Page 116 of Ravenous

She spilled out of bed and grabbed her maid’s uniform. It stank of the cleaner she’d used to scrub out blood yesterday. She ignored the itchiness of the fabric as she tied on her apron.

Inkletter’s visits usually gave her something to look forward to all day, but he’d been gone this week, off studying a new acquisition.

Nadje hadn’t had a pressing mission for them, so she’d tried to shrug off his easy absence from her. Yet as of last night, she’d landed a new job, had met with a promising contact in Umber during her feeding field trip. He wanted information only found in this castle, information she could get. For a price.

She grabbed her chamber keys and a pile of folded linens, then debated bringing her other tool—a small, glass vial.

Was she only going to clean? Or to work on her nextgetter-of-thingsmission?

Inkletter had warned of the dangers of snooping around the castle alone. Maybe she should wait for him. He could watch her back, teleporting her out of danger in a flash.

But she didn’t know when he’d be back, and time kept passing.

Mama’s words echoed:We’ll save up some gold and buy passage out of here. One night, we’ll be free.

She’d had four days before she’d burned to death.

With that memory in mind, Nadje pocketed the vial, then climbed ten stories from the servants’ ward to the royal floor.

The abandoned hallway stretched before her, lined with luxurious rugs. The doors to the princes’ and princesses’ chambers loomed like gaping mouths.

A prickle crawled across her nape. Ever since her exchange with Baelor the Unraveler, she’d feltwatched, but the sensation hovered even more intensely here…

Outside, rain pattered. Inside, moans leaked through thick doors, pleasure and agony intermingling.

The eldest daughter of Neculain and Sereth had an amputation fetish, was aroused by regeneration. The youngest prince spent every hour all but attached to an intoxispell vaporizer. Another son drained donors to death, then forced revivals. Prince Resurrector’s success rate was questionable.

This floor was a level of hell—the bleeders, the feeders, the deviants, all locked into sin. If Lia hadn’t escaped Bloodreach, would she have become like her siblings?

Some said the drugs that kept the donors docile had the opposite effect on the royals who drank from them, making them crazed.

Or maybe this castle was as dangerous as the Badlands, twisting any occupants who couldn’t get free.

Nadje frowned at a small figure curled up on the floor down the hall, then hurried to help. But as she approached, her steps slowed.

A donor’s corpse. Discarded beside a tray of broken bottles. Trash for pickup.

The female’s face was blank. Glazed eyes. Pierced jugular. Not much older than Nadje had been when her mother had died.

Would this one’s mother ache for her child? Or be unaware of what hadbeen stolen?

Nadje leaned against the wall, and her breaths shallowed, the smell of ash thickening in her nose.

Not now.Not now.

She shoved the waking nightmare aside and hurried to the last door on the hall, the heir’s suite. She pasted on a fake smile and knocked. “I’m here to service the room!”

Silence.

Every entry into Co?tin’s chamber risked her life. But more than her maid duties pushed her onward.

She unlocked the door and slipped inside. Flickering light from lanterns cast shadows over the open curtains and the untouched bed. Co?tin wasn’t here.

She locked the door behind her, dropped her linens atop the spread, then headed straight to the closet.

A safe sat on the floor, a matte black cube with golden embellishments.

Golden. Like Co?tin’s infamous sword. Even the General of Nothing had taken a head here or there.