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The man behind spread her legs apart even farther, and started pumping like a madman—ratcheting her moans to deafening.
I tried to look past them, and the couple on the couch in the corner, and commit this room and its place on my mentalmap to memory. It was quite nice with its long, communal table, overflowing bookshelves lining the far wall, comfy couches to recline, and paintings of rolling green hills and verdant forests.
“It’s a good thing that I haven’t seen any children yet,” I remarked, “but where are they? Do you have your own rooms? Would a child servant have his own room? Or do you share living quarters?”
“We have our own rooms,” Eadaoin replied.
Begs the question of why these sexual proceedings aren’t taking place in their rooms.
“But the children don’t, nor do they share a living quarter.”
“Then where are they?”
She gave me a knowing look—decipherable even under her orange fur. “I know who you’re looking for, Lady Ana, but I don’t know where he is. Sometimes my lord employs children to work in the castle, but they never do.”
“Never do?” I stopped dead. “Never do what?”
“Work.” She looked away. “I’ve never seen them making beds, sweeping floors, or bringing down food trays. They’re never running through the gardens, or clearing snow off the paths. Children come to Castle Riagin, and then they just... disappear.”
I stared at her, trembling. “Disappear? How can they disappear?”
“I don’t know, my queen. This castle has many secrets. That is one of them.” She turned around and continued on.
I glared at her back. “What does he do to them! What does he do while you all hide your heads and sing false praises!”
She whirled around, glaring right back. But on her, with her two-inch fangs, it was more effective. “I don’t know that he does anything to them,” she snapped, “and neither do you, so I’d refrain from impugning my honor and the honor of our lord.”
I clenched my teeth, throat burning. It wasn’t the first time it struck me that the servants in Castle Riagin were much more comfortable speaking to their royals as equals. Kaelan was Emiana’s lover, and he still snapped his jaw shut on a single look from her. Faeriken were not so cowed.
Of course they weren’t. Dozens of them just tried to assassinate me in front of Alisdair.
Swallowing my anger, I spoke in a more even tone. “Where could they be if they’re not in the castle? How do I find him?”
“I think you know there’s only one person who can answer that.”
I balled and unballed my fist, bursting with the urge to hunthimdown and get that answer. Tomorrow was my last day in Lumenfell. I either found him before I left, or I came back for him after rescuing my family. Either way, this was another promise this liar had no intention of breaking.
“Let’s go,” I finally said, brushing past her. “You may not know where he is, doesn’t mean no one else does. Shadowsoul ordered Aeris to bring him to the kitchens. We’ll start there.”
Eadaoin didn’t fight me. Our tour continued on to the kitchens, which was filled with more rutting couples, threesomes, foursomes, and fivesomes. I tried asking a few of them questions about the boy, but got the hint and scurried away when a woman with a lot of teeth, a lot of claws, and a lot of fur snapped at me.
Eadaoin clapped me on the shoulder. “Are you sure you aren’t in need of my sexual services, Lady Ana? It seems our lord has left you to your own pleasures tonight, and you are very tense.” She held out her arms. “This is why I’m here. To make sure your every need is catered to always.”
I studied her, cutting the instant rejection off on my tongue. “Eadaoin, what do you think of fae?”
“Pardon?”
“Fae like me,” I said. “Unchanged fae. Do you think me stunted? Different? Wrong?”
Discomfort etched into her face. “Well... yes,” she replied, surprising me. “How can you not be, my queen? Your magic was bound and stolen from you, and there’s a slow and torturous death awaiting you because of it. Of course you’re wrong.” She gently touched my elbow. “Don’t you think so as well?”
My lips parted, but nothing came out. Of all the reasons why I thought they called us stunted, that wasn’t on the list. It wasn’t all of us they were speaking of. It was just the faewomen. It was just me.
“Why aren’t women bound here?” I heard myself ask. “Not that you should be. I guess I don’t understand how Shadowsoul can bestow kindness with one hand, and pain with the other. Which man is the true one?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed, voice soft. “Is it kindness, or is it the nature of what we are now? In nature, the males attract the females. They dance, flaunt, gift, and woo them for the mere chance of mating, and when they do mate, they don’t betray their partner for petty jealousies and insecure needs for control.
“Any man who stole my magic from me would lose out on every potential mate, seconds before he lost his throat.”
