by Sarah Cross
“I believe that giving your word—such as, Yes, I will marry you or Yes, I will give you my child—has meaning. But for most people, those words are only words. They’ll claim they agreed under duress, they didn’t know what they were saying. But they knew exactly what they were saying.
“They knew that by saying yes to my deal, they would get what they wanted most: riches, fame, love. They could not look beyond that desire to see the consequences of their decision—which, may I remind you, were spelled out in advance. A child seemed to them—at the time the deal was struck—to be well worth the exchange.
“I usually give my clients a year with their children. I don’t have to, but I am generous enough to do it. Yet, each time I return and ask for the debt to be paid, do they thank me for that bonus? No. They cry, and scream, and beg me to reconsider. Until the day I come to collect, they are enjoying my labors for free—and it seems natural to them. I am merely a tool, a magical monster who does their bidding. An ox exists to pull a plow, and I and my magic exist to enhance their lives.
“People are expected to pay for their groceries, are they not? Car repairs? Admission to your father’s country club? None of these things are free. And yet, something as powerful and rare as magic is supposed to be gratis? Because I see a mommy kissing her baby?”
He cast a look at the queen—affectionate? smug?—but her eyes were focused elsewhere.
“I remain generous, even now. I give the crying mothers a chance to cancel their debts—if they can guess my name. So, who is the unfair one? My only crime is being clever. It pains you that you can’t outwit me. It’s unfair not to be able to steal from a monster like me.
“You see, Vivian, I know your promises are good only as long as you don’t have what you want. Once you have it, those promises disappear because you never meant to keep them.”
He settled back, pleased with himself, and popped a handful of grapes in his mouth to chew while his audience reflected on the insight he’d so generously shared.
His little monologue had worn on Viv’s patience. “So what should I call you?” she asked. “You still haven’t told me your name.”
The troll laughed and licked a scrap of grape skin off his tooth. “You’re a brazen one.” He dropped his napkin onto his plate, signaling that breakfast was over.
“One more thing,” the troll said. “In case you intend to try to leave again: don’t. My guards have important work to do, and if you persist in distracting them, I’ll be forced to show you just how much I value your safety.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
VIV’S SANCTUARY, her so-called happy ending, was closing around her like a crypt. She lay on her bed with her hands covering her face, buried deeper than any grave, and spoke to Henley’s ghost. “Are you watching me? Can you see what I’ve done? Do you think I deserve it?”
She didn’t know if she believed in ghosts or spirits. She wasn’t sure if it would be more painful if Henley could witness her misery or if he were simply gone forever. Just flesh and bone in a hole she would never find. Clothes stiff with dried blood, slowly dissolving into the ground.
Viv sat up and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. How dare she cry for herself. She was alive. She was alive thanks to Henley, and no matter how awful she felt, she still had tomorrow. Still had to live through the next day, and the next, and figure out, as best she could, how to do it without him. How to get herself out of this.
From those first few days of conversation with Jasper and Garnet, Viv knew that the lower level of the palace was where the kitchen, laundry, and dormitories were located. When the troll’s slaves weren’t working elsewhere, that’s where they could be found. Viv wasn’t sure she could count Jasper as an ally, so she went in search of Owen. He’d been willing to trade information for cigarettes; maybe the promise of freedom would tempt him to share more secrets.
It was an hour before dinner, and the upper floors were mostly deserted. The royal family had retired to their rooms, as if they needed to rebuild their stamina to endure another torturous banquet. Downstairs, the air was full of steam and the smell of onions frying. Servants hurried through the narrow corridors, dodging silver puddles and stepping around Viv. Most averted their eyes, as if they didn’t want to see her. She didn’t blame them. It was hard to know what the troll would deem worthy of punishment, and she supposed it was safer to go about their work as if she didn’t exist.
She continued down the corridor until it dead-ended in a cell block. The cells were empty, the barred doors unlocked. The floors were black with grime and flecked with bits of straw. Straw. Viv wondered if that was the troll’s little joke.
She turned to go back the way she’d come and saw Owen standing in the doorway. The boatmen didn’t report for duty until ten, and he wasn’t wearing his uniform yet, just a pair of gray pants that looked like they had been washed too many times and a flannel shirt with a hole in the shoulder.
“Taking the tour?” he asked.
“Looking for you, actually.”
“I’d ask if you were enjoying your stay, but I heard you tried to run away last night. So I guess not.”
“I just … wanted to share my news,” Viv said.
“Congratulations.”
“You can tell your friends I wasn’t trying to escape. And they should let me go next time.”
Owen laughed. “Yeah. Nice try.”
Viv sighed. “Why are the guards such assholes?”
“What did you expect? That they’d be falling all over themselves to help you?”
“I was hoping that they were as unenthusiastic about their jobs as you are.”
“No, they’re the king’s favorites. The ones he pampered growing up. They know they’ll die early, but their lives are pretty good right now. They’re not going to risk that to win your eternal gratitude. That’s pretty useless down here, I’m sorry to say.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that.”
“Uh-huh. So, you were looking for me? That must mean you need something.”
“I need to know what names people have already guessed.”
Owen looked at her like she’d just told him a joke that was more sick than funny. “I have no idea. I was a year old the last time I was present for that.”
“Does anyone know?”
“Isn’t that something you should ask your prince?”
“Yes. And I will. I was just hoping someone else would be able to tell me. Someone I can stand to talk to right now.”
Owen raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never heard anyone call the king by a personal name. Even his kids rarely address him directly. When they do, they might call him Father, or sir. His wife usually sticks to endearments. We mostly bow our heads and do what we’re told.”
“All right, then … When’s the best time to search his rooms?”
“Never. You might be his son’s fiancée but a troll is still a troll. You don’t want to make him angry.”
“Yes, I do. I want to make him so angry that he rips his body in half—because I just spoke his true name.”
Owen sighed. “I don’t want it to be my fault if something happens to you.”
Viv flashed her engagement ring. “Something is going to happen to me whether I look for his name or not.”
“Princess, marriage to a guy you don’t like is not the worst thing that can happen to you down here. Don’t give the king an excuse to show you.”
“Can you just tell me when he’s likely to be out? He has a fixed schedule for meals. Is there a certain time when he leaves the underworld, to go make deals, or … go to strip clubs, or something?”
“I forgot about Strip Club Saturday. That’ll give you a good six hours to search.”
“Seriously, Owen. Is there any kind of schedule? It might take me a long time to figure this out. I need to start as soon as possible.”
“He’s not there during meals, but the maids do their housekeeping then.… They’d notice if you were snooping around. When he leaves to
do a deal, he’s usually gone all night, but you can’t really anticipate that. You just have to notice and take advantage of it. He might announce his plans at dinner. I really don’t know.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I mean it.”
“Yeah, well, try not to get caught.”
“That’s the plan.”
She heard an intake of breath, like he’d been about to speak but stopped himself.
“What is it?”
Owen was quiet. Finally, he said, “You look so sad. I hate that. You look like one of us. I hope you can be happy again … like when I first met you.”
“I seemed happy then?”
“Well, maybe not the first time I met you. But the second time you came here, yeah. I thought so.”
She tried to remember. “I don’t know if I was happy. Maybe excited. I thought this place might mean something good for me. I still thought—ugh.”
She closed her eyes, angry at herself.
“I used to think my prince would be a freak. A sicko who liked dead girls. But then I met Jasper, and he was different. He told me he could protect me and I believed him. I wanted to believe there was someone who could keep me safe.
“But I have to keep me safe. My prince already came. There’s not going to be a second prince riding up on a white horse to save me from this one. Finding that name … that’s the only control I have.”
Three nights went by before the troll left the palace.
He announced his departure at dinner, spinning a jade bracelet around his finger. It had been another uncomfortable meal, everyone eating until the serving platters were empty, just to keep from drawing attention to themselves. Although, since Viv had joined them, the troll seemed to have lost interest in harassing his family. Viv was the novelty, a blank canvas on which to inflict fresh emotional wounds. It didn’t take her long to abandon her plan to win him over. He didn’t want her to kiss up to him. He wanted to watch her squirm.
“Dreams will come true tonight,” the troll said. “What do you think of that, Vivian? Am I ruining lives?”
“You mean, besides ours?”
One of Jasper’s brothers started choking. He held a napkin to his mouth and coughed until he was red in the face.
The troll’s mouth stretched in a thin smile. “Ah, yes. A seven-course banquet. A luxurious palace. Clothes made of the finest silk. How cruel of me.”
The prince’s coughing fit made Viv think of Jewel—the constant flow of flowers and gems, the handkerchief she caught them in. Homesickness hit her when she least expected it. She missed Henley constantly, and that pain was lodged in her chest, hard and tense like a fist clenched around her heart. But her longing for her old life was something she fought to push down, so she could focus on escape. She told herself not to miss her friends—she would see them again. She would find the troll’s name. She would get out of here.
“I wonder what else she’ll need,” the troll mused. “The young lady I’m meeting tonight claims she only needs my help this once, but that’s rarely the case. Hunger intensifies the more you feed it. Like in the old tale. A room full of straw spun into gold? Not good enough. Once that feat is proven possible, one room is insufficient; the king requires another. And then another. Although we’re hardly dealing with straw-to-gold these days. What father would make that boast about his daughter? Spinning has gone out of fashion. But greed hasn’t.”
The troll directed his attention to the queen. “Do you remember that worthless lout you married before me? Do you remember how important his dreams were to you?”
“I wish Malcolm could dine with us,” the queen said.
“My dear queen stumbled upon her ‘madly ever after’ in a roundabout way. I won’t get into the details of our bargain—they’re about as interesting as her first husband—but it started with a simple request and quickly escalated. In the end she had nothing to offer but her firstborn.”
Viv’s gaze flitted to Jasper’s eldest brother.
“Oh, no,” the troll said. “The princes you see at this table are my sons. That unfortunate savage is someone I own, not someone I would ever share a table with. He’s useful in his way, but his bloodstained clothes would ruin our appetites. Well, not my queen’s. The atrocities he commits don’t faze her. She’s come a long way since she first came crying to my bed.”
“Do you mind if I vomit?” Viv said.
“Vivian.” The troll clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “So squeamish. Do you know why I had to break my queen’s firstborn son? Why I kept him in my dungeon for the first few years of his life, taught him that his only respite would come if he pleased me, if he did exactly as I commanded? Pay attention. This should be edifying for you. You see, I’m a jealous man. What’s mine is mine, and what’s mine I keep forever. Perhaps you’ve noticed. I couldn’t have my wife favoring her firstborn son over the children we would have together. I couldn’t have her gazing at him adoringly, remembering the boy’s father, using those memories to keep her hope alive.”
Viv could see where this was going.
“It’s very juvenile and impolite to cling to the past. There’s no sense in longing for a life you chose to leave. Once you’ve made a commitment, you try to make it work. If you can’t try—like an adult, not a spoiled child—I’ll be forced to help you. It’s in my power to break people. You may think it’s in your power, too, but I assure you, that’s a delusion on your part.
“Now.” The troll treated the table to a toothy grin. “Who’s ready for dessert?”
Viv responded to the troll’s threats with a blank stare. She knew he liked upsetting her, and she wasn’t going to give him evidence that he had.
Instead, she thought of names, running through them like a song in her head. All the names she could guess.
After dinner there were preparations for the troll’s departure—more cologne, a new obnoxious suit. Viv slipped inside the deserted dining room, sat with her back against the wall just to the left of the door, and listened. The dining room was near the troll’s chambers; he’d have to pass by it to leave. And once he had, she’d wait a few minutes more, and then slip down the corridor to his rooms. If she was lucky, no one would even notice.
The click of his shoes preceded him. Then a cloud of scent—that special blend of bergamot and rancid troll—floated under the door. He lingered there—adjusting his tie? Grooming his hairline with a just-licked finger?—and called for a servant to clean up a scuff he’d seen on the floor. Then he left, humming as he went. Viv waited until the squeaking of the cleanup was over, before slipping out into the corridor.
First stop: the troll’s bedroom.
* * *
The lights were on. Everything was neat: most of the belongings put away in closets or drawers, only the furniture and a few pieces of art on display. Viv’s hope was that the troll’s name was hidden somewhere in his lair, that he wouldn’t have been able to resist writing it down. Scribbled onto the wall behind a dresser, carved into the wood of a table, or finger-painted into the steam on the bathroom mirror, only to reveal itself when the glass fogged up. Or maybe he had a notebook where, camouflaged by to-do lists and daily journal entries, he practiced his autograph. A man that full of himself had to have left his name somewhere.
If it was anywhere in this room, Viv would find it.
She searched under his mattress—feeling around for a scrap of paper, a secret journal—and after a few minutes, deciding she was going about this the wrong way, she decided to strip the bed entirely and push the mattress onto the floor. If she left a single piece of the room unexamined it would keep her up at night, imagining the name there, hidden in the one place she hadn’t looked.
It took a lot of heaving and straining, but eventually she shoved the mattress off the bed and was able to check it for the faintest trace of the troll’s handwriting. She examined the box spring; wriggled under the bed—glad for once that she was small enough to fit there—and felt around for a fold of paper wedged into the fra
me. Next time she would bring a flashlight. Assuming they had flashlights in the underworld.
She crawled out, dust-covered and sweating, and pawed through the sheets, in case they’d been embroidered with a name. Even a monogram would give her something to go on.
She opened all the drawers and sorted through the objects inside—carefully, because she wanted to put them back in the right places. The maids might rearrange his pillows, but she figured the troll would be pissed if he thought anyone had been messing with his stuff. He had so much jewelry—cheap and expensive, much of it the kind that came with sentimental value: engagement rings, lockets, heirloom tiaras. Pieces his victims had traded away before the troll upped his demands. More wallet-sized photos—ones that hadn’t made it into the collage in his gallery. A stash of fountain pens, none engraved with a name. A few journals where the troll recorded his deals: his victims, what they wanted, the high and then higher prices they paid, plus musings in his typical self-congratulatory fashion. Viv skimmed the troll’s nauseating observations in the hope that she’d stumble across a Luckily she didn’t guess my true name, Grimbletoes! But there was nothing like that.
She kept checking the clock, careful not to overstay. The troll wasn’t due back until morning—or so he’d said—but she didn’t want to cut it that close. Three hours had passed. She’d searched the bed and still needed to put it back together. She’d gone through all the drawers, and was midway through a third journal, pinching herself to keep her eyes from glazing over, when the door opened behind her. She turned—
It was Jasper. He shut the door behind him. Then his eyes flicked to the bed. “How in the world were you going to explain that?”
“You’ve picked an unfortunate time to start talking to me again.” She resumed skimming the journal. “I’m busy searching for the key to your father’s destruction.”
“Yes, I see that. And you’re the one who’s been avoiding me.”
“I guess I didn’t feel like getting hit in the face again. For being such a slut.”
