Page 71 of Joy Guardian
“Ah, this one is awake now,” the shadow fae said, pulling his scarf down from his face to uncover his thin lips and sharp fangs.
He yanked the top layer of his tattered garment down from his head, revealing his pointy ears and his long, black hair tied back into a ponytail that had a few more ties along its length. Instead of chest armor worn by the shadow fae of the royal court, this one wore a few mismatched belts wrapped across his chest. A cluster of withered yellow flowers was trapped between them.
“She looks good, doesn’t she?” he asked the several other fae, who came with him and were dressed in equally mismatched and weathered outfits.
A fae woman on his right spat through her teeth, giving me a long, assessing stare. “I wouldn’t saygood,Watrat. She looks like she digs in the sand for worms for a living, all covered in soot and probably with a bunch of wool fleas in that hair of hers.”
My head itched at her words. Fleas or not, I sure had collected enough sand in my hair to build a sandcastle by now. The liquid smoke from Kurai’s severed tendrils left my arms smeared with black.
My heart ached at the thought of him. I wished I’d asked Elaine if she’d heard anything about him. But I didn’t dare ask the fae. If they’d forgotten about him, there was no need to refresh their memories and possibly put his life in danger. I prayed that he still had a life at all.
Watrat smirked. “No one will care about her fleas, Piara. She’s a Joy Vessel. That’s all that matters. Where is that tea?” He turned to the rest of his entourage.
“Here, boss,” another man held up a metal tea kettle with a wooden handle. “Sweetened with the hyacinth syrup brewed by the mage’s recipe.”
“May his murderous spirit rejoice in the afterlife ,” Piara muttered under her breath. “Do you want this one to drink it first, Watrat?” She pointed at me.
Watrat focused on me for a moment, and it felt like the longest moment of my life. I shrank into myself, pressing my back to the bars of the cage and drawing my knees up to my chest.
“She doesn’t look so good,” he concluded. “I don’t want her passing out again. If she dies, we’ll lose a lot of money.”
Elaine exchanged a look with me. Hers was relieved, mine was probably mostly confused as I tried to figure out what exactly was going on.
“This one.” Watrat pointed at the human man in the cage next to ours. “He seems strong enough to take it. Give him some of that tea, Tazm.”
Stepping closer, Tazm shoved the tea kettle’s spout through the bars of the man’s cage.
“Drink.”
“No.” The man shifted to the back of the cage where a pale, blonde woman crouched in the shadows.
Tazm turned for guidance to Watrat, who seemed to be the boss around here. His boss pinched the bridge of his nose, looking frustrated.
“Make him.” He waved his hand at Tazm and the others.
Rattling with a bundle of keys, Piara unlocked the cage, and two other fae reached in to retrieve the man.
He grabbed the bars on the opposite side of the cage, stretching along the floor.
“Peter!” the human woman shrieked, gripping his arm.
“Stay back, Maria,” the man gritted through his teeth, kicking his feet in a futile attempt to shake the fae off.
Much stronger than him, they pulled him out and onto thesand.
“Drink it!” One of the fae sat on Peter’s chest and held down his arms while Tazm forced the man’s mouth open and shoved the tea kettle’s spout between his teeth.
“Leave him alone!” Maria lunged forward, slamming her shoulder against Tazm to push him off Peter.
Elaine and I crawled to the bars of our cage. I didn’t know either Peter or Maria. But I fervently looked for a way to help. Shoving my hands between the bars, I tried to get hold of any fae to help pull them away from the couple but couldn’t reach them. The tips of my fingers barely touched the bars of Peter and Maria’s cage.
Piara grabbed a fistful of Maria’s dress over her chest and shoved her back into the cage.
“Get out of the way, Sweet One. Your turn will come,” she said calmly as Peter was choking on the tea that Tazm and the others poured down his throat.
Reaching between the bars, Elaine punched Piara in the back of her right knee. The fae gasped in shock and lost her balance. Her leg bent, sending her to her knees. She grabbed on to the bars of our cage, stopping herself from face-planting.
“You chubby, little rat,” Piara hissed.
