Page 25 of Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Twenty-Five

D rusilla had banished me from the throne room without uttering a single word of praise now that it was spotless and glistening and fit to welcome the residents of Dreadmist. I’d mopped and scrubbed the floors until they reflected with a glossy marbled shine, climbed wobbling ladders to dust and sweep away cobwebs, polished the gilded clock and sconces, and chased a family of mice from one of the room’s pillared alcoves. I’d even replaced the hundreds of tapers in the chandeliers. Drusilla only summoned me again to light a fire in the massive hearth, overseeing the task until I was covered in soot. With a fanged sneer, I was dismissed, the lock clicking solidly behind me.

It seemed her tolerance of me was a fragile thing despite our understanding.

I was on my way back to scrub the hallways in the surrounding wing, toting buckets of clean water with rags draped over them. Vampiric strength had made my duties easier—though I’d built up quite a lot of muscle strength as a mortal—and the tasks lighter. I had to remember to feign an air of mortal clumsiness. I’d let the buckets slip from my grasp, leaving trails of soap suds and water. I’d stop to rest often, claiming fatigue, then wander the hallways to the kitchens. The diversions helped me to listen to the rooms and corridors, surreptitious as I sought out heartbeats and whispers.

They never seemed to lead me to Sonia.

If only there was some way to gain her personal favor. She did not seek me out unless there were bloodstains that needed lifting, because she couldn’t be bothered to rid them with her sorcery. Perhaps that was beneath her, too. I hadn’t seen the lady of the castle ruins since she’d inspected the ballroom last, urging me to hurry so that preparations could be made. I shuddered to think of what nefarious things she could’ve been doing while she kept me occupied.

It was all I could do to resist the call of my own sorcery. But I had to find something that would make me useful to her beyond this menial—

Voices broke my train of thought. I’d stopped in the intersection of the upstairs hallways, buckets lowered at my side. I held my breath as if my own lurching heartbeat wouldn’t give me away. I heard two of them; two heartbeats, one calm, the other distressed…pounding a fledgling’s cadence that I knew all too well. I’d come to recognize the newly-Turned among them.

“You’ve got to pull yourself out of this,” a voice demanded, familiar and lethal as a blade-point. Anastasia. “No time for mourning. Sonia’ll have your heart if you keep carrying on. She’s got no patience for it.”

“…watched her turn to ash in front of me.”

“The same will happen to us all if we aren’t careful. I think she’s underestimated their power,” Anastasia admitted. “But we’ll outnumber them, and they’ll be dead soon enough. You’ll see.”

“It hurts something terrible,” the fledgling said, her voice wavering. “I thought you’d promised it will heal.”

“It will ,” Anastasia said. I heard the scorn in her words like deadly venom. “If you’d stop bloody crying over it. You think you’re the first the sun’s touched with its cruel glare? That’ll teach you.”

It seemed that the coven did not warn them of their fate, and the wounds from their daylight curse took a fair bit longer to fade even with constant feedings. How cruel it was to promise eternity without mentioning their unique affliction.

But then, my own Turning hadn’t been all that different. I’d hardly known everything about sorcerer’s blood and my coven’s own curses.

The unpleasant realization settled like a pang in my chest.

“Lady Tremaine’s supposed to stop someone who can turn you to dust from the inside?” the fledgling asked. “She can’t even let the sun on her face.”

“Everything bows to the blood of a sorcerer,” Anastasia promised. The words rang, ominous and deadly, as if Sonia had uttered them herself. “In due time. You’d best keep your doubts to yourself, or else she’ll hear them. And the sun will be the least of your worries.”

Their voices traveled nearer, echoing in the hall to my right. I knew Anastasia would scent me, knew that she’d caught my mortal pulse as they’d been talking. I didn’t have the patience to be her victim. Quickly as I could, I picked up my buckets and hurried down the staircase before they turned the corner. Anastasia’s flinty curse pushed me into the hidden servant’s door at the next landing. The gloom of the ruins ushered me inside.

She wouldn’t hunt me in here, but I always had the distinct fear that something else would. Moving between the walls of the castle had shown me how truly weak they were. They could pretend the decay wasn’t there all they liked, but it wouldn’t last.

I’d learned which craters in the rock to jump over. Which staircases to avoid, as they couldn’t even hold the weight of a vampire’s lightest step. Sometimes daylight poked through the cracks, and I was sure that was why none of the coven decided to chase me out. But deeper in the ruins of this lost fortress, the darkness was absolute, falling around me in a swath of dark blue.

And whatever monsters they’d kept were awake.

I never felt alone in these hidden corridors.

A gust of breath slithered down the back of my neck. I whirled around, suds and water sloshing over the brims. Nothing except autumn wind and cobwebs, as always. My fledgling senses found noises my mortal ears had never head. There were bats and mice living here long before the coven had moved in. The countryside had laid claim to the ruins and even a blood sorcerer couldn’t vanquish the ivy and weeds that grew through the stone, couldn’t uproot the trees that had staked the dirt.

But every time I walked these narrow corridors, their secrets never stayed silent. Between the flutter of bat’s wings and nails scraping against rock, guttural sounds shambled toward me. Torturous, piercing, nightmarish kinds of sounds, like what the ichor had filled my head with when I’d held it.

I had brought my concerns back to my own coven. Clarabella and Gwen had spent an afternoon scouring the library tower, where they’d found ancient maps and renderings of the old castle. The three of us had realized—with a slow creep of dread—the dungeons were still intact. They were the most likely source of the noises, as the cavernous hold was nestled in the underbelly of the castle’s remains. Gwen had gone on to recount the gruesome details of torture at the hands of royal-born sorcerers, so gory that the walls were said to still drip bright red. And then Morrigan had promptly told her stop, leaving the tower and the dusty old books with brusque strides. She’d disappeared for the rest of that evening. The illustrations of sorcerer’s torture methods had kept me from sleep. Down here, where their victims once screamed their last pleas, I could think of nothing else apart from the barbaric history I’d inherited.

I did not tell Gwen that I suspected Estella was being held within them .

Perhaps the castle was haunted by its centuries of bloodletting.

My efforts to uncover a route to its dungeons had failed so far. I explored each twist and turn as I came upon them, even if the path took me out of my way from the current task at hand. Some passageways led me to locked doors, others had dead ends. The closest I’d gotten—following monstrous noises as if I had bat’s ears my own—was a corridor blocked with collapsed stone. I’d started shoving rocks aside, planning to wedge myself through a crevice, but the low archway had given a quaking sigh of protest. I hadn’t wanted to get buried alive for eternity in the ruins. But, stars guide me, I would find the dungeons somehow.

I’d find Estella and the lost dhampir.

The servant’s corridor spat me out near the throne room, where I heard the strains of Drusilla griping about something. Treading lightly past the doors, I collected my mops and scrub brushes, then set to work a safe distance away. The solid marble brought an ache to my knees that I ignored. Leaned over like I was, the chains on my chatelaine almost kissed the floor. That I could not ignore. An empty vial, a promise not kept. I glanced at the clock looming over the hallway; it was past noon already.

Working the soapy water into a lather, I scrubbed dirt and peeled dried wax from the marble. Some of the stains took more time and a harsher touch to wash away. But eventually, the white and red tiles sparkled beneath a glaze of clean water. I saw my mortal eyes reflected back at me, a warm, rich amber-brown.

The momentary pierce of grief was stolen by the haunted creatures below. In the stillness, their pain, their wretched noises, clawed through stone and marble, desperate for anyone to hear them. I halted the rag scrunched in my fist and settled my ear against the floor. My chatelaine clinked as it met the tiles. Water seeped slowly into my clothes. I couldn’t help but conjure visions of Sonia torturing the High Council somewhere down there, ichor thick in the air, reeking of poison and blood. Rot festering in the heart of this place.

Boots and delicate heeled shoes splashed through clean water. My head snapped up at once. Dried mud flaked off the soles of the boots, pieces of crushed leaves floating in their wake. Someone else kicked over the bucket just out of my reach, and a wave of filmy, dull grey washed out the progress I’d made.

I sat back on my knees, holding in an enraged scream and all of the vile curses I wanted to shout at them. Feral power licked at my veins, begging for me to let it loose. I held onto restraint, though I was alarmed at how fast the brutal feeling had surged within. I wished to force them to their knees, to make the water run scarlet until it flooded the entire hallway. My blood ached—with sudden, startling clarity—to see them suffer.

“You’re back again, are you?” Anastasia scowled. She was surrounded by some of her underlings, her arm slung around the waist of a pretty mortal woman with fresh bite wounds. Her head rolled against Anastasia’s shoulder, drained into a stupor, lips nearly bloodless. “Pity.”

“There’s still plenty of work to be done,” I said. “As you can see.”

“I think we should’ve bled you. We still could.”

Fangs bared, she kicked filthy water into my face, staining the front of my apron. I sputtered as I reached for the overturned bucket, tried not to retch from the smell. Within me, the untamed sorcery seethed, thrashing in my veins. My pulse hastened.

“I’m just here to do my job.”

“What do you think happened to the last girl? And the one before that?” Anastasia sucked on her blood-teeth. “Don’t know why Sonia’s so fond of you.” She glared down at me, her grey eyes flinty. “Miserable little urchin.”

“I doubt Lady Tremaine will want to search for new help this close to the Blood Moon. ”

“Oh, you’ll be rotting away below our feet before she realizes you’re gone.”

“Anastasia.” Sonia’s command brought the hallway to immediate silence and cut Anastasia’s laughter short. I reeled in the tendril of power that had begun to unravel from me, clutching it tight, begging it to retreat. “Leave the girl to her chores.”

“Not much good at them, is she?” Her loathing smirk seemed to hold a deadlier promise than her fangs.

“And you’re quite finished here,” Sonia said. “Go on and help Dru with her decorations before she gets bored of it. The rest of you may leave us. I need to speak with the girl.”

The smirk vanished from Anastasia’s lips. Her underlings scattered, parting to let Sonia through. I offered a helpless glance at Anastasia’s mortal companion, wishing now that I could escort her to a safe haven, find her passage through the servant’s corridors. Whether or not she was in the coven house of her own free will, she’d given too much blood. She wouldn’t make it like this. Their coven, who held no regard for mortal lives, would let Anastasia kill her. Like the others.

I couldn’t linger on the number of mortals they must’ve drained since their coven had arrived in the harbor. All of the lives they’d destroyed or would destroy if we didn’t stop them. How many bones littered the dungeons?

Water rippled around Sonia’s feet. I winced as her skirts dragged behind her, absorbing the mess. I stood too quickly and the bucket’s handle fell from my grasp, clattering between us.

My eyelids pinched shut. “I apologize, my lady, I’ll—I’ll have this cleaned right away and launder your skirts, if you’d—”

“You can finish this later, child.” She quieted me with a dismissive wave of her hand. Blood had gathered underneath her fingernails; she hadn’t washed away all of it. While her blood-scent was untraceable to my senses, I recognized vampire’s blood. “I need you in the dining room. We’re having guests for supper. ”

“Guests?” I tried to hide my miserable exasperation and failed. My boot’s heel caught an errant smear of soap suds and went gliding awkwardly to the side, almost sliding out from under me. Sonia watched me failing to maintain my balance, her lips pursed. I caught myself with my hands and narrowly avoided a fall.

“Can you cook? I sent Drusilla on an errand last night…hopefully she found something edible. If not, you’ll have to go to the market.”

“I can, a little, but—”

Sonia was already walking away in that eerie, levitating manner she possessed, her steps barely striking the ground. “Our guests will be arriving at sunset,” she said. “I’ll need the dining room ready for them. Find the good silver, won’t you? And don’t forget the wine. They might be expecting tea, but this occasion calls for wine.”

Sunset is in four hours , I realized. She must be out of her bloodthirsty skull.

Were her unfortunate guests aware that their own hearts were likely to be her main course after she plied them with wine and supper?

I had mostly cooked for myself, and while my skills were decent to my own palate, I didn’t know if they would satisfy the castle’s guests, whoever they were. The kitchen had meager offerings. There was a cellar full of wine, at least, but I stood there in a panic for precious minutes trying to decide what to serve.

“All right.” I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead, tried for calmer breaths. “Perhaps it won’t be terrible. There’s still meat in the icebox, and if they had any sense…” I laughed aloud in the empty room. “Right, then. Let’s get a fire going, to start.”

I was covered in dusty hearth soot again once I’d gotten the firewood to take a flame. It clung to my apron like mud since I was still damp.

The cast iron cookware was in a rough state, but I found a pot large enough for the task. “Do we have vegetables?” I wondered out loud to myself. “Where would they have put—ah, there. Drusilla does have some sense, after all.”

She had left her groceries along the counter, haphazard and disorganized. Autumnal squash in a heap, potatoes and carrots and onions piled into a woven basket. I took stock of all of my ingredients, sniffing at the meat wrapped in thin butcher’s paper.

I was surprised at how my body reacted to its scent. The tang of animal’s blood was potent. The raw beef pushed my cravings to the fore, left me salivating, hunger burning anew. I sucked on my aching blood-teeth while I stared at the watery red that stained the translucent paper. I would have torn through it with my bare hands like a child sneaking sweets before supper if I had enough time to replace it. The thought of eating raw meat turned my stomach, but that coppery scent—

Stars above, I swore at myself. Control your bloodthirst, Elspeth. I doubt the taste will be satisfying. What would Morrigan think if she’d found out I’d turned into a slavering beast over animal’s blood?

“Well, cooking is going to be an adventure,” I mused. “Stew it is. It’s the right season for it no matter your station.”

The faster I got the ingredients into the pot, the faster my needy hunger would dissipate. After I’d chopped the vegetables and meat—guided by nothing else except for my own memories of comfort and warmth, a hearty meal—I added everything together with whatever seasonings I could procure from the cupboards. I assumed perhaps their mortal guests sometimes kept the kitchen from going bare, if they survived long enough to feed themselves. Leaving the stew to the fire, I took the servant’s entrance to the dining room, passing through the wine cellar that stank of mildew and acrid fermented grapes. I’d have to choose something presentable from a graveyard of broken bottles and spilled wine.

“Now…” I drawled, “for the dining room, which…if I remember…” Pulling open the double doors, the first thing I heard were claws scampering on wood, a tiny squeak of retreat. “Ah, yes. Exactly as I feared. Disastrous.”

Covering up the desolate state of the castle in this room would be near impossible. I could already hear the wind screaming, beckoning me to enter like a challenge bargained by the fae-folk in the ancient tales.

I’d come too far to back away now.