Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Worry is etched across her forehead, and the dark circles under her eyes tell me she hasn’t slept in days. “Thank you so much.” She digs in her tattered purse, no doubt looking for the coin to pay. I wonder how many times she’s had to choose between food for herself and a visit to the apothecary.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure the little shop’s proprietor—my boss—hasn’t made it in yet. “No charge,” I say quickly. “Since the original tincture didn’t help.”
Her brown eyes fill with tears. “Thank you,” she whispers, voice hoarse. “Thank you so much.”
I hear the creak of the back door and stiffen. “Hurry on, now.”
“Felicity!” Estella barks. “We need to talk.”
The young mother’s eyes widen for a beat, but then she wisely hurries out the door before Estella can make it to the front.
I busy myself with straightening my station, moving with the steady grace of the gray-haired faerie whose form I’ve been taking since I got this job two months ago.
Estella pushes into the front of the shop, letting the door swing wildly behind her. She’s as physically beautiful today as she was the day I came here looking for a job—silky blond hair that falls past her shoulders, bright violet eyes, with a regal face and long, graceful limbs—but all I can see when I look at her now is ugliness. She’s a terrible apothecary who uses the cheapest ingredients over the most effective. Half of her tinctures are little more than soaked herbs.
“I had a young male come into the shop last night who wanted me to refund the continence tincture I sold to his father. He said when he tried to buy some for himself, you told him it wouldn’t protect them against the faceless plague.” She lifts her pointed chin, nostrils flared. “Do you know what happens when you say things like that?”
That young male was begging on the street before coming to see me. I couldn’t take his money in exchange for a tiny vial of useless drops. “We should be selling products that help people, not—”
“When you spread lies about our products, people talk, and soon no one buys from me.”
“But those continence drops can’t protect anyone from—”
“None of my customers have fallen to the faceless plague yet,” she snaps before I can finish.
Only because it hasn’t torn through our village yet. But I don’t dare say it out loud. It seems like nearly every week for the last few months there’s a story about another group of fae found dead with no sign of the cause, so the people have begun to call it the faceless plague. The victims are always found in groups, pale but uninjured. Most, if the rumors are to be believed, had no prior signs of illness. It’s as if Death himself is showing up to gatherings uninvited and taking the attendees without reason.
“People are scared.” Frowning, I twist my hands. Too many people in this village lost everything during the years of Mordeus’s rule. After he stole the throne, all it took was a whisper of an alliance with the rightful king, and Mordeus would send his personal army to destroy their businesses and their homes. While I don’t know what it was like to live here during those times, I know what it’s like to have nothing, know what it’s like to wonder where your next meal will come from. “We shouldn’t exploit that. We should—”
“How dare you, you ungrateful crone,” Estella says, seething. “The only reason I hired you was because people trust your wrinkly face and spend more money when you’re behind the counter. But you do me no good when you convince them not to buy! Get out of my shop, and don’t come back.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Jobs are hard to come by, and if I’ve ruined this . . . “Please reconsider.”
She points one long, manicured finger toward the door. “Go. Before I decide to take what you’ve cost me from your hide.”
Lowering my head, I fist my hands at my sides and make toward the door. I went too many months without steady work before Estella agreed to hire me, and now I have to start over. Maybe it’s for the best. I couldn’t endure her greed and lies.
The day is bright. I squint against the afternoon light as I emerge onto the bustling streets—and freeze when I spy a familiar face watching me from across the road.
In riding leathers with white tattoos all over his forearms and glasses perched on his nose, Natan still appears to be no more than a harmless scholar.
My pulse skips a beat—stuttering from a heady mix of hope and heartache. I immediately scan the streets for my brother, who’s never far from his side. I haven’t seen him in three years. Not since before my mother sent me away.