by Amy Bearce
The cast iron pan practically overflowed with sizzling onions, mushrooms and venison. Jack was back already, and he must have invited a guest to join them for dinner. Her mouth went dry. Telling him the news in front of one of his business associates would be like pouring lamp oil on herself and then lighting a match. And she didn’t want to upset Phoebe in front of their father. The critical conversation would have to wait until later.
Two sets of footsteps came down the hall: one lighter, one heavier. Jack was always light on his feet, a helpful skill in his line of work, although he had long since graduated from thievery and assassinations. Now he focused on the more profitable business of selling poisons and unlawful elixirs, including the most powerful in existence, made from fairy nectar. Handy to have a keeper in the family when you had ambitions to be one of the most successful dark alchemists in the country.
Sierra scanned the tiny back yard, looking for a place to hide the fairy jar. Phoebe hadn’t turned around yet, but she would any second. She couldn’t lie to save her life, which is what she’d need to do at this moment if she knew the truth. Two shadows fell across the wall by Phoebe. Sierra untied her fairy tools from her belt with trembling fingers and made a split-second decision. Sam’s pen. She raced over, reached through the wide slats of his pen, and then pushed the jar into the corner of his hay.
Jack’s voice came through the open window. “Sierra, what are you doing out there?”
Her time was up. She straightened, hoped for the best, and crossed the ten short paces back to the house. She eased through the door and paced over to the stove next to her sister. Phoebe smiled at her, easily, happily.
“Hello, Jack,” Sierra said, glancing over her shoulder smoothly.
He disliked that she called him by his given name, which was one reason why she did it. It also made her feel like less of a daughter. She tried to forget they were related by blood, which was hard given that Jack’s dark hair, brown eyes, and pale skin were stamped right on her.
When Sierra’s gaze met his, her stomach clenched, but she kept her face neutral. She’d had a lot of practice.
Elder Graham Bentwood stepped up next to her father. Bentwood was a big man with big fists, a big temper, and big ambition in the world of dark alchemists. A thick white scar sliced across his left cheek, compliments of a knife fight years ago, and his head nearly brushed the top of the doorway. His black hair was peppered with white now, but he hadn’t slowed down at all. His blue eyes were as cold and hard as ever.
Her heart sank. Naturally, of all the people who could be there now, it had to be her father’s most important customer and colleague. Bentwood had been in the business for years. He bought large, discounted quantities of Jack’s popular but mind-altering elixir to sell in his own port for an easy profit. Jack called this special elixir Flight. Its base ingredient was fairy nectar, though it had all sorts of other secret components in it too. Potent stuff. People loved the carefree way it made them feel, but they sometimes ended up starving to death in a happy stupor, or trading everything they had for another dose. Sometimes they saw strange things that weren’t really there, too. Didn’t stop people from lining up to buy it, though, which Sierra had never understood.
Bentwood also bought a great deal of her father’s specially crafted poisons. Unlike Jack, though, Bentwood was less likely to poison someone than simply beat them to death. He was the most monstrous ruffian out there, the man who led the dark alchemy crew that tyrannized the port two villages over. Bentwood was a brute who treated his people worse than mules.
Sierra nodded at him, as it did not pay to disrespect one of the biggest tyrants in the area, even if she detested him. Bentwood nodded back, as if they were equals. She guessed as a fairy keeper, she was, in a way, a key ingredient in the world of alchemy with its messy potions, poisons, and elixirs. But they all knew to whom she belonged and where her loyalties were forced to lie.
Jack was thin and strangely graceful, only a head taller than Sierra. He had cropped brown hair, narrow hands and a short brown beard that effectively hid his lips. His dark eyes rarely showed emotion, and reading his expression could be difficult for most people. Not for Sierra. It had been her business to know when Jack was in a bad mood or when he might be feeling generous. Today, he was pretty happy. She wanted to keep it that way.
The men made small talk as they sat down, obviously already having conducted their business. They didn’t make their deals around Sierra or Phoebe. Sierra noticed Bentwood was scrutinizing Phoebe like a man buying a new horse. He ran his finger along his jaw as she carried the water jug to the table and lifted the heavy cooking pot to serve the meal. He looked like he wanted to check her teeth, and a chill ran down Sierra’s spine. She glanced under her lashes at her sister, who remained completely unaware of the big man’s observation. A scowl crossed Sierra’s face, and Jack caught her eyes and angled his head at her, lips tight. Message received, she glared at the table instead of Bentwood.
The men talked about the quake, pondering the increasing frequency of them. Phoebe poured water for the girls, Jack’s homemade wine for the men. The savory scent of roasted venison wafted by as Phoebe sat the pan in the middle of the table, placing a bowl of flat bread next to it. Sierra’s shoulders relaxed slightly. She hadn’t even realized how on edge she had been until she began to calm down. She took a deep breath.
Then Sam began to bray, and sweat burst along her palms.
Everyone froze. Was it another quake? The ground wasn’t moving yet.
Sierra rubbed a fist across her forehead. Of course Sam wouldn’t take the death of fifty fairies lightly, she thought. He was a magical creature, too. All magical creatures shared a connection through the magic they used and created. How stupid of her to leave them where he could sense them!
Phoebe’s breath caught and she braced her arms against the table. When nothing happened, puzzlement pushed fear from her face.
Bentwood said, “What’s wrong with the unicorn?”
Sierra glanced at her father, and she didn’t even have to feign the concern in her eyes. Sam hadn’t let up at all; his bray continued to shatter the air. Jack knew Sam wasn’t stupid. Something was causing the animal’s anxiety. He jerked his head at the door, giving her silent permission to go see to the poor beast. She ran, door slamming behind her, and reached Sam’s pen in record time.
Oh, those screams! They sounded practically human. Sierra slapped her hands over her ears even as she bolted the short distance to his pen. Sam stood over in the corner with the fairies, the whites of his eyes showing all the way around the black irises. His breath made small puffs in the air with each shriek.
Sierra vaulted over the fence and plunged her hand in the hay, yanking out the jar of fairies. She stuffed it inside her jacket without tying it to her belt, trying to do anything to hide the evidence from Sam. She frantically petted him, wishing she had thought to grab a sugar plum or carrot from the kitchen.
“Shh, Sam, it’s going to be okay…” The words tumbled out, as much for her as for him.
Sam kept screaming.
She looked back over her shoulder and saw Jack at the window, glaring. This was making him look bad in front of his business partner. If only he knew the alternative. The jar of fairies was cold, pressed against the thin cotton of her shirt. She needed to get it away from Sam.
On rubbery knees, Sierra backed up, hands held palm up to Sam as if to say, There’s nothing of interest here. He advanced toward her, head lowered, the gaping wound on his head aimed right at her. Then he charged. Sam―sweet, skinny Sam―charged right at her, as if his horn were still there.
Sierra did the only thing she could think of. She dove out of the way, under the bottom railing, into the dead grass. The jar rolled beneath her. Crack! Glass sliced cold and slick across her belly, followed by the warmth of blood dripping down her skin. She struggled to stand up in a vain attempt to stop the damage. When she straightened her back, the glass slid farther down her belly on its
way out of her shirt. She kept moving, making it almost to the house. Then the glass cut a half-moon into her skin before falling to the ground at Sierra’s feet―and the feet of her father.
Jack stood at the door, staring right at her.
ead fairies fluttered to the ground around Sierra like gently falling snow, blanketing the earth at her feet with rainbow brilliance gone dark. It was like she was in one of those dreams where she couldn’t move, at least not quickly enough, because she saw his hand coming at her and couldn’t dodge. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even blink.
Pain exploded as the back of his hand connected solidly with her cheek, sending zigzags of lights swimming in front of her eyes. Sierra crashed to the ground, the metallic taste of blood blooming in her mouth. Even with his hand open, Jack knew how to pack a punch. This wasn’t the first time he’d hit her, but it was the first time he’d done so in front of anyone else.
She lost some time, because the next thing Sierra knew, Jack was standing over her, chest heaving, eyes wild with fury. But his lips were locked tight. She tried to think past the throbbing pain in her head, that moment of shock that always came when her own father hit her.
“You’d dare steal fairies from the hatch? What’s your scheme?” he hissed.
If pain hadn’t seared Sierra’s lids, she’d roll her eyes, but she was smarter than that. As if she’d be able to sneak clandestine business past a master of unlawful activities.
She attempted to speak, coughed, and then tried again. “Look at them.”
Jack looked down, and she saw the moment realization hit him. What little color his face held simply drained away as he realized the fairies were actually dead.
“What happened?” he said in a low voice.
Sierra whispered, “They were dead when I got there. I don’t know why.”
He sucked in a breath, and she saw plans processing behind his eyes, recalculating, analyzing cost and risk. Bentwood stepped out of the doorway behind them, and Jack’s trademark mask slid over his face. His bubbling rage instantly cooled into a chilly professional smile, the kind that showed nothing of importance.
He spun around and said, “Elder Bentwood, it has been a strange night. I apologize for the disruption. Why don’t we continue the meal?”
He began to steer the bigger man back inside. But Bentwood was too large for steering, and he looked at Sierra standing there, surrounded by death, and gave a smile. Her mouth dropped at this unexpected response.
Bentwood turned to Jack and said, “Looks like we have further business tonight after all, Master Quinn.”
The use of her father’s official master alchemist title brought a new level of formality to the discussion. Bentwood was up to something.
Jack didn’t sigh, but Sierra could tell he wanted to. His brow furrowed before he waved the other man inside, sending one last seething glance her way. The two men returned to his office at the far end of the house.
Phoebe stood in the doorway, now visible without their hulking bodies to block her. She grasped the doorframe so tightly Sierra was afraid she would cut herself.
“Hey, Phoebe, Bug, it’s going to be okay…” Sierra began to say, but she stopped. She’d said that too many times already.
Phoebe met her eyes, and Sierra couldn’t lie, not again.
“Are you ready to run?” Sierra asked instead.
Phoebe swallowed but nodded.
“Good. We need to go right away.”
Phoebe looked at Sam, eyes shiny with sudden tears. They would have to leave him behind, which certainly didn’t bother Sierra at the moment. She knew he’d be fed. He was still pawing the ground where the jar had been buried in the hay.
Sierra had long considered what they would need to bring with them if they had to run for it. They’d actually tried running away before, but Jack found them and made them regret it. Sierra was too profitable for him to lose, and her mark made her stand out, even with long hair to hide it. Some fairies would follow any keeper who came near them, at least for a while. No one knew why for sure. The oldest tales said keepers had an inborn talent, a connection that allowed them to live easily among magic. It didn’t seem easy to Sierra. The fairies liked to swarm around keepers, sing to them, or attack them, depending on their moods. The fairy antics made Sierra pretty obvious in a crowd. So she had given up hope for herself, but not for Phoebe.
Jack and Bentwood were still in the office, voices low but rising. Jack said, “But we’ve worked together for years, Graham… you know I’ll come through…”
Bentwood raised his gravelly voice and grunted, “History isn’t something I can count on…”
Sierra didn’t want to be around to find out what they were arguing about. She slunk down the hall, leaving Phoebe to eat something in the kitchen, and slipped into their room cloaked in darkness now. She didn’t need the light. Their room was tiny, and they had lived there since they were born.
Sierra reached the trunk in the corner, eased open the lid, and then dug in her fingers. She sifted through the quagmire of socks Phoebe liked to knit for her, but Sierra hit the bottom of the trunk without finding the leather bag she kept ready in case they had to run. It held only a few items but enough to get them started. She tried again, mixing the socks around like she was stirring a pot of soup, but the bag wasn’t there. Cold seeped into her bones. The only person who could have taken it was Jack.
In that moment, everything caught up to Sierra. The cuts on her stomach were shallow, but they burned, and her shirt stuck to her wounds. Her head pounded from Jack’s slap―and shame and anger warred in her heart when she recalled her own father hit her in front of Bentwood. Somehow that made it worse. She might not have been surprised that Jack hit her―she knew him, after all―but it still made her stomach queasy to consider it. The bruise along her cheekbone ached from where she hit the table during the quake, but her heart ached more. She collapsed on the edge of their straw pallet and put her head in her hands. If Jack knew she had an emergency stash for escape, he surely knew her first move after something like today would be to run and take Phoebe.
A hundred pound weight pressed on Sierra’s shoulders, but Phoebe was waiting. It didn’t matter if Jack planned to follow. They had to go.
Sierra grabbed another leather bag and stuffed a spare pair of pants and shirt for each of them in there, as well as some underclothing and socks. Lots of socks, with the rain and ice this time of year. At least winter was almost over. No money, not in this house. Jack was too distrustful to keep many coins around anywhere, but that was okay. Many travelers bartered for their shelter and food anyway. Sierra figured they could always wash dishes or care for stable animals. She couldn’t get to any of the food in the larder now. She thought of the meat and onions in the pan, and her stomach growled. She glanced down the hall and wondered if she’d get a meal from that feast if they lingered a while longer. Not likely. She thought they might as well take the pan with them, why not? It wasn’t like their journey would be covert, not now.
Sierra picked up her pace and jogged into the kitchen, wondering if she could swipe one of the towels to use as a bandage. She stopped short, seeing Jack, Phoebe, and Bentwood at the table. Phoebe sat between them, eyes bigger than the moon, her face like melted wax. Jack gave a booming laugh. That wasn’t his real laugh; it was his business laugh. He wasn’t happy. He clapped Bentwood on the shoulder, and Bentwood eyed Sierra steadily. She dropped the bag behind her, hoping no one noticed. Phoebe was taking quick, shallow breaths, and Sierra stepped toward her involuntarily.
She looked at the two men, her eyebrows drawn together.
“What’s going on?” Her voice was lower, rougher than expected. The threat in her tone was obvious, judging by the way their eyebrows moved: Bentwood’s went up; Jack’s went down.
Jack stood and said, “Congratulations are in order. Bentwood has accepted your sister into his alchemy crew to settle payment for a deal agreed upon just today. Given the unexpected change in ou
r situation, he has been very generous to renegotiate terms.”
Jack’s eyes flinched for only a second when he met Sierra’s.
Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. A common practice among dark alchemists was to send family members to work for a neighboring alchemist. They almost never returned. It was considered a lifelong appointment. The workload was heavy and dangerous. Each master had total control over the new employee’s life. Children began at the bottom of the alchemy crew, no matter who their parent was. Sometimes, secret recipes for elixirs or poisons could be earned and passed along from the master. More often, the exchanged workers became elixir runners, sent to secretly deliver unlawful elixirs such as Flight until they could prove themselves worthy of a better job. The next step up was delivering―or administering―poisons, but that required more trust. In the end, the job the child ended up having didn’t matter. Mostly, competing dark alchemists kept one another’s family members to prevent betrayals. It was a treacherous business, selling poisons and elixirs. Having the child of your neighboring dark alchemist was good insurance. Children, no matter how grown, made excellent hostages.
Sierra had expected her sister would be spared. Bentwood was already their priority client. No one else could do for Jack’s business what Sierra could, and she had been arrogant enough to assume Phoebe would be safe because of that. But no. Phoebe was only ten years old. Bentwood was a monster who lived a two-day-journey away. The taste of bile sat rank in Sierra’s throat.