Chapter 30

ChapterThirty

The wind blew through her hair and tangled the locks into knots at the back of her neck. But it didn’t matter. Thea was on the boat to freedom.

Sure, she was headed to a place she hated above all others. A place filled with memories she’d rather forget. But Wildecliff was a large city, and she could avoid the people she didn’t want to see. All she had to do was get to her job, and then she’d be so busy she wouldn’t have time to think about anything other than the work that needed to be done.

“This is a new start for us, Browning,” she said with her face turned toward the sun.

She’d get freckles if she kept this up, and that knowledge made Thea want to look at the sun even more. Freckles were beautiful. They were different. And she’d need to cling to whatever was different as long as she stayed here.

“It’s not like I’m abandoning them.” Her familiar likely didn’t know who she was talking about, but Thea did. She wasn’t leaving her family behind.

Máthair would have her hands full, and their tiny house would soon echo with the shrieks of children who had never had to live with their cousins. Belladonna and Marigold would take up more space than her mother was prepared for, and five children in a house that small would drive anyone mad. Not to mention the husbands. Máthair liked her son-in-laws well enough, but they were men, and her mother had not had to deal with men for a very long time.

Thea would have been one more mouth to feed. One more person to take care of when everyone was already screeching at Máthair to do something. Besides, now Thea would be the only child consistently bringing money back to the family, and no small amount of money at that.

“This was the right choice.” She nodded firmly and then blinked down at her sling. “Right, Browning?”

There was no answering rustle or croak.

“Browning?”

Where had that blasted toad gotten off to?

She peered through the nearest bundle of ropes, but there was no toad in sight. As they approached the docks to Wildecliff, Thea knew she only had a few moments to find her wayward familiar before someone stepped on him.

“Browning!” she hissed as she moved past a large group of individuals.

A few of them glared at her, and she couldn’t blame them. Everyone was excited to start their new life in Wildecliff, and no one wanted to walk into the city with a crazy person raving behind them.

“Sorry,” Thea muttered as she moved past them. “Sorry, I’m just looking for my familiar.”

“She should have better control over the beast,” someone said. The person was lost in the crowd of others, or Thea might have turned around to strike them.

She had plenty of control over her familiar, but Browning wasn’t some trained pet. When he wanted to wander, she wouldn’t tell him otherwise. Who was she to tell a magical creature that he couldn’t do what he wanted?

Finally, she spotted the dastardly little fellow. Browning had somehow climbed on top of a barrel. She could only assume he’d convinced someone to put him up there and now stood on his thin back legs to look over the railing at Wildecliff. His webbed fingers gripped the wooden support and his belly squeezed between the rungs.

“Browning!” she scolded before scooping him up in her arms. “What did I tell you about wandering off?”

He looked up at her with those wide yellow eyes, blew up his throat, and croaked, “Wildecliff.”

“Yes, yes I know.” She laid him into the sling and then made sure it was comfortably hung over her neck. “I didn’t think we’d ever be coming back here, either.”

She hadn’t forgotten the valor of her little familiar, who had traveled here far more often than she had. Browning had gone through more hardship than she could imagine delivering messages back and forth across the river. And he rarely got to ride on a ship like this.

She squeezed him to her side and then moved to stand with the others at the front of the ship. They’d already been advised that once the planks were down, they were to stand to the right on the docks because their items would be piled opposite. One of the sailors had told her to be quick about it. If the pile got too high, some of the luggage would fall into the sea, and no one would help her get her things.

The planks thudded against the wooden docks, and everyone else seemed to know that they needed to move forward. Thea found herself caught in the wave of people until they were all standing and waiting. Yet again, she had no idea how she’d gotten here. Although she supposed, it was rather nice not to have to think.

The sailors all started shouting, and then luggage was slung off the boat and landed on the dock. The crowd was quick, as the sailors had suggested they be. But Thea didn’t see her bag. Over and over again, people gathered up their items and made their way into the city. While Thea and Browning stood there, still waiting for her bag.

Then she saw it. The large patchwork tote had taken forever to make. Máthair had insisted they imbue as much goodwill into the bag as they could, and the wooden handles had been carved out of a beam from their old home. No matter where she went, her mother claimed, Thea would always know she was loved and looked after.

As if she would ever forget that. Darting in between two sailors who had gotten off the ship as well, she grabbed onto the handles of her bag and hauled it into her arms. It was heavy. Probably too heavy for her to be carrying on her own. But there were certain things she’d refused to leave behind. No matter how silly it was for her to bring them.

“Gods above, girl,” one sailor said with a laugh. “What do you have in that bag? Bricks?”

“Books, actually!” And a handful of other spell crafting items, but they didn’t need to know any of that.

The less the Wildecliff people knew about her bringing what they might consider contraband items into their city, the better. Unfortunately, the bag was bulkier than she’d expected. Thea’s entire weight shifted backward until she was carrying the heavy object with the small of her back rather than her arms. But still, she made it on her own all the way to the front gates of Wildecliff.

It was still so strange to see the giant stone doors open. They were simple doors. Nothing like the interior of the city, but then again, the wall wasn’t spectacular either. Wildecliff had made sure the wall and the entrance were usable, safe, and that they wouldn’t fall apart over the centuries. Apparently, that was the one thing they would sacrifice aesthetics for.

Many guards stood in front of the gates. They wore the traditional dark black uniform of the Wildecliff guardians—golden buckles and buttons gleamed in the sun. Though, the last time she’d come here, she didn’t remember them carrying muskets. And they certainly hadn’t carried swords as they did now.

“Stop.” One of the guards meandered over to her, and she immediately didn’t trust him. Anyone who wore a greasy mustache like that wasn’t a good person. “Papers, please.”

“Papers?” Thea gaped at him, her arms full of her things and a little overladen with the toad slung around her waist. “What do you mean, papers?”

“Everyone has papers if they’re coming into Wildecliff, Miss. No visitors allowed otherwise.”

“Oh, I’m not visiting.” She tried to smile at him over the patchwork bag in her arms. Thea wasn’t so sure he saw her smile. “I was hired as a secretary here. So thank you very much for being so thoughtful and looking out over your city, but I’m going to be moving here for the foreseeable future.”

The kindly look in his eyes fell away. That mustache twitched as though he’d smelled something disgusting. “Papers, Miss.”

She’d heard him the first time. Why was he repeating himself?

A second guard joined him. This one was a much larger man with a stomach that stretched his suit a little too tightly around his midriff. “Is this one causing you trouble, Jenkins?”

“She refuses to provide her papers.”

Thea cleared her throat. “I’m not refusing to provide anything. I’m just not sure what you’re talking about. No one gave me papers.”

The paunchy guard laughed and lifted his arms as though she’d told him something impossible. “Well, then there’s nothing we can do for you. No papers. No entrance. Those are the rules, little lady.”

“But I was hired to work here. Someone is expecting me.”

What was she going to do if they didn’t let her in? Thea turned to look back at the ship, hoping one of the sailors could bring her back home. But the ship was already in the harbor, meandering back toward Waterdown as the sun set.

What would she do? They were going to make her sleep on the docks until her employer started asking questions.

Drawing her brows down into a dark frown, she lowered her bag so they could see her face. “Gentlemen. I need you to explain what these papers are. No one told me that I was required to have them, and no one on that ship was holding them as they disembarked. So why am I the only person you’re asking for papers?”

The two guards looked at each other, and she swore they smiled before their angry expressions returned.

The mustached man stepped forward a little too aggressively. “Ma’am, I’m going to give you one more chance.”

Thea’s mouth ran away without her. “One more chance for me to tell you, yet again, that I do not have the papers you’re asking for?”

The men moved with surprising speed, considering their sizes. Thea barely had time to blink before the bag was slapped out of her hands and landed hard in a puddle. Then the larger man put both his hands on her shoulders and shoved. She stumbled over a small box containing hooks and fishing equipment, then fell next to her bag.

She hit her palms hard on the stones, and she hissed out an angry breath. Her ribs ached. She’d barely twisted in time to not squish Browning as she fell, but the poor toad had tumbled out of his sling and was at least five feet away from her. He rolled onto his stomach and wheezed out a long breath as though he’d had the wind knocked out of him.

What had just happened? Her head reeled, and her mind whirled with the realization that they’d just accosted her. They’d tossed her onto her back, and no one had even tried to stop them. As she looked up, she realized no one was even looking at her. They all stayed out of the way.

She heard the sound of tearing. Thea wasn’t quick enough to react. Instead, all she could do was sit up as the guards tore the handle off her bag and threw the wood out of reach.

The mustached man rifled through her things, tossing her bloomers into the mud until he found the folder for her employment. Thumbing through it, he tossed a few of the pages in the direction of her bloomers before pulling out the official document she’d signed.

He lifted a brow, waved the document at her, and then said, “Papers. That’s all I asked for. We didn’t have to do all this, Miss.”

But it seemed like they’d wanted to. They’d enjoyed throwing her things around and making her day horrible.

The man set the folder on top of her ripped-up bag, patted it twice, and then sighed. “You’re allowed through. Documents like that are more than enough to prove you’ve got a right to be here. Gather up your things quick, Miss. The doors close at sundown.”

She watched as they walked away, whistling as though they hadn’t assaulted a woman. And then she shakily looked down at her arms and skirts soaked with water and mud. No one would want to hire her. Her employer would take one look at the mud-covered woman who had arrived from Waterdown, and he’d send her right back home.

Tears stung her eyes. She’d wanted this so badly. She’d been so excited.

A wart-covered head nudged underneath her hand. Browning croaked, the deep rumble one of anger as he watched the men walk away from her. Then reached between them and handed her a single gladiolus bloom. She didn’t know where he’d gotten it from, but she knew what he wanted.

Gladiolus were the flowers of the sword. If she placed it on her tongue, she’d have the strength of ten men. She could throw those idiots into the river all night until her anger was satisfied.

But she couldn’t. She wasn’t the villain of any story, no matter how much she desired to be.

Sighing, she shook her head and dashed away the tears. “Come on, Browning. We need to get to the correct address before it’s dark.”

Thea gathered up her things as quickly as she could. The handle had been ripped out of the fabric, so it took a bit for her to tie everything up into a knot that wouldn’t unravel the moment she lifted the bag. But she made sure the handle from her childhood home was safely tucked into the mess. She had to bring her father with her, after all.

The damned thing was even heavier to carry now, suddenly more burdensome as she realized she wasn’t going to a fairytale job. She had to live in Wildecliff. A city she hated—filled with people she hated.

The faint color of roses that had helped her be so excited fell away from her eyes as she staggered through the front gates and searched for the correct street name to meander down.

“At least it can’t get any worse than this,” she huffed to Browning.

People stared at her. She must have made quite the spectacle, huffing and puffing down the road with her patchwork bag. Red-faced. Breathing like she’d run from Waterdown all the way here and covered in mud. Thea was a terrifying beast to these clean, perfectly coiffed people.

The city of Wildecliff was a well-oiled clock, moving with gears that were polished to perfection. And Thea? She was a speck of dirt on otherwise pristine glass.

“Hanover street,” she wheezed. Then she looked at the other directional signs. “Ah, perfect. Obscurum. That’s the right street.”

She had found the correct street on her own, and that was a win. But the moment she rounded the corner and saw those black spires, the wrought-iron fence, and the sudden wave of cold, Thea realized she’d made a mistake.

A horrible. Terrible. Irredeemable mistake.

She marched up to the iron gates, dropped her bag in front of it, and then pawed through her things. “This is the wrong address,” she muttered. “It’s the wrong one. I took the wrong street, I just need to find the right one. I’ll be a little late, but that’s quite all right. I’m sure they won’t mind, considering I just moved from my own city.”

Then she ripped out the folder, flipped it open, and ran her finger across the lines. “Employer. Academia Araneidae. Main duties will be secretarial in nature, half time providing maid services as needed by the head maid. Address. 36 Obscurum.”

She looked up and noted the number next to the gate.

36.

Damn it. She was at the right address. But that didn’t make any sense because if she were supposed to be working for the Orbweavers, then it would say Orbweaver on the document. Maybe someone else had bought the house. Of course, if someone had, then she could only assume something had happened to Alistair and his family. Which shouldn’t make her heart twist the way it did, but...

Browning put his webbed hand on the paper and looked up at her.

“It’s not him,” she said. “It can’t be. See? Employer is Academia Araneidae.”

Browning nodded, then croaked, “Araneidae. Latin for spider.”

Damn. Well.

She looked up at the house and swallowed hard. The windows seemed to loom, and the house appeared to stretch higher as though it were ready to swallow her up. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go in there.

So Thea did the only thing she could do. She paced in front of the iron fence, muttering about the pros and cons of working here until she felt a lick of bravery.