Lies of Murk by Eva Chase
23
Talia
When the ache in my head eases back enough that I can move without falling over, I make my slow, wobbly way back to the station that holds my hovel. As I pull myself onto the platform near it, a couple of Murk amble by. They shoot me a quick glance and chuckle to themselves, their tails twitching with amusement.
My stomach sinks. I can guess pretty easily what they find funny. Even if those two didn’t witness my humiliation earlier today, the fae who did have probably passed on the story all through the Refuge by now.
I glance around the station and catch several more piercing glances, some of which jerk away when I notice them, others that linger for a few seconds in what’s close to a leer. My gut knots even more. I crawl into my “house” and huddle there, waiting for more of the ache in my skull to subside.
I haven’t eaten anything yet today. After a while, my head starts to spin more than throb, and my stomach pinches with enough hunger to cut through my other discomforts. I grit my teeth and head over to the meal table.
The two fae who’ve just brought a fresh load of food aren’t ones I’ve spoken to before. The woman sees me coming and arches her eyebrows with a hint of a sneer to her lips. She mutters something to the man, who glances over and grins in a way that makes me want to run right back to my hovel.
I grab a few items that are the easiest to carry and hustle away without a word. One of the Murk on the tracks brushes close to me, murmuring, “Maybe you could dream about me sometime.”
I don’t answer, dashing the rest of the way to my house. Inside, I pull the door flap tightly shut and crouch against one hard plastic wall. I have to force down the dumplings and pear I grabbed, and my stomach doesn’t feel much better afterward.
Simply lying there doesn’t help me relax. My whole body may as well be a live wire. Nervous energy thrums through it, sparking occasional fresh bursts of pain in my head.
The small space starts to feel suffocating. I don’t know what’s going on outside, what new horror could be descending on me.
I ease back the flap just a bit and watch the fae passing by outside. Seeing them doesn’t exactly reassure me, but it takes the edge off my panic.
What am I going to do if I can’t get into the air vent in time? Are there any other escape routes I might not have noticed? I’m not sure how to find that out, though. It’ll look suspicious if I start poking around at the walls and structures here more than I already have.
As I’m mulling that problem over, Madoc’s familiar form comes into view. He’s picked up a tortilla wrap from the table, and he’s walking along the tracks past me as he swallows his first bite.
I’m momentarily torn in two directions, but trying something seems better than staying shut away in here doing nothing. I push myself out of the hovel and hobble over to catch up with him.
“Madoc!” I call, careful not to pitch my voice too loud. I don’t really want to draw anyone else’s attention if I can help it.
He glances over and stops so I can catch up. My frayed state must show more than I realize, because he frowns, his brow knitting with concern. “Are you all right, Talia?” His gaze darts through the station, mainly in the direction of the throne room. “He hasn’t—”
“Nothing else has happened,” I say quickly. Nothing worth mentioning, anyway. I fall into step with him, and he continues on toward the tunnel, keeping a slower pace to account for my limp. “I just—I was wondering, are there many other little side passages and rooms in the Refuge like that one you have?” Maybe one of those would have some kind of vent or crevice a slim human woman could fit into that’s escaped Orion’s consideration.
Madoc nods, his expression still worried. “A few, here and there. Why do you ask?”
“I—” I need a good excuse. A couple of Murk pass us as we enter the shadows of the tunnel, and their smirks provide enough inspiration. “I was just feeling like I need to get away from everyone here for a little while. Farther away than just in my house. Maybe it sounds silly, but—”
“No,” Madoc says, in the gentle tone that always surprises me a little even though his hoarse voice falls into it so easily. “I can understand. But those hideaways have all been claimed by one fae or another. You wouldn’t be guaranteed privacy.” He pauses. “If you wanted, you could make use of mine. I was going to pick up something there, but then you’d have it to yourself for at least a few hours.”
That isn’t what I was hoping for, but it’s at least more of an opportunity than I had before. If Madoc has kept anything related to his work for Orion in his private space, I’ll have a chance to find it.
And maybe if I play up how unsettled I am by Orion’s treatment, I’ll earn even more of his sympathy. Not that I need to do much playing up. I just have to resist the urge to hide my discomfort.
“That would be great,” I say. “If you really don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He gives me a smile that looks a little sad. “I’m glad I can do something to make things easier for you.”
“Thank you.”
Just as we’re coming up on the entrance to his room, another Murk saunters toward us. The fae man’s eyes travel over me, and just as he passes me, he reaches out to grope my breast.
I yelp, jerking away with a flinch, and Madoc leaps in so quickly his tail lashes through the air.
He slams the fae man against the wall of the tunnel. There’s nothing gentle about his voice now. “She isn’t a toy for you to play with. Don’t you dare treat her like that again.”
The other man stammers, his eyes growing wide. “I—I’m sorry, I thought— Of course, she’s Orion’s. I would never— I’m sorry.”
Madoc steps back with a look of disgust, his stance still tensed, and motions to me. “Apologize to her.”
The groper meets my eyes much more warily this time. “I’m sorry for touching you.” He scurries off down the tunnel without a backward glance.
Madoc scowls after him. When he looks at me, his expression somehow softens even as something fierce lights in his eyes. “Has that been happening a lot?”
I hug myself. “Not—not like that. Not actually grabbing me. But people are definitely looking at me differently.”
He mutters a curse under his breath and stands there a moment, as if he feels he needs to do something else but doesn’t know what. Finally, he ushers me on into the passage with the stairs, keeping a respectful distance behind me.
Is he upset because he thinks the other fae are going to mess with what Orion obviously considers his property, or because of how it affects me? His insistence on the apology to me seems to suggest the latter.
But how much does it really matter if he can’t—or won’t—do anything to protect me from his king?
At least his obvious horror at anyone else manhandling me eases any anxiety I might have had about being alone with him in his private space. I sink onto one of the pillows scattered along the wall, and Madoc sits on an overturned crate on the other side of the room. He studies his mostly uneaten wrap and sets it aside as if he isn’t hungry after all.
“You can spend as much time in here as you need to,” he says. “I can bring you food and escort you anywhere you need to go in the rest of the Refuge. I know that’s probably not how you’d want to live, but—it’ll get better, it’s just that the… events from this morning are still fresh in everyone’s minds.”
I rub my forehead. “Until he does something else to me.”
Madoc knows who I mean without me needing to name him. He sighs. “I don’t agree with all of Orion’s tactics, but he’s handling things the way that’s worked for him for centuries before now. It isn’t about you personally, I promise you.”
Does he really believe that? I gaze back at him steadily. “But it is. I’m not fae. I’m hardly even human to him. He calls me his ‘pet.’ As far as he’s concerned, he made me and I belong to him. There’s no way of knowing how far he’ll go, how much worse he might treat me than anyone else here, is there?”
Madoc’s mouth twists. “I have been talking to him. I’ll bring up the current situation too—that it’s affecting the respect the others should have for you after the way you’ve helped us. And—if you’d open up to him, he’d see you more as an equal collaborator. Tell him everything you saw in the Mists, anything that might help us. He just needs to be sure he can trust you to be on our side.”
I recoil from the idea inwardly, my back going rigid. “You expect me to betray my mates to a man who’s enjoyed torturing me more than once in the past few days.”
Madoc looks away, his jaw working. When he brings his gaze back to me, his eyes have hardened. “You’ve seen how the fae of the seasons have treated us. We’re only defending ourselves from a continuing existence of being hunted down and slaughtered at every turn. Would you still rather side with them?”
“It’s not about picking sides,” I snap, my nerves finally fraying completely. “There are plenty of horrible Seelie and Unseelie, and I’ve never denied that. Back when I was in the Mists, I was doing everything I could to change things to help everyone they’re being horrible to. But it isn’t all of them. I know my mates, I fell in love with them for a reason, and I haven’t seen one thing that’s made me question my faith in them.”
“They’re all part of the same system,” Madoc says, sounding frustrated, but I don’t want to hear any more.
“And so are you. Trying to tell me that I should just give in to whatever Orion wants so he won’t hurt me, that I can’t expect any better because your war is so much more important. You know what? I can admit that I was wrong to assume that the Murk were all as awful as the other fae said. I know now that you’ve got reasons for being angry, and lots of you aren’t just looking to make other people miserable.”
“Of course we aren’t.”
“Right,” I say without slowing down. “It isn’t fair to judge an entire people based on what some of them do. And if you think I should recognize that when it comes to the Murk, then maybe you should realize it applies to the rest of the fae too.”
Madoc stares at me, apparently lost for words. “I—” he starts, and cuts himself off. He seems to gather himself, but there’s something awkward in his posture, as if he’s no longer comfortable in the room. “I’m sorry,” he says, not quite meeting my eyes. “I meant to give you some space and instead I’ve upset you. I’ll go.”
He picks up a couple of papers that were on the floor by his telescope and slips down the stairs without waiting for my response. Not that I have any idea what I’d say next. My throat is aching now, with all the anguish that leaked into my voice with my last words.
Maybe it’s too much to hope that anyone here would ever see my point of view. It was hard enough getting the summer and winter fae to relax their guards enough to recognize that they didn’t have to be enemies, and they’d only been in real conflict with each other for a few decades. It seems like they’ve been at odds with the Murk for pretty much forever.
A sense of hopelessness rolls over me, making me want to curl up and wallow in it, but I gather my resolve. Ignoring the heaviness in my heart, I get up and examine every inch of Madoc’s room, rifling through his snack stash, checking under the blankets of his makeshift bed, peering at the star diagrams stuck to the walls.
I don’t find anything else that feels like a clue I can use. Another wave of hopelessness hits me, thickened by my growing exhaustion. I sink down on the pillows again, thinking I’ll just rest and recover for a little bit.
But I must fall asleep, because sometime later I find myself blinking awake with a jolt of adrenaline, my mind taking a moment to remember why I’m waking up in a different place from usual.
The artificial light overhead has dimmed to the faintest of glows. I can barely make out Madoc’s form across from me, mostly covered by blankets. His breath rasps in and out in the slow rhythm of sleep.
I must have been here for hours. He came back, found me sleeping, and didn’t want to disturb me even though he needed to get his own rest.
I sit up carefully, not wanting to ruin his sleep either. Then I notice the plate of food he’s left for me next to the pillows: some kind of flaky pastry that gives off a meaty scent when I inspect it, an orange, and a powdered donut. Even though he was probably annoyed with me after the way I talked back to him earlier, he didn’t want me going hungry or to have to navigate the tunnels outside on my own to get a meal.
A strange sensation squeezes around my heart. I look at the vague shape of the fae man across from me and wish I knew the right way to thank him. The right thing to say to make him understand.
Because I meant it when I said that I don’t think the Murk are all evil. He isn’t evil, even if he’s gotten caught up in Orion’s awfulness. After what I’ve seen, I’m not sure I can blame him for assuming that’s the only way to get a better life for him and all the other Murk. What other options have presented themselves?
I don’t want to let Orion get away with his plans for the Mists, but I don’t like the thought of Madoc suffering because of his king’s choices either.
I can’t do anything about that in my current situation, though. The sleep has given my emotions a chance to reset, and the thought of venturing out into the rest of the Refuge is no longer quite so intimidating. Especially considering that it seems to be the Murk’s “night” now, so almost everyone will be asleep.
That makes it the perfect time to get back to work on my escape plan, doesn’t it?
Taking the meat-filled pastry with me and filled with a rising sense of purpose, I creep down the stairs and through the tunnels toward the maintenance room. As I expected, the Refuge is dark and silent. I have to step carefully to avoid stubbing my toes when I can barely see a few inches ahead of me.
I gulp down the pastry, which turns out to be stuffed with spiced chicken and some kind of dried fruit, and am just wiping the crumbs from my fingers when I reach the collection of abandoned machines. I make my way to the one by the vent, clamber up, and whisper the well-practiced true name. The bracelet reshapes in my hands. Balancing myself on the machine’s sloping top, I get to work on the next bolt.
This one seems to come easier, or maybe that’s just because of my renewed surge of energy and determination. I twist the wrench with all my strength, picturing myself managing to loosen not just one but two or maybe even three tonight. Then I’d be more than halfway to my goal.
I’ve just heaved on the wrench one last time, feeling the bolt give completely, when a skittering sound reaches my ears. It’s so unexpected that I startle. My hands jerk on the wrench—and the tool tugs the bolt right out of its hole. The metal cylinder clinks off the top of the machine and falls to the concrete floor with a louder clatter.
My pulse lurches. I freeze instinctively, and footsteps thump toward me. Down—I have to get down so they don’t see what I was doing. With no time to transform it, I toss my wrench behind the machine and start to slide off.
Before my feet have even reached the ground, a Murk woman who must be one of Orion’s sentries darts into view. She takes in me and my guilty pose. Her eyes, better suited to the dark than mine, lower to inspect the ground. She leaps forward and plucks the bolt off the floor.
When she straightens up, she’s just a foot away from me. I’m afraid to move.
She holds the bolt up between us. “I think Orion needs to hear about this right away.”
My voice tumbles out of me. “Please, I was only— I wasn’t hurting anyone—”
The fae woman mutters a few magical words, and the words die in my throat. I feel as if my mouth is stuffed with some invisible substance. My limbs have gone rigid too. I couldn’t move now if I wanted to.
She prods me and nods with a look of vicious satisfaction with her spell. “You stay right here, and we’ll see what my king makes of this disobedience.”
