Chapter 1 - Escaping Matron Rusk.

The window ledge was cold enough to bite through my fingers, but that was the least of my problems. The bigger problem was the light flickering to life in Matron Rusk's office, right where my other foot was dangling. Damn it all to seven hells.

I hung there, half in and half out, like a spider caught in a web of my own making. The pouch of coins I stole was around my chest. The plan had been to retrieve it from her office after everyone was asleep. The plan had not included the old bat returning for a late night rendezvous with her ledgers.

Below me, a frantic whisper cut through the dark. "Stas! Stas, she's back! I told you, I told you she was coming!"

Rooney. My lookout. The worst lookout ever. I could hear the panicked giggle in her voice, the one she always got when she was terrified and trying not to show it.

"Shut it, Rooney!" I hissed back, my voice barely a breath. "You're supposed to be watching, not narrating my death!"

I hauled myself up, my weak muscles screaming in protest. My boot scraped against the stone wall, a sound that seemed to echo in the silent courtyard. I froze, heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The light in the office didn't move. I slithered through the narrow opening, landing on the floor as silently as a cat.

The room smelled of dust, ink, and Rusk's cheap lavender water. It was a smell I associated with punishment, cold porridge and lectures about my "ungrateful, wicked nature." I was halfway to the door when my eyes fell on the desk. The lantern was lit, and beside it lay a thick, leather-bound ledger. Curiosity, that fatal flaw of mine, snagged my attention. I crept closer.

The coins in my pouch were more than I'd thought. A lot more. Gold, not just silver. Enough to buy a new life for me and Rooney. But it was the ledger that made my blood run cold. A neat list of names. Girls who had been here when I arrived, girls who had vanished one by one. Beside each name was a sum of money and a single, chilling word: Paid.

The door clicked open behind me.

"Stasia."

Matron Rusk's voice was quiet, colder than the winter wind outside. I spun around, clutching the ledger to my chest like a shield.

She stood in the doorway, a fat and balding figure in her grey nightdress. Her eyes, sharp and flinty, went from my face, to the open ledger in my hands and finally to the pouch at my chest. A grim smile touched her lips.

"An ungrateful thief to the very end," she said, her voice dripping with a weariness that was far more terrifying than any shout. "I have given you shelter, food and a roof over your head. And this is how you repay me? By stealing from me? By snooping in my private affairs?"

"Shelter?" The word was a bitter laugh in my throat. "You call a leaking mattress and a daily reminder that I'm unwanted shelter? You've offered me exactly three things, Matron. Cold porridge, a dirty windy room, and your profound disappointment. Forgive me if I'm not weeping with gratitude."

Her eyes narrowed. "My money. Return it. Now."

I knew that tone. It was the one that preceded the lashings to come. But I couldn't resist. With deliberate slowness, I reached into the pouch and pulled out the coins, letting them clink onto her desk one by one. When the last coin fell, I held her gaze and palmed one single, shiny gold piece, slipping it into my sleeve.

She saw. Her face tightened, but she didn't comment. "Have you learned your lesson?" she asked, her voice threatening.

I met her eyes, my chin held high. "I've learned to check whether your office door is locked before I break in."

The first lash came before I could even blink, landing on my leg.

Later, curled on my side on my straw pallet, the welts on my back and my legs a raw burning fire, the door to my room creaked open. I didn't move. I knew the sound of Rooney's footsteps. She was the only one who ever bothered to visit me after a beating.

"Stas?" Her voice was a soft and worried whisper in the dark. I felt the straw shift as she knelt beside me. A cool and wet cloth touched the worst of the welts, and I flinched. It smelled of her salve, the one she made from herbs she grew in a chipped pot on her windowsill. Then, the scent of fresh bread.

"Brought you something," she murmured.

I rolled over, wincing. Rooney's face was pale in the moonlight, her big eyes full of a worry she was trying to hide. She was all soft edges and quiet hopes, the complete opposite of me. And she was the only person in this world I'd take a beating for.

"You're an idiot," I grunted, taking the bread. It was warm. "You shouldn't have come. If Rusk catches you..."

"She won't." She dipped the cloth in the salve and carefully dabbed it on my arm. "Stas, we're running out of time. Our birthdays are next week. Then we're out on the streets."

"So?" I said around a mouthful of bread. "I'll start stealing on the streets. Or marry a wealthy widower with one foot in the grave and a house full of silver. Or steal a horse and ride far away until the horse develops better judgment than I do."

Rooney didn't laugh. She just looked at me with that sad and knowing expression that always made me feel like I was failing some test I didn't even know I'd taken.

"What will you actually do?" she asked softly.

I had no answer. The truth was a hollow and empty pit in my stomach. I was turning eighteen soon, I had no money, no skills besides a quick hand and a quicker mouth, and a reputation that preceded me everywhere. I wasn’t conventionally pretty, I was scraggly and thin with no large bosom, with my pale hair falling out in lumps due to malnutrition and I had a nasty attitude according to Matron Rusk. I wouldn’t make it as a whore.

My only plan was a stubborn, desperate refusal to end up somewhere worse than this. And looking at the fear in Rooney's eyes, I knew that was a very real possibility.

A shadow moved in the courtyard below. Instinct, honed by years of dodging Rusk and her wicked staff, made me push myself up and peer out the grimy window. A figure was standing with Rusk, cloaked and hooded. He was tall, his voice a low rumble I couldn't make out. But the way Rusk was nodding, her posture subservient... it made my skin crawl.

Then, the wind shifted, carrying a few snatches of his words. "...healthy... midnight... retrieve the girl..."

I thought of the ledger with the names of all the missing girls. I wondered if he was here for another girl. Was Rusk selling girls?

It all slammed into place with the force of a physical blow. Rusk wasn't just running an orphanage. She was a merchant, and we were her stock.

"Rooney," I breathed, my voice suddenly hoarse. I grabbed her arm, my grip tight. "We have to leave. Tonight."

"What? Stas, what are you talking about? Your back..."

"It's not just my back! She's selling us, Rooney! She’s going to sell another girl and who better to sell than the two troublesome girls aging out of the orphanage next week? The girls who left, the ones we never saw again... she's selling them!" My voice was a frantic and terrified whisper. "That man is here for a girl tonight. At midnight. We have to go."

The colour drained from Rooney's face. "Selling...? No, Stas, that's madness. She's a horrible old bat, but she wouldn't..."

"I saw the ledger! I saw the words 'Paid' next to Sylvia's name! And Janet! Open your eyes!" I was already on my feet, pulling her towards the door. "We are leaving. Right now. We'll find a way. We'll sleep in a gutter, we'll beg, we'll do anything, but we are not staying here."

We burst into the corridor. The house was too quiet, but we took the risk anyway. We made it halfway to the back staircase before a door at the end of the hall flew open.

"The girls! Stop them!" Rusk's voice was a shriek.

Two of the kitchen hands, men with thick arms and dull eyes, lumbered into the hallway. One of them reached for Rooney. She screamed. And something inside me, the feral, cornered animal that had been beaten down for seventeen years, finally broke its chain.

I didn't think. I grabbed the heavy brass candlestick from a side table and swung. It connected with a sickening crunch against the first man's face. He roared in pain, his nose spurting blood, staggering back. I shoved Rooney forward. "Go! The courtyard!"

I kicked and bit and I fought with a ferocity I didn't know I possessed. I was a whirlwind of elbows and teeth, buying Rooney precious seconds. I saw her reach the heavy door to the courtyard, fumbling with the latch. I was right behind her. The cold night air hit my face.

And then a pair of arms like iron bands clamped around my waist, yanking me off my feet. I was dragged back, kicking and screaming, as the courtyard door slammed shut, cutting off Rooney's terrified, "STAS!"

They threw me onto the floor of Rusk's office. The matron stood over me, her face a mask of cold fury. "Lock her in her room," she commanded the guard holding me. "She'll be gone by morning anyway. Tell the other one if she so much as breathes a word about this, I'll have her arrested for theft and assault." Her eyes glittered. "And with her friend gone, who would believe her, anyway?"

They dragged me back to my room and threw me inside. The key turned in the lock. I pounded on the door until my fists were raw, screaming for Rooney, screaming for help, screaming until my voice gave out. Then, a strange lethargy began to creep into my limbs. A heavy and unnatural sleepiness, like a warm and dark blanket settling over my mind. My eyelids drooped. The last thing I saw was a thin tendril of sweet-smelling smoke curling under my door.

She drugged me.

Then, nothing.

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When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the silence. Then, the light streaming through the window. It was soft and golden, filtering through tall and arched windows. I was lying on something impossibly soft. The sheets were silky against my skin and not the rough, scratchy burlap of the orphanage straw bed.

I sat up slowly, my head swimming. The room... it wasn't a room. It was a massive space. Walls covered in dark, rich wood paneling, a massive four-poster bed and a fire crackling in a hearth big enough for me to stand in. The air smelled of leather, old books and frost.

I was in a place that was not the orphanage.

I was in a place that was not anywhere I had ever been.