She slipped through the crack between the door and the wall and closed it behind her—as if hiding Aleck from view could somehow help him. "Can I help you, sirs?"
The one on the left was a wiry old man, his coarse gray hair bristling beneath his helmet. He released a phlegmy cough. "You'll be coming with us."
The other knight was quiet and solemn with his plump lips pursed and his scruffy double chin set. He latched onto her forearm.
Searing hot pain branded her skin as his fingers curled around the burn. She jerked her arm away and cradled it to her chest. "Whatever for?"
The old man cleared his throat and paused to think. "Unpaid... unpaid debts. Yes, that was it."
It seemed the woman she'd bought the Miracle Oil from was collecting her payment early... but why? Carissa gritted her teeth and forced her breathing to slow. If she panicked and began heaving for air, her chest would explode with pain. "The apothecary agreed to give me a year to pay off my debts."
The thickset man stared at the door above her head blankly, while the old man scrubbed his jaw, evoking a rasping sound like sand paper. "Well, now. We don't know about an apothecary—do we, Tibby?" The old man continued before the other could respond, "We're taking you in an account of the debts you owe to your employer."
"My employer? Akar?" The muscles in her forehead pinched, a harbinger of an oncoming headache. "I don't owe him anything."
The old man made a noise that sounded like he was gurgling gravel. If Carissa had to guess, she'd say he was clearing his throat. He whipped out a scroll and unrolled it. "Five silvers owed for grooming."
She swayed before steadying herself against the doorpost. "For grooming? You mean the makeup Akar demands I wear?"
"Ten silvers for clothing."
Her gaze dropped to her dress. She'd been given two, and though they were serviceable enough... ten silvers? "No, there must have been some—"
"Seven silvers for cosmetics."
"Then what in Esmeray was the charge for grooming?"
The old man shrugged his knobby shoulders. "Five silvers for food."
"They're charging me for food? But they agreed—"
"One gold and three coppers for lodging."
Heat surged across her skin. She felt certain that if she reached out to touch the man's skin with her hand, his flesh would dribble off his bones, so certain than she was nearly tempted to try it. "Lodging? Lodging? They've charged me a gold for lodging?"
The bigger of the two smacked his lips. His gaze had wandered to the wall.
The old man bobbed his head. "Tibby says not to forget the three coppers. That will be a total of two gold coins, seven silver, and three coppers."
Carissa twisted the knob and shoved open the door to her and Aleck's room, revealing a single bed, a heap of blankets, a rickety table, and a basin. "They want gold for this room?"
The old man nodded his head.
"And when is all this due?"
"Three days ago."
"Three..." An icy undercurrent of dread drifted beneath her rage. "Then–then that means—"
"You're payment is overdue."
"Why wasn't I shown this charges earlier? I didn't know any of this."
The man held out the paper. "But you agree that all of these are services or goods you've received?"
"Yes, I've received them, but—"
"Then you've incurred this debt and have yet to pay it." The old man nodded to the other. "Make yourself useful, Tibby, and help me take this young woman to the jailhouse. I can take the boy."
"No!" Carissa planted her feet across the entryway. "This isn't fair. They agreed to provide for all of those things."
The old man scratched the hair beneath his helmet. "Do you have that agreement in writing?"
"No, but—"
"Then the agreement is void, and you are now under the jurisdiction of the Council. Come peaceably, now."
The other man, Tibby, took a lumbering step towards her, seized her upper arm, and with a single jerk, dragged her through the hallways.
She twisted to glance behind her and found that the old man had entered her room, probably to retrieve Aleck. "Let me go!" She jerked against his grip, but the big man kept walking, almost mindlessly.
They passed Akasha's doorway, where she stood at the doorway, her smile still in place and sharp as ever. A ruby necklace shone against her pearlescent skin. Her gossamer clothes glided past her delicately tiny waistline and streamed over her smooth legs.
"You! You did this!" Carissa lunged for Akasha. Her fingers curled around fabric, and she ripped Akasha's left sleeve. She stretched towards Akasha again, but they were too far past the doorway for Carissa to do further damage. She strained against the giant's grip, indulging herself in a daydream of ripping Akasha's smile from her pretty face.
***
Author's Note: I present to you another picture drawn by my little sister. If you guys enjoy these, I might start putting the pictures on Instagram a few days before I post the chapter.
1
Knight: STAHP
Carissa: HISSSS--Gonna rip your smile off of your pretty face.
2Knight: !
3Knight: Well, carp. (My sister's version of crap.)
Carissa: *cat mode* HHIIII
4Carissa: IIIISSSS
Akasha: Flop...
5*screaming*
*hissing*
*more screaming*
6SILENCE
7Akasha: *muffled "why"*
Carissa: Can't have your annoying smile now. Oh, you want it back?
8Carissa: Well, you can't have it!
Author's Note: Anyway, back to the story!
***
Akasha held out her palm vertically, appearing unfazed and elegant, despite her torn sleeve. "Wait."
Tibby lurched to a stop.
"Bring her here."
Carissa all too eagerly let the giant lead her. This was where Akasha would punish her as the giant held her down, but she was ready, and if she were lucky, she'd manage to sneak in a few strikes of her own.
They stopped in front of the doorway, and every muscle in Carissa's body was coiled tight.
"Release her."
Had those words really come from Akasha's mouth? Why would she have the man release her? Carissa was so surprised she only managed to stumble to her knees when Tibby let her go.
Akasha stepped aside and gestured to her room, her porcelain face unreadable.
Carissa stumbled to her feet, pain gripping her side, and shook her head. She wasn't going anywhere with that she-demon.
Akasha drew a long nail down Carissa's jawline. "I have a proposition for you, my lovely."
"What kind of proposition?"
"One that may save you and the boy from the jailhouse. Interested?" She gestured to her room once more.
This time, Carissa walked in. When the door closed behind them, Carissa whirled around. "Akar agreed to give me free lodging."
Akasha shrugged. "I care not what Akar promises you, only that you pay what you owe."
"But I don't owe—"
She held her palm up. "Would you like to hear my gracious offer or would you rather go to the jailhouse?"
Gracious? Carissa stifled a snort. She studied Akasha's dark blue eyes. They were the color between evening and night—after the sun had burrowed beneath the horizon but before the stars dared to peep at the earth below.
Akasha wanted something from her. That's why she'd arranged for Carissa's debts to be mount so high while concealing it from her.
Carissa swallowed her foreboding long enough to ask, "What?"
Akasha draped herself against the bedpost. "I think it's high time you find a higher paying profession, don't you?"
"Are you suggesting I find employment elsewhere?"
"Oh, not at all." Akasha glided closer. "I think you belong right here." At her whisper, goose bumps rose on Carissa's skin.
Carissa buried her teeth into a lower lip, the prickles on her skin spreading. "A nightwoman. You want me to be a nightwoman."
Akasha's smile deepened, enough to give Carissa a glimpse of her snow-white teeth.
Even as Carissa shook her head, her lips formed the words, "How much pay?"
Akasha's eyes glittered like dark sapphires, and the contents of Carissa's stomach curdled at the sight. "Five silvers."
Her voice had left her throat, but she managed to mouth, Five? Her debt, in addition to the Miracle Oil, would take three lifetimes as a serving woman and mere decades as a nightwoman.
Decades.
Her chest seemed to collapse, strangling her heart in a tangle of rib bones. Would she live that long? Regardless, it was the only opportunity that shone with even a glimmer of hope. If she were sent to the jailhouse, she and Aleck would have mere days before they succumbed to the violence or the sickness.
She closed her eyes, pretending it was another woman standing before Akasha, another woman whose heart was twisting, another woman who was going to sell herself.
"I accept."
***
She knew why nightwomen seemed to have cold skin and glazed eyes now.
Though they might appear to be living and breathing, with a pulse thrumming through their veins, they were dead. Their bodies were vacant, vessels for souls that seemed to have already left.
Her eyes shone dully with unshed tears. The blue seemed to have faded to gray, like a summer dress that had been washed too many times. They patted makeup onto her eyelids, though Carissa didn't see why you'd bother drawing attention to such eyes as hers.
Her skin was pale and cold as winter. Since dread had leached the natural blush from her cheeks, they dusted her face with pink powder and brushed red across her lips.
She rose, and her gauzy clothing swished across her skin. Her bones seemed to creak in pain, and she welcomed it. It was all it seemed she had left of who she used to be. As she stared in the mirror, she saw a breathing corpse, its face hideously and artificially colored.
"You're ready." Akasha's eyes gleamed in approval. Were she a cat, she'd have begun purring.
Carissa left the room and stumbled up the stairs. Reality felt farther out of her reach with each step, as if she were merely a spectral spectator. It was as if she'd stepped into her past memory and was reliving every moment—up until she entered Akar's room. From there, the paths of reality and memory would diverge.
Only the pain convinced her that this wasn't a nightmare. Her knees buckled as each breath scorched her lungs, a deep-seated ache gnawed at her arms, and the burn in her cheek seemed so hot she nearly expected the skin to start bubbling. Ever since she'd allowed makeup caked over her face, her cheek had become inflamed, flushing an angry red.
The stairs leveled off, and soon she stood before Akar's door—the gatekeeper to her misery and the death of herself. Her skin suddenly felt flush and warm, as if it truly belonged to her, not a corpse or a ghost.
She placed her palm against the winding paths of the wood grain. She could feel every curvature of the door, how the fine lines of her fingers prints rubbed against it. She wanted the numb, distant feeling to return, when it had felt like she'd watched herself through a long, narrow tunnel, while the true Carissa was tucked safely away.
She knocked once. Twice.
"Come in."
This was her last goodbye to the old Carissa, the one that had fled home with the stars in her eyes clouding her vision, who had loved too much, valued her heart too little, and fallen too hard. She'd thought that if someone loved her enough, it'd make everything better.
What naiveté.
She gripped the doorknob and squeezed, imprinting the feeling of the cold, hard metal into her hand in hopes that her heart would become similar. "Good bye." The two words fluttered to the ground like dead leaves in autumn. She wished she could join them.
She opened the door and entered the room.
That Carissa wasn't merely long gone; that Carissa was dead.