Page 59 of These Vile Hearts

Dark circles stain the delicate skin beneath my eyes, and blisters cover my feet. Bruises decorate my ribs from the nightly corsets, and my hips are chafed from the tight jeweled costumes. Working at Magesté is no fucking joke, and I’ve worked dozens of jobs. Among the worst was my brief stint as a birthday clown. There was also the movie theater attendant job where I was in charge of scolding people for being on their phones. And a hundred waitress gigs where old men would make disgusting comments and teenagers would not tip at all. Somehow, at Magesté, even though I am a loathsome mortal, I hold more power than I ever did at any of my mortal jobs, even the corporate dream job that threw me away like an overripe banana.

Last night Fern and I put out a thousand tiny fires—from calming an angry visitor who underpaid to catching a pair of dryad tweens sneaking in through a window. Castor never showed up this morning. The twinge of disappointment I felt was surely due to my lack of coffee and not because I missed the time spent with him. Though, the break from his tumor of a guard was a welcome one. If Castor shows up tonight, I’ll have to find a way to get him alone. For fucking once.

No one warned me how hard homicide could be.

Distracted by my murderous thoughts, I take my nightly dose of insulin and venture up to the backstage costuming station.

A pair of orchids descend on me, swapping my clothes for a boned corset made of pine-colored satin and a matching skirt so heavy it feels like stones have been sewn into the fabric. Images of acorns and pine needles are stitched down the sides and explode into a forest scene along the bottom. My hair is waved and pinned, eyes covered in dark emerald shadow and a cat eye sharp enough to kill, then I’m pushed toward the exit so the next orchid or dancer can be done up.

The only thing I add to my ensemble is my golden dagger, hidden beneath the heavy skirt.

“That color looks sensational on you!” Fern exclaims when I take my place behind the front desk. “You look like a tree on fire with your red hair.”

I tilt my head. “Don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“I suppose not…but sometimes bad things can be beautiful.”

Fern keeps looking at me, bursting with poorly concealed glee.

I arch an eyebrow at her. “What…?”

She holds out a scroll of paper with a grand flourish of her hand. “I was instructed to give this to you once you were ready.”

I unfurl the scroll, reading the dark ink scrawled in the lightest possible touch.

Meet me downstairs once the front doors open —Castor

Fern perches her folded hands beneath her chin, beaming as she swivels her shoulders back and forth. “The king doesn’t ever do things like this. He must really like you.”

“What is he doing exactly, planning my murder?”

Her eyes widen. “Of course not!” Then she frowns. “I mean, I don’t…think?”

“I’m joking.” A little twinge of guilt flutters in my chest when I think of how Fern will react to what I’m planning to do to her king. Would she understand or empathize? After all, she knows what it’s like to be an orphan of sorts, to have a found family. What she’s found in the orchids is what I have in Javen. There comes the briefest desire to tell her my story, to explain myself, but I swallow it. My father’s lumber company was likely the reason she became an orphan in the first place.

When Magesté’s front doors open, chaos follows.

“Go meet Castor!” Fern urges me while dryads and arborfae are ushered into the theater to await the show. “I’ll be fine up here. Honest.”

I don’t argue. I have a king to kill. But, as I push through the theater doors, weaving through the gathering crowd, a sudden tremor settles deep beneath my skin and numbness spreads across my tongue and lips.

Fuck.

My blood sugar was like 130 earlier. How is it dropping like this? I didn’t even take fast-acting insulin.

A sudden wave of dizziness hits. I reach out to grab the back of a theater chair.

This is not good.

I stumble forward. Low blood sugars can feel like all the worst parts of being drunk. The disorientation, the inability to focus on a single thing or to walk in a straight line. There’s a reason so many diabetics get pulled over for driving with a low blood sugar.

The preshow music begins with a rolling cymbal crash. Applause explodes to my right as Evodia sashays onto the stage. Grasping the railing, I nearly trip down the stairs to the door leading to the bottom floor.

Castor waits for me—alone—at the end of the nearest dining table. His clothes are tidier than usual, his hair less disheveled. Through my haze, I make out candles, two glasses of wine, and a pile of sugarberry tarts on a silver plate. “I thought we could—” His sentence drops away when another wave of vertigo hits me at the bottom of the stairs. The king sweeps to my side, pressing a steadying hand at my back. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to collapse.”

I push him away. “I’m fine. I’m just— I need food.”

“Are you…drunk?”