Page 7

Chapter Six

Guinevere

Druvenlode had been constructed in response to the rich Silberquel mines; it hugged their entrances in a rough crescent, a gray city carved into the surrounding rock, honeycombed by splotches of yawning darkness that led to the vast tunnels snaking beneath the ridge.

Oil lanterns burned valiantly through the steam and coal dust that thickened the purple-hued drape of twilight, and horse-drawn carts laden with silver ore rattled the winding streets.

Throngs of people went about their business loudly and at a frantic pace, in a hurry to wrap up the day’s tasks and go home.

Guinevere couldn’t help but gawk everywhere she turned.

It was all so different from the neatness and carefully ordered elegance of the Shimmer Ward.

She craned her neck for a better view of every food stall that she and Oskar passed, perusing their offerings of ham sandwiches and buttered waffles and meat skewers and cups of peas in cream.

She wandered closer to inspect each billowing forge and sunken quarry. She cooed at every horse trotting by.

Oskar eventually clamped a hand around her upper arm. “Stop walking in circles,” he muttered, tugging her deeper into the bowels of the city.

Soon they entered what Guinevere’s tutors would have delicately called “a rough neighborhood.” There were fewer lanterns, golden light so wan that it looked almost sickly as it fell on decidedly shabbier buildings and piles of refuse.

The constant hammering from the nearby mines seemed louder—or perhaps there was less activity to drown it out.

The people in this area of Druvenlode weren’t shopping or working; they slunk into alleyways, huddled in groups on street corners passing around flasks, watched from glassless windows.

They watched her.

Oskar had thrown a cloak over Guinevere once the evening chill began to set in over the Amber Road.

Now she clutched it tightly around herself, conscious of her bare legs beneath.

The stares aimed her way ranged from perplexed to calculating, and it was all she could do to hold her head high and ignore them.

“Oskar,” she whispered, “where are we going?”

He stiffened at the nervous tremor in her voice. “My house. It’s fine, no one will bother you as long as you’re with me.”

“Why are we going to your house?”

“To eat and rest,” he said shortly. “It’s too late to shop, so we’ll do that tomorrow morning.”

“ Oskar. ” She was so shocked that she forgot her manners enough to pinch his arm. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay at your house.”

He blinked. “Why not?”

“It’s not proper!”

A man ambling past them in the opposite direction chose that moment to spit out his chewing tobacco. The wet black glob landed at Guinevere’s feet, and she nearly twisted her ankle to avoid stepping onit.

Oskar shot her a wry glance. “As you can see, propriety is not foremost on the mind here in the Dustbellows.”

“Well, it’s foremost on my mind,” she replied with a sniff. “Unless…does your mother live with you?” It would be better than nothing, as far as chaperones went.

He hesitated a beat too long before shaking his head.

“Then—I really can’t,” Guinevere insisted. “Please take me to an inn. You may fetch me there in the morning.”

They’d already spent one night together with nobody else around, back in the cave, and she’d traveled the whole day with him, wearing his clothes. She didn’t know why she’d selected now, of all times, to cling this stubbornly to the rules of her world.

Perhaps because this town was so foreign. She felt unmoored. She would have taken any anchor.

“You don’t have a coin to your name,” Oskar reminded her. “How are you going to pay for a room?”

“I’ll barter, as you’ve said.” Guinevere sounded more confident than she actually felt. But she figured that she could reimburse her parents with the generous allowance that she was soon to receive. She just had to make it to Nicodranas with the trunk. The rest would come later.

Oskar blew out an exasperated puff of breath. “All right.” He turned around, back the way they came, taking her with him. “We’ll find somewhere for you in the Silverstreet district.”

“It’s a nicer part of town?”

He rolled his eyes. “Folks here in the Dustbellows—their bark is worse than their bite. But Silverstreet is less likely to offend milady’s sensibilities.”

The Silverstreet innkeeper behind the reception desk threw back his head and let out guffaw after roaring guffaw. Guinevere had never felt more humiliated in her entire life.

He was big-boned and middle-aged, with a rotund belly that shook like pudding from the sheer force of his humor. She lifted her chin defiantly, knuckles clenched to white around the golden comb that she’d offered in payment for a room.

“Lass,” he said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, “what am I supposed to do with a comb?” He ran a hand over his shiny scalp. “I’m as bald as a badger’s arse over here.”

Guinevere flinched at the crude idiom. “I also have some cups—” she started to plead, but he waved her away impatiently.

“I only take coin, even from pretty faces such as yourself. Off with you if you don’t have any.”

Defeated and more than mildly vexed, Guinevere marched back to Oskar, who was leaning against the stone mantelpiece with his arms crossed, the pearwood trunk safely shoved behind him.

At first, he’d observed her pitiful attempt at negotiation with bemused interest, but at some point he’d devoted himself to casting a baleful glare around the room at large.

She looked around, puzzled. Only then did it sink in that the crowded lobby had grown somewhat quieter since she and Oskar arrived. The patrons who weren’t openly staring at her were sneaking covert glances as they ate supper and played cards and puffed on pipes and nursed tankards of ale.

As soon as each one of them noticed the dour and hulking specter beside her, though, they couldn’t return to what they were doing fast enough.

Once the inn had resumed its previous level of noise and activity, Oskar turned his full attention to Guinevere. “I thought you’d be better at bargaining,” he remarked. “Being a merchant’s daughter and all.”

“Oh, stop it,” she groused. “Now what am I going to do?”

He drew the hood of the cloak over her head with stern finality. Then he nodded to himself, as though satisfied, before answering her question. “Short of sleeping on the street, I’m afraid you’ll have to take me up on my offer.”

Guinevere was frustrated, embarrassed, and exhausted, and her feet hurt something awful. She couldn’t think clearly enough to guard her next words. “The gentlemanly thing to do would be to put me up at this inn for the night.”

All trace of amusement fled from Oskar’s demeanor. “I’m not a gentleman.”

“It’s not much for a room, only a gold piece,” she said wildly. Rules, she had to follow the rules; if it ever came to light that she’d slept in a strange man’s house, her parents would die of shame, and Lord Wensleydale would—

She realized too late that her desperation had made her sound petulant. And that she’d made a terrible mistake.

Oskar’s golden eyes had turned hard and sharp. No longer soft honey, but unforgiving, crystalline topaz. His oakmoss-hued features shuttered, and the craggy lines of his powerful shoulders went tense.

“I can’t afford it, Guinevere.”

A blunt statement of a simple fact, given in a cold voice stiff with desolate pride.

And how could it be that someone’s pride could humble her like this?

She hadn’t been thinking. She was used to having money.

Business had started going bad only two years ago, and her parents had shielded her from the worst of it.

To her, a gold piece was nothing. She had not stopped to consider how that wouldn’t be the case for everyone else.

Flooded with shame, Guinevere hung her head. “I’m so s—”

Before she could finish apologizing, Oskar grabbed the trunk. He tucked it under his arm again, the same way he’d been carrying it around all day. For her, even though she didn’t deserve it.

“Let’s go,” he said crisply. “I’m tired.”

She trailed behind him, out of the inn and down Druvenlode’s stone-paved labyrinth of dark streets.

The Silberquel mines did not cease their operations at night; the cacophony of hundreds of rumbling trolleys and pickaxes was a ceaseless aural wallpaper.

Every once in a while, the shadowy mountains groaned as though in protest.

Oskar kept his distance from Guinevere. He wore night like a cloak around him, the pulsing glow from the streetlamps flickering over the plane of his broad back.

They had reentered the Dustbellows by the time she mustered what little courage she had and bridged the space between them, her hand reaching out in front of her, fingers latching into the folds of his sleeve.

She couldn’t bring herself to say anything, her throat clogged with apologies that would never be enough, so she just held on and refused to let go.

He didn’t look back or slow his pace, but at least he didn’t shrug off her grip. That was something. Perhaps it was even enough.

I will stop being spoiled, Guinevere vowed fiercely to herself. I will learn people’s names. I will eat rabbit and be thankful.

I will be better.