The idea was for Violet to slip outside, find a hay cart in the livery stable, and wheel it around underneath Aster’s bedroom window so the rest of them could jump out. But in order to get past Dex, she’d have to hold out the severed hand from the end of the coat sleeve as if it were her own. Aster hated trusting the most important part of the plan to Violet, but she was the only one tall enough to wear the big brag’s clothes.
Mallow and Tansy had agreed to see to the grisly business of cutting the hand off with the brag’s knife. It was Aster’s job to create a distraction in the reception room so Dex wouldn’t look at Violet too closely when she tried to leave.
Aster’s neck prickled with frustration as she continued to scan the crowd, her every heartbeat like the ticking of a timer. They had no idea how long the brag’s favor would last. And if it disappeared before Violet got out? They were dead.
A skinny brag in a long brown coat stood by himself at the bar, looking down at an untouched drink. He was one of the youngest men here. Aster was just about to approach him when another girl reached him first, leaning easy against the counter.
Damn it.
Aster turned away, searching desperately for someone else she could corner. Then, she spotted him: a man hovering alone by the piano, near enough the front door that Dex was sure to come running at her distraction. The brag wore the faded gray uniform of the Arkettan forces. Glory to the Reckoning, the words beneath his stripes said—the national motto. Like lawmen, armymen were offered a reduced price at welcome houses. They were always eager to find someone to listen to their stories about the dustblood rebels they’d helped capture.
Aster started towards him, slicing through the crowd.
“Looks like you could use some company,” she said, slipping in at his side and trailing her fingers along his arm. Aster was never usually this forward, and for the first time she found herself wishing she had Violet’s skill in effortless flirting.
The armyman squared up, his eyes glassy and unfocused from too much drink. “And what’s your name, miss?” he asked thickly.
“I’m called Aster. See?” she teased, turning to show off her favor. She managed a sweeping glance of the room as she did so, but there was still no sign of Violet. She swallowed around the knot in her throat.
“Well, Lieutenant Carney, at your service, Aster,” the armyman introduced himself, clumsily tipping his slouch hat. He eyed her up and down slowly, a half grin spreading across his face. A daybreak girl passed by with a tray of bright cocktails. He swiped two.
“Sweet drink for a sweet girl?” he asked.
Aster thanked him demurely, taking the glass. She looked past him to the stairs. Where was Violet?
And then Aster spotted her, swaggering down the steps with surprising confidence. Her long hair had been tucked away underneath the brag’s hat, her feminine figure hidden by his knee-length coat. She’d wrapped his silk dustkerchief around the bottom half of her face. But it wasn’t these things that made her look the part. It was the way she carried herself, the natural authority and obvious sense of entitlement. She showed none of the fear that she surely felt.
Aster’s blood raced. She wet her lips.
“Wander well,” Carney said to her cheerfully, raising his glass in a toast.
She turned to the armyman, fighting to keep her calm. “Wander well,” she replied with a forced smile, and she drained her drink in three swallows.
The alcohol lit a fire down her throat, sticky sweetness burning on her tongue. She coughed violently. Braced herself against Carney’s shoulder as her head spun.
Carney rubbed her back, laughing. Her skin crawled at his touch.
“Easy!” he said with disbelief. “You dustblood girls really are tough as drygrass.”
“Well, we aim to impress, Lieutenant,” she replied airily. “Though I’ll confess I’m feeling a bit faint now.” She straightened up but let herself sway where she stood.
“Nothing a chaser won’t fix,” Carney said with too much eagerness.
Aster looked past him again. Violet had made it to the foyer. She was next in line to leave.
Carney persisted. “Here, I’ll take you to the bar—”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Aster said quickly. “I just need to sit for a spell.” She took a few wobbly steps, let out a dramatic wail, and collapsed to the floor. The piano music cut off. A collective gasp went up around the room.
Aster remained on the floor, eyes closed, as chaos erupted around her. A jumble of voices filled the air: girls calling her name, a man calling for help. The floor vibrated under her cheek with the thumps of footsteps as a crowd gathered. She could hear Mother Fleur pushing through them and apologizing for the disturbance. The smell of cigar smoke in the rug turned her stomach.
“Keep back, she’s with me,” Carney ordered.
Aster fluttered her eyes open. A tangle of legs stood between her and the front door, but she could just make out Violet, striding outside. Dex was lumbering towards the growing crowd, forcing calm upon the guests with his mental influence. Aster’s relief, however, was her own.
Violet had made it out.
Then a cold realization trickled down Aster’s spine, chilling her brief rush of triumph: What if Violet simply ran away? What if she didn’t wheel the cart around for the rest of them, just used the brag’s hand to make her escape and leave them for dead? Maybe she’d only wanted to use them, maybe that had been her plan all along.
No choice now but to see this through.
Aster looked up at Dex, whose lip curled to reveal yellowed teeth, and Mother Fleur, whose mouth smiled but whose eyes flashed with fury. Aster’s sloppy behavior would reflect poorly on the welcome house. Normally that would mean she’d spend tomorrow having her mind pulled apart by one of the raveners.
But by this time tomorrow, Aster would either be free or dead.
“Are you all right, Aster?” Mother Fleur asked, her voice dripping with false concern.
Aster took Carney’s hand and stood up slowly. “I’m fine now, ma’am. Just got a little lightheaded. Sorry for causing a stir.” She didn’t have to fake the quaver in her voice. “I think I had better retire for the night, though, with your permission.”
“Of course,” Mother Fleur replied. “And the lieutenant here would like to come along and make sure you’re okay, and spend a little time with you.” She turned towards the brag and smiled. “The Aster Room is at the end of the hall on the right.”
Carney stepped in closer as the rest of the crowd began to dissipate. Aster’s panic doubled.
“Actually, I’m not sure—” she began.
“Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,” he promised. He draped his arm around her and guided her towards the stairs.
Aster’s heart thudded against her rib cage. This wasn’t part of the plan. She couldn’t bring him into her room. Clementine and the others were probably climbing out of the window right now. Or, if Violet had abandoned them, they were trapped there with no escape.
She made herself stumble on the first step.
“Careful, now,” Carney said. “Don’t want you taking another nasty tumble.”
“Seems I’m too weak to go upstairs just yet,” Aster demurred. She’d hoped to stall for a moment, give everyone time to get out, but Carney simply scooped her up and started up the stairs.
“No problem at all,” he said gallantly.
Aster mouthed a curse. Of course acting helpless would only encourage him.
He smiled down at her as he continued to talk, and Aster began to feel ill in earnest. And then there was the usual fear, too, the one that took hold of Aster every time she climbed these stairs with a brag. Bone-cold dread rose up to drown her. It didn’t matter that Carney seemed to think himself chivalrous. The end result was always the same.
They reached the top of the stairs. Carney set her down. Aster made a slow gallows walk to the end of the hall. She drew in a tight breath as she wrapped her hand around the knob.
Please, by the Veil, don’t let me find anyone behind this door. Let them have escaped. Please.
She opened the door.
And exhaled. The room was empty, the window open. She strolled over to it, pretending to simply close the curtains. She glanced down and saw the hay cart waiting below.
Clementine had gotten out. They’d all gotten out.
Then Carney closed the door behind him with a thud, dropping Aster’s heart. She couldn’t jump with him standing there right behind her.
You’ll just have to fight him. Knock him out.
A trained soldier? She didn’t like her chances.
“Well, then, where should we start?” Carney asked, his words slurring slightly. He stepped in behind her and circled her waist with his meaty hands.
Aster’s throat swelled. Her eyes burned. She could already feel herself sliding into that place of numb detachment where she went every night, her mind floating farther and farther away and leaving her body to fend for itself. Her breath was overloud in her ears, and her limbs grew so heavy she might as well have swallowed a whole week’s worth of Sweet Thistle.
Sweet Thistle.
That’s it.
“Let’s get you out of that dress. Help you breathe a little easier,” Carney said. She spun around to face him, still in his grasp.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while,” she murmured into his ear. “But I’m not sure you’re up for it.”
“Oh?”
“Let me see if I can find it.”
Aster disentangled herself and retreated to her vanity, where her bottle of Sweet Thistle sat nestled among the jewelry and hairbrushes.
She wet her lips, a flare of anger burning through the fog filling her mind. Every week, Mother Fleur had expected her to be grateful for this Sweet Thistle. Her parents had expected her to be grateful for this home. Lieutenant Carney probably expected her to be grateful for his restraint. As if any of those things changed what this place was, what it had almost done to Clementine. What it had already done to Aster and a thousand others.
“You’re beautiful, you know,” Carney said idly. “Most of these dustblood girls…” He just shook his head. “But what else can a man expect from the Scab? Glad I found some good luck here after all.”
I should crack a mirror over his head.
Slit his throat with a shard of the glass.
Let him bleed like a pig.
But no, she couldn’t. She had to control her anger just as she controlled her fear. It was the only way she would make it out of here alive.
“What’ve you got there?” Carney continued. He had snuck up behind her, surprisingly light-footed.
She swallowed and showed him the bottle of Sweet Thistle. “Just a little pick-me-up leftover from a former guest,” she said brightly. “Interested?”
Carney raised an eyebrow. “What exactly does this pick-me-up do?”
“It’s an extract of a rare flower from the peaks of the mountains,” Aster lied. “Said to open your mind and senses and unlock your deepest potential for pleasure.”
“That so?”
She nodded. “Just a drop under your tongue. And the more you use, the stronger the effect. Not every man can handle it, though. Most can’t manage more than a dose or two. But an armyman such as yourself…”
“Hand it over,” Carney said roughly. Aster obliged, watching, tensed, as he unscrewed the cap and ran the bottle under his nose. If he recognized the scent of Sweet Thistle, he would know Aster was playing him. But he just filled the dropper all the way to the top, opened his mouth, and emptied the liquid under his tongue.
“See? No problem,” Carney said, his slur growing even more pronounced, the drug beginning to work its magic. “Now you just come over here and we can—we can—”
He sat heavily on the bed, muttered a low curse, and fell back. Aster hurried to his side. His eyes were half open but unseeing, his words faint and incomprehensible. If he wasn’t already asleep, he would be soon.
Aster moved quickly.
She ran back to the window. The hay cart was still there, mercifully. And the sluggishness that had taken over her limbs just moments ago had lifted completely. Aster brimmed with energy, equal parts fear and anticipation. How many nights had she imagined an escape? It was finally happening.
But not if she didn’t hurry. Every second she wasted was a second the other girls might be discovered in the stables.
She lifted first one leg then the next out the window, the iron sill biting into her palms. She was certain that if she lingered even a moment, someone, something would come to stop her. A heartbeat later, she sat on the window ledge, legs dangling over open air. The distance between her feet and the hay cart seemed to yawn wider, now that the moment to jump was here. Go, she told herself. Jump.
But instead Aster turned and looked over her shoulder—at the room that had been her prison for so long, at the man who would have used her like so many others already had. Nothing short of the death of a brag had given her this chance to escape, and she knew it was a chance that would come only this once.
Aster made a decision right then. Even if it meant her life, she would never come back to this place or any place like it.
She would never be a Good Luck Girl again.
5
Aster pushed off the ledge, and then for a moment, just a moment, she felt like she was flying.
When Aster was seven years old, she had jumped from the high branch of a half-dead evergreen behind their rundown house in the tenant camp. She’d thought if she climbed high enough and jumped far enough, the wind would carry her and she would soar over the mountains and out of the Scab.
Instead, she’d crashed to the ground and twisted her ankle, which swelled up to the size of a crab apple. But it had been worth it, for that fleeting moment of flight and the promise of freedom.
This time, Aster knew the wind wouldn’t carry her anywhere—but as she fell, the night air whispering around her, anything felt possible.
She hit the cart feet first, pain shooting through her shins despite the cushion of the hay. She couldn’t help a startled cry. The crack of the wood seemed loud as a gunshot. She shook off the sting as best she could and clambered over the side slats, stumbling away into the night before one of the raveners came to investigate.
Aster hugged the white wood siding of the welcome house, picking her way through low bushes that snagged on her stockings, crouching every time she passed the glow of a window. Part of her was desperate to break into a run, but another part of her knew she had to stay careful and quiet. There were too many people milling around the veranda outside the welcome house. The livery stables were right next door, but the distance felt endless.
Aster couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been out after dark. Mother Fleur made the younger girls tend to the outside of the welcome house, washing the windows and sweeping the porch, but that had always been during the blistering heat of day. This night was refreshingly brisk in comparison, a cold compress held to a feverish forehead. Aster took a deep breath, unable even in her desperation to help but savor the sweetness of the air, the taste of the mountains on her tongue.
Finally, she reached the end of the building. She paused, checking around the corner to make sure no one was lurking in the side yard between the welcome house and the stables, then dashed across the gap and ducked through the stable entrance. The thick, grassy smell of manure and hay filled her nose.
She kept low and scanned the dark for any sign of Augie, the nighttime stableman. It was a well-known fact that, on slower weeknights like this, Augie could usually be found across the street at Clooney’s, gambling his meager earnings until he could afford to treat himself to the girls’ company. He liked to joke it was his job to take care of them, same as the horses. His habits were now welcome: he was nowhere in sight.
Still, at least one stableboy would have been left alone to mind the horses and muck the stalls. It had be
en Violet’s job to subdue him discreetly somehow. He’d be young and unarmed, Aster had reassured her—but then, so was Violet.
Aster crept further into the building, searching for the others. Most of the horses slept where they stood, but a few whickered softly as Aster checked their stalls, their eyes black and shiny as wet ink and the air thick with their scent. The stable was open on both ends, and the opposite entrance faced Main Street, where groups of men ambled by on their way from saloon to saloon, silhouetted in the lamplight. Their laughter crackled through the dark. Aster knew there would only be more of them as the night wore on.
She had to find her sister, now.
Aster neared the end of the aisle. Dread ate away at her from the inside. Maybe they already left.
Or maybe they’d been caught.
Then she heard tight whispers not far up ahead. She followed the sound, mouthing a prayer.
And then there they were: Clementine, Mallow, Tansy, and Violet, all four huddled together in the dark corner of an empty stall. The shaggy-haired stableboy lay next to them, hurriedly bound and gagged.
Aster let out a ragged breath, her body flooding with relief so strong it left her light-headed. She put her hand against the rough wooden wall to steady herself. And then sank down to the hard earth.
“You made it,” Tansy said, her voice an excited whisper.
Clementine crawled over and wrapped Aster in a fierce hug.
“What the hell took you so long?” Violet demanded.
Aster sighed and released Clementine.
“Ran into a spot of trouble,” she said shortly. “Took care of it, but someone’s sure to notice that cart soon. How’d you handle the stableboy?”
“Came in here pretending to be a customer and cracked him over the head with a pitchfork as soon as he turned his back.”
“What? I told you to handle him discreetly,” Aster hissed. “The last thing we need is another body to hide—”
“Calm down, I didn’t hit him that hard. We’re not all murderers like your sister here.”
The Good Luck Girls Page 5