onto its haunches but got back up in the blink of an eye and snapped, globs of saliva dripping into the trampled dirt at his feet. The rest of his pack snarled and barked, scratching at the wall as though to bring it down.

  Remo still clutched my arm. I was too terrified to shake him off, and he was too transfixed by the predatory beasts to realize he was still holding me. Unless he did realize it and had decided I couldn’t be trusted with my own life.

  “My apple,” I said, suddenly realizing I’d dropped it.