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I snatched a scrambling rat before it could retreat to its hiding hole, breaking its neck in one smooth motion.

Samara, a princess is not meant to hunt vermin.

That’s what my mother would have said if she saw my dirty fingers grab the rat’s matted fur, likely as her delicate fingers pinched her nose. I’d have meekly apologized for my unladylike behavior.

The dying squeak chased away the echoes of her imagined reprimand like smoke.

It had been more than a decade since I’d last heard her voice, pained and pleading.

Now, I went days, a week at a time, without uttering more than the occasional grunt.

It was better that way. Safer. It was all too easy to remember I wasn’t a lady, and despite my mother’s wild wishes, I’d never been a princess.

The prison allowed no delusions.

I slid the carcass into the makeshift pouch in my skirts with the others, and hustled down the hall to check my traps, adding several more unlucky rats to my collection.

My cloth-wrapped feet scraped over the rough stone as I worked systematically through the halls.

Time. Somehow it passed too quickly in a day, and too slowly in a year.

A dozen rats weren’t easy to catch, even with the traps I’d made.

Especially not today.

A new prisoner had come in. That wasn’t so unusual.

But whoever this prisoner was, he’d set off the rest of the inmates.

The halls had echoed with screams for hours, the rough crack of the whip their metronome.

The guards liked to have fun with the new ones.

When the other prisoners cried out, they’d have the whip turned on them as well.

Catching rats was tricky at the best of times, but the yelling and carrying on had made my job all the harder. They hid in small corners and scratched and bit to try to escape the inevitable, even after they were caught.

Not that it ever worked. Something I knew all too well.

My mother would have thought it was horrific. Me? I was numb to the task after all these years. The disgust of being around dead vermin wears off pretty quickly once you realize it’s keeping you away from the living ones .

As I walked into the kitchen, Nelson was at his preferred post, the single half-functional chair in the main servants’s chamber. It might as well have been a throne by the way he ordered everyone about. “Hurry up, you lazy shit!” he snapped with his scratchy voice. “Kitchen won’t wait all day.”

I picked up the pace, taking care not to drop my haul.

Nelson leered at me as I passed. I made a show of speeding up, hoping that would soothe his ego. He wasn’t as highly ranked as a guard, but rather was a disgraced noble’s son, which made him our superior. He lorded his status over us. He was constantly imagining infractions against him.

That was how you got sent to clean the toilets.

It wouldn’t have been quite so terrible if everyone took their turn.

Instead, Nelson let his favored few skip their shifts, worsening the smell until some unlucky sap was sent to clean up.

Unlike the rest of the Witch Kingdom, magic was inaccessible in Greymere, meaning the feces had to be scraped by hand instead of washed away with an enchanted card.

I eased through the doorway, trying to avoid the other servants. The kitchen was half the size it needed to be for the number of prisoners we had. It was the only warm room in the prison, except you couldn’t enjoy it. The air was always sticky with sweat from the workers.

I deposited the rats near Cook, who was brewing the main course. He accepted them with a grunt, and I didn’t bother to acknowledge him before starting on my next task.

There was always more to do, and if you looked like you didn’t have enough for even a moment… toilets .

I’d delivered the rats just in time to be added to this supper’s stew.

Next on my rotation was washing the dishes from breakfast. Technically, Robbie was supposed to do that in the morning, but as Nelson’s lone friend and co-bully, he got away with slacking off more than anyone else.

Usually, he put the blame on me when the dishes weren’t done by the evening.

Washing dishes had some advantages. It was the one place in the prison where we could actually use soap, even if it was the lousiest sliver of soap going.

Baths were a thing of the past in Greymere.

I got used to the smell after a while, sure.

But inevitably, my fingers were plastered with blood after breaking the necks of the rats all day.

The blood was the worst part. It never really left, not completely, no matter how much I scrubbed.

The downside of washing dishes was that it left you exposed in the kitchen. Out of sight, out of Nelson’s mind, meant you were safe. The kitchen, which Nelson peered in on with all the impudence of a cat surveying paralyzed mice, left you directly in his line of sight.

It took ages to clean the dishes. Long enough that Cook finished making his rat soup and supper had been dispersed to the prisoners. He poured one cup—a generous one, with big chunks of meat—and left it at my side without a word. I nodded my thanks, my stomach rumbling at the sight.

The nobles at the capital would’ve been repulsed. But when it’s prison slop or starvation, you stop being picky in a hurry. I only got one meal a day, if that, and it was mostly due to Cook’s charity.

I placed the last dish in the drying rack and reached for the cup. It was barely warm and would be cold by the time I scurried off somewhere safe to eat it, any heat sucked out by the prison’s chill. But I’d be safe, and safety trumped comfort.

I reached for it, and readied to make my exit, when Nelson’s nasally voice cut through.

“You’ve been slacking off,” Nelson snapped, appearing so suddenly I just knew he’d been waiting for me to finish.

The kitchen was empty now. I just kept my eyes down. Cleaning the privy at this hour meant I wouldn’t sleep until nearly dawn.

He lifted a bowl with an appraising eye, then another. “These are all still dirty.”

They weren’t, but I ground my teeth and didn’t say a single word as he dumped a pile of bowls back into the sink.

“Do it again.”

I said nothing, praying to any number of unspecified gods that Nelson would move along once I washed them again. Unfortunately, he wasn’t satisfied .

He looked at the cup Cook had left me. It was small, a quarter of a normal portion the others got, even less compared to what Nelson claimed.

I braced for him to dump it out and toss the dirty dish into my pile.

My stomach clenched at the thought, even though I was no stranger to hunger. Not anymore.

Instead, he looked from the cup, to me, and back. And spat in it.

He didn’t say another word, walking away with a spring in his step.

Whatever. I’d eaten worse.

Three years. Just three more years, and I’d be free of this place. Once my sentence was finished, I would go to the Monastery. They would take me in despite my criminal sentence. I’d finally have a place where I belonged. Where I was safe.

I just had to make it until then.

I continued on the dishes, my fingers pruned from the water. By the time I set the last one to dry, it was well past midnight. I stumbled out of the kitchen, the cup of soup clutched between my hands.

I just wanted to rest. Just a few hours.

But Nelson was still at his perch, a smirk on his lips. He slid a glass jar over to me. A healing balm, weak and non-magical.

This day just got better and better.

“You’re to see to the new prisoner. Cell 48, Block D.”

The one that had set off the other prisoners screaming .

The balm wasn’t a gift, not really. Sure, limbs rotting off from infection might sound unpleasant, but in Greymere, the only escape was death. The balm would take the latest captive that much farther from its clutches—though from the hours of whip-cracks I’d heard, it might not be enough.

I was so tired, I dared to ask, “Can this wait until tomorrow?”

Nelson shook his head, not dropping that infuriating smile.

The fact he didn’t slap me for insubordination was even more worrisome.

“This fellow could use a woman’s touch after the day he had.

The guards were quite diligent with ‘em. I heard they didn’t leave the cell until after nightfall.

Besides, I hear the new guy is a night owl. ”

His little joke barely registered. All that whipping had been on one prisoner?

I snatched the balm from the desk and left before Nelson could come up with some other task.

Block D was on the opposite side of Greymere from the kitchens, where the most dangerous prisoners were kept.

Not that it mattered. Even the strongest witches on the outside were powerless in Greymere.

Cut off from magic, they invariably went mad.

I stuck to the shadows, clutching Nelson’s skeleton key in my hand. Theoretically, it should’ve been safe to wander about the prison since all the inmates were locked up with no chance of escaping .

Only a fool would think the worst part of the prison was the prisoners, though.

Three more years.

My footsteps were nearly silent as I approached the cell. The screams had quieted at least, the inmates asleep. I didn’t relish waking this one up, but he’d be too weak to attack me if what Nelson said was true about what the guards had done.

I slid the key into the lock and opened the door, the metal letting out a loud, angry creak. A glint of red flared against the darkness. A rat? was my stupid thought. But those eyes were far too big for rats.

I dropped the key with a clang.

Nelson had sent me to tend to a vampire.