by Kaylin Lee
I walked down our narrow lane, dodging overloaded merchant carts and unfriendly glares from anyone who recognized me as Ariella Stone, the unwanted stepdaughter at the traitorous Golden Loaf Bakery. I ignored them all.
When my father was alive, they’d hated him for his intellectual ideas and thoughtful gaze. “Grasping,” they’d called him. “Thinks he’s better than us.” My father was descended from a long line of merchants. Our little bakery in the Merchant Quarter had been in his family for generations, but he had loved books far more than bread, especially the imported books from the West.
I remembered only bits and pieces from when my mother was still alive. My clearest memories were sitting down to dinner, listening as my parents hotly debated mysterious questions I didn’t understand, and hosting the occasional forlorn-looking guest—cast-off mages too weak to be useful to the city, I later realized—who would sleep for a few days in the little pantry off the kitchen and then disappear.
When I was four, Mother died, and Father’s world dwindled to a tiny circle of friends—primarily Gregor, the jovial spice merchant two doors down from our bakery. Then Zel arrived, pregnant with twins and desperate for shelter at the bakery. The plague took the city by storm three months later and my father was one of the first victims. Though she would have been safer outside the city, Zel had stayed with me. In the chaotic height of the plague, no one had questioned my insistence that Zel was my stepmother, though no marriage certificate existed. Thanks to Zel, I’d survived and kept the bakery instead of being lost to the River Quarter like most of the other children orphaned by the plague.
Three years later came Zel’s near-miss with the tracker mages at the market.
For weeks afterward, the trackers had paced the twisted streets and alleys of the Merchant Quarter, certain she was hiding somewhere in the city. But she’d stayed hidden upstairs, and I’d scrubbed the bakery downstairs clean of her trace, and eventually, they’d given up looking for her. We’d never risked Zel’s exposure again. We couldn’t. Zel was my stepmother and I loved her, but she was also a powerful weapon. If she were caught, she’d be forced to do horrible things. I’d do anything to keep that from happening. Laboring at the bakery day and night was a small price to pay for her freedom.
“Hey, hey, Cinderella, what’s that awful smell-a?” A chorus of childish voices rang out behind me.
My shoulders stiffened. Not those obnoxious chants again.
“Cinderella, Cinderella, that nasty bread you sell-a, it’s full of worms and dirt.”
Now that one didn’t even rhyme! Ridiculous. Besides, our bread was better than that of any other bakery in the district, thanks to Gregor’s high-quality flour and my family’s cherished recipe book.
I ignored them. I’d heard it all before. The group of children jostled past me on their way to school, and I breathed a sigh of relief when they turned the corner ahead of me.
At first, our neighbors in the Merchant Quarter had pitied me, the poor orphan girl, pushed to the status of a servant by her cruel stepmother. Pity had turned to hatred the moment we began to use imported flour. They thought I was wrong to risk bringing the plague back into the city with flour and yeast imported from Lerenia, never mind the fact that Prince Estevan had instituted a system of inspections by purification mages that ensured every import was safe. For many Asylians, though, the plague had taken too much, and they couldn’t think rationally about trade. Any risk at all was simply too much.
These days, for all their loyal talk, I didn’t know of many bakers who still used flour from the expensive Asylian wheat that grew in meager crops outside the city walls. Flour made from Lerenian wheat was softer, more flavorful, and only one-fifth as expensive. I’d begun buying it from Gregor’s spice shop as soon as the city gates were unsealed and imports resumed. Though I’d paid dearly in other ways, I’d never regretted the decision. I’d done whatever it took to stay out of poverty, continue at the Royal Academy, and keep my family safe. No one knew Zel’s secret—I had endured years of taunts and mockery to keep it that way.
Why, oh why, had she risked everything to bring a mage into our home and our business? And what possible reason did she have for telling him the secret I’d give my life to protect?
My eyes burned, but I refused to cry. I had to keep studying and working. One day, things would get better. I’d get a good government job, and we’d never be this vulnerable again.
I rubbed my arms as I walked, shivering in the dank air. Our lane was still shady and cool this time of day, hidden from the morning sun. I passed a small pile of garbage outside the tavern and held my breath until it was behind me. Ever since the plague, no one could be bothered to clean up the Merchant Quarter—not even the Sanitation Ministry. I frowned and turned my eyes away from the stinking gutter. Wasn’t it their job? Of course, the Procus Quarter and main roads were always perfectly clean.
I made my way to each business in the Merchant Quarter that had a standing order with our bakery. Since I went to school during the day, and Zel and her daughters couldn’t risk being caught downstairs in the bakery shop, we survived by delivering orders. Thick, crusty loaves went to the taverns. Scones and honeybread went to the coffee houses. Hearty rye loaves went to the shops that needed to feed their workers. But I always kept a few items at the bakery for after school, in case the occasional shopper wandered inside.
I finished the deliveries, crammed the empty canvas bag into my bookbag, and made it to Grand Procus Avenue just in time to see a magic-propelled trolley barreling toward me. Finally, something was going right today. The coach was overflowing with passengers inside, but I took a running leap and jumped on the outside, using the latticework side of the trolley as a makeshift handle.
The trolley sped through the Merchant Quarter and into the River Quarter at a breakneck pace. No one lingered on the broad, clean-swept River Street, but if I peered through the openings in the latticed trolley walls, I could see bodies in the shadows of the narrow, uneven alleys that led off from the main promenade deeper into the River Quarter. It was hard to see the unmoving bodies without wondering which ones were lost in the questionable ecstasy of aurae and which ones had been taken by death.
The high city walls had been formed in a rough circle immediately after the Fenra revolution against the mages seven hundred years ago, when the founding families, now called the Procus families, put the Kireth mages to work for humans, instead of the other way around. They’d divided the area within the walls into four quarters—one for the founding families, one for the common laborers, one for those commoners who knew a trade, and one for farmland, by the river. As the city population grew, the walls had stayed in place, so we built ever higher, crowding into our inherited quarters like narrow, tall stalks of wheat. Now the River Quarter was full of laborers squatting in abandoned warehouses and crowding into rickety tenements.
I turned away from the dark alleys of the River Quarter and kept my eyes to the right, catching glimpses through the crooked streets of the Royal Precinct, its gleaming, stately government buildings clustered around the massive Royal Palace at the city’s center.
Solemn government bureaucrats walked the wide, well-swept avenues, deep in conversation with one another. The occasional mage appeared too, wearing the golden arm band of a service mage. My thoughts returned to the mage at the bakery this morning. What was his name again? Weyland? Wesley? At least I wouldn’t be the only one who reeked of cheap cinderslick anymore. Was he glad to be cast off? Weslan. That was his name.
He might be glad. Now Weslan wouldn’t be pressed into government service or forced to live as a pet for a Procus family that acted as his patron. But mages with patrons got to live like kings, and even government mage laborers got a steady monthly stipend. I sighed. I sure wouldn’t mind having a stipend of my own.
Young government apprentices in navy blue uniforms raced through the streets clutching bundles of paper and important-looking brown packages. One day soon, if all went according t
o plan, I would be one of them. My best bet was to do as well as I could on today’s final exam. A commoner like me couldn’t depend on connections or reputation to get an apprenticeship. I’d have to prove in numbers that I was the best. I couldn’t let this morning’s events shake me.
So what if Zel had spilled our secret to an unknown mage? Who cared that this mage would be invading my space for a while? That couldn’t matter to me. Everything depended on me getting a government job—making a monthly stipend, providing for the family, and saving up to maybe one day get us all out of the city to a place without so many trackers. I’d been working for this for five years. I couldn’t afford to lose focus now.
~
I braced myself as the trolley approached the corner of Government Avenue. When the trolley slowed to make the turn, I leapt off and jogged forward to maintain my momentum. Getting off here meant a few extra blocks to the Royal Academy, but I had less chance of twisting my ankle. The trolley always used to stop for passengers. These days, the lazy Transportation Ministry mages couldn’t even be bothered to do that. They just got the trolley’s running and let them race around the city at a breakneck pace, and we commoners tried to keep up.
I straightened my uniform and adjusted the strap of my bookbag on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to fix the loose bun on the top of my head. No matter what I did, more prodding and pulling always made it worse.
I hurried down Government Avenue, slowing when I crossed the Procus Quarter’s guarded boundary and the Royal Academy came into view. I ignored the widened eyes and averted gazes from those I passed. After five years traveling across the city every day for school, I was used to the discomfort among Procus Quarter residents when I walked through their precious corner of the city as though I had a right to be there.
The Procus Quarter was clean and peaceful, with no wild trolleys or greasy food carts to disrupt the serenity. I passed a thick, iron gate with uniformed guards at the entrance—the Falconus family compound. Trying not to attract the guards’ attention, I peered through the slats in the fence. There had to be at least a dozen towering stone villas in their compound, one for each family in the clan. A lush garden grew inside the front gate. I’d heard they’d purchased grower mages from the Lerenian government and brought them here to tend their famed goldblossom garden. The sweet, spicy, floral scent permeated the compound and tickled my nose as I walked past. Did anyone really need to live in a permanent cloud of perfume? Procus families were so strange.
The wide, ornately carved doors of the Royal Academy appeared on my left and a flutter of nervous energy whirled in my chest. Final exams. I’d been up half the night studying, and now there was nothing more I could do. Either I would place well enough to get a coveted government apprenticeship, or I would be stuck in the kitchen forever. No pressure or anything. I climbed the steps, wiped my clammy hands on my skirt, and swung open the door.
“Excuse me,” said a cold female voice behind me.
I started and backed out of the way. “I’m so sorry, Lady Argentarius,” I said, lowering my eyes and gesturing for her to go first as I held the door. “I didn’t realize you were there.”
Belle Argentarius swept past me with her beautiful head at a regal angle.
I rolled my eyes at her back. We’d been classmates for five years, and consistent rivals for the top marks in the class, but to Belle, I would never be anything more than a kitchen girl.
She sniffed, coughed, and waved her hand in front of her face as though she’d smelled something foul. Like cinderslick.
I gritted my teeth. Just for that, I’d stick extra close to her on the way to the exam.
My ears rang with the chatter of nervous students, all making their way upstairs to the exam rooms at once. They dodged frantically out of the way for me and Belle. Was it their aversion to my smell or their terror of her? By the annoyed look she cast me, she wasn’t too sure. I smiled.
My heart thumped in my chest as we arrived on our floor. Clutching the strap of my bag as it dug into my shoulder, I followed Belle around the corner and into our classroom. The wooden desks were arranged in neat, tightly clustered rows stretching to the back wall. I took my usual spot on the far edge of the room.
“Miss Stone?” Professor Jace beckoned me to his wide, paper-strewn desk at the front of the room.
I walked over, hoping my face expressed confidence. “Yes, Professor?” In a few more days, I would be out of the academy for good. There wasn’t much they could do to me now.
He smiled thinly at me, as though he knew what I was thinking, but instead of speaking, he simply held out his hand.
I stared down at it before looking back at him, confused.
He nodded toward his hand, so I reached forward and reluctantly shook it. Then he pulled me toward him and bent his head close to mine. “Whatever happens today, know that you don’t belong here. You never will.”
Heat flared across my face.
“If it weren’t for the plague, you’d still be holed up in a stinking common kitchen like the servant girl you are.” His voice was low and thick with spite, and face twisted in an ugly sneer.
I tried to yank my hand from his grip, but he held me even tighter.
“And there are those in government who will never allow you to take the place of a deserving Procus candidate for your apprenticeship. So don’t for a moment think you might compete with your betters.”
We stared at each other, but I said nothing. What was the point? I’d heard worse.
He leaned back and raised his voice. “Good luck with your exam, Miss Stone.”
Finally, he let go, and I retraced my steps as though he hadn’t even spoken. That would have to be my answer.
Belle stood a few feet away, frowning at us, but when I met her eyes, she looked away.
I took several deep breaths to calm myself as I searched for my seat. I couldn’t allow anyone to take me off course today, no matter what they said or did.
The classroom had nearly filled since I’d entered, but I found my seat at the edge of the classroom and slid into it. I got out my pencil and squared my shoulders as I looked forward, waiting for Professor Jace to hand out the exams. To my surprise, Belle slid into the seat in front of me. Normally she sat as far away from me as possible. I looked around. The other seats were taken. Poor Belle.
“Good morning, class.” Professor Jace’s greeting sent the stragglers hurrying to their seats. “Nothing much to say to you today. I can only hope a few of you have retained some small amount of knowledge after this year, since we are all about to find out for sure how many of you have been sleeping in my class all year.”
A titter of awkward laughter swept the room. My mouth was so dry I couldn’t laugh even if I had wanted to. I couldn’t wait to get this test over with.
“So without further ado, here are your exams.” He placed a frighteningly thick sheaf of papers face down on each desk, and my fingers twitched, desperate to flip them over. When every exam had been passed out, he stood at the front of the classroom and smirked. “No use in putting it off any longer. You may begin.”
There was a rustle as thirty students all flipped their exams over at once followed by a deafening silence as everyone read the first page of the test. I held back a smile. The first question was from a short unit we had studied at the beginning of the school year. I had reviewed the material last night. I had a feeling my indolent Procus classmates were going to struggle with this test. Lucky me.
If the Procus children weren’t so idle and the plague hadn’t decimated the ranks of government bureaucrats, there would be no open government positions and Royal Academy scholarships for commoners like me. Those with good Procus connections could always survive low test scores, of course, but a solid final exam score would be a powerful asset for a commoner. I hoped.
I wrote methodically to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I couldn’t shake a thrill of satisfaction as I finished the last question on the first page and realized I was t
he first person to give off the telltale rustle of a page turning over. All my studying was paying off.
I stopped to stretch out my right hand and glanced absently around the room before diving into the second page of the exam. Then I swung my eyes back up. There, in the corner of the room closest to my seat, sat a weathered book bag. Strange. I shook off the distraction and turned back to the test. It wasn’t my fault my classmates couldn’t be bothered to put their bags away neatly.
A small movement at the corner of my eye caught my attention. Why was I so easily distracted today? All my classmates had their heads bent over their exams and were writing furiously. Professor Jace was at the far wall by the door with his back to me, looking for something in the bookcase. Through the window of our closed classroom door, I noticed someone loitering in the hallway. Perhaps a student was tardy?
But he wasn’t racing past our classroom. He just stood there. As though he felt my eyes on him, he pressed his face to the little window in our door.
I froze. This was no student. His hair was obscured by a black hood, and a blood-red mask hugged his features like a glove.
It couldn’t be. Why would they … What could … The Blight? Here?
I stood and screamed a wordless warning, but my voice was lost in the chaos when a sudden wave of heat and noise overtook the classroom. Something sharp hit the side of my head, and everything went black.
Chapter 3
“I don’t understand why you can’t just—”
“Young man, for the last time, get out of my way.”
The male voices arguing with each other hovered high in the air, far over my head. My eyelids were so heavy I couldn’t get them to budge.
“I’m not leaving until you take another look at her. There’s no reason a victim of—”
“I don’t have to explain myself to a blacklister like you. If you don’t have the money to pay, we are done here. See, she’s waking from the sopor already. Collect her and be on your way before my assistant comes to change the bed linens, or you’ll be charged double for wasting hospital resources.”
