Yam was so gone on powders as she sprinted that she forgot if she was chasing someone or being chased. The euphoriants dissolved her mind like water dripping onto sugar. She wasn’t sure if her feet touched the ground, if the sky remained overhead, if her body was still beneath her. The air smelled of wind and salt and metal as the city rushed on either side of her in a great gray blur. Then–a flash of green up ahead. The boy. The memory came back all at once: he lifted the purse from Lucan’s belt, heavy and distended from a morning of collecting taxes, and she barely had time to shout to Lucan before taking off after him. They chased him through the dust and blood of butcher’s row, past the crowded stalls of the freeman’s market, into the business district. She had to dodge merchants arriving at their grand offices in their three piece suits and stiff hats, almost knocking over a few.
“This kid is fast,” Lucan huffed as he kept up.
The boy had managed to stay just out of reach for too long now. No one could outrun Yam in her own city.
“Steer him left,” she said as she dodged an indignant baker dumping a drum of water onto the cobblestones. “I’m going to cut him off in that alley.” Lucan dipped his head.
Yam bounded up a staggered pile of crates outside a produce seller until she reached the canvas awning over its door. She propelled herself forward, swinging from the awning supports until her feet found the top of the awning. Yam leapt between awnings towards the boy, brash in the way only the young could be, not yet understanding the fragility of life, or becoming indifferent to it. Lucan inched up on the boy’s right and swung his arms out to force the boy left just as she turned the corner down the same alley.
Yam swung down to land directly in the boy’s path, and reached for him. He startled and skidded to a stop but didn’t look as scared as he should. Almost like he was enjoying this. The boy whipped around to see Lucan pull up behind him.
“Nowhere to go, kid.” If Yam had been dry, she would have been embarrassed by how heavily she was panting.
She saw the gleam in the boy’s eye right before he turned and spun underneath Lucan’s arms and then somehow through his parted legs. Before Lucan realized what happened, the boy had given him the slip and taken off on the same crowded road they were just on.
Yam swore and ran after him but didn’t see a trace of green in the direction he had run. She hunched over to catch her breath when it was clear they had lost him.
“He’s going to be pissed,” Lucan said gravely as he took a pinch of the white powder Yam made for him to help with staying awake. She reached into the small leather pouch on her powderbelt stocked with her rotating powder of interest, the current iteration being a strong euphoriant she had dubbed aetherium. She pulled out a small pinch and held it up to her nose to inhale deep.
“We’ll find the kid before he has time to throw a fit.”
“How do you know he will be here?”
“I know where someone on their own ends up at that age.” Yam leaned back on the brick wall lining the freeman’s market. Lucan was glaring at her from the side but she ignored him. He never listened to her when she told him taking too much of the stimulant powder made him irritable. “He looked hungry,” she added as she scanned the market stalls.
“Kid could be halfway to the Albion border by now. And you know when he finds out–which he will—he’s going to blame me—like always—and—”
“The boy is lost, not stupid. He’s not leaving Ibernia.” He may well have left Ibernia’s capital city, Inisfail, but she wasn’t going to stoke Lucan’s fire more with that possibility.
The smells of the market were intoxicating to Yam’s empty stomach. She had to close her eyes so she wouldn’t be too tempted to abandon their task. Meat pies, seared fish, buttery pastries, the sweet perfume of flowers. She vaguely tried to remember the last time she had eaten. Or slept. The early morning collection shifts were the worst. Yam had a difficult time sleeping at night; the world was too still, everything too clear. As her eyes were blinking to adjust to the first rays of light slipping in through the sliver between the curtains, and exhaustion finally weighed down her eyelids, Lucan had banged on her door to pick her up for their shift. One aroma caught her attention: freshly baked bread.
“Over there.” Yam edged the wall until they stood directly behind the baker’s stall.
“We should just tell him, he can put out a signal to keep all eyes out for the boy.”
“Quiet.”
“Come on, he’ll be more mad if we give the kid time to escape the city.” Yam merely held up a hand to shush him.
“Bluefingers.” Lucan used the name she was known by throughout the provinces. He did it intentionally to remind her of the stakes. He was one of the few people who normally used her real name.
Before Yam could hiss at him to be quiet one more time, she caught the flash of green. The boy was crouched between the skirts of a few young ladies. A small but confident hand reached up and slyly pulled down a half loaf, and then a pastry. He wasn’t spending the purse in the city. So he’s not a complete idiot, Yam thought.
She elbowed Lucan and nudged her head towards him. Lucan’s eyes lit up and his fists tightened around a copper wire he pulled taut between them. Yam snaked through the crowd, eyes not daring to leave the green of the boy’s shirt now that she knew how slippery he was. She stepped in front of him and spun to face him, grasping his shoulders at the same instant Lucan wrapped the wire around his wrists, pinning them behind his back.
“Remember us?” Yam smiled like a cat.
They led the boy into a narrow gap between buildings. Lucan’s tall frame blocking the light of the entrance, casting a shadow over the boy as he held him firmly. Yam patted around the boy’s middle and then down each leg until she felt the hard lump of the purse tied around his ankle.
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to steal?” Yam pulled the purse from under his pant leg and tied it onto her powderbelt.
“My mother is dead,” The boy replied tersely. Yam stood back up and took a longer look at him. He couldn’t have been older than thirteen, with round cheeks and floppy curls draped in a curtain around his face. He met her eye, a confident but resilient set to his features.
“Do you know what the punishment is for theft?” She asked him, exasperated. The boy looked at her meekly. “You’ll hang you from a post with a nail in your hand.”
The boy’s eyes widened in horror.
“You’ll be cut down from it at the wrist.”
The boy shook his head vehemently. “I have young sisters, they can’t feed themselves without me. I only stole to buy food for them.” He searched her face for a shred of mercy.
“Doesn’t matter who it’s for. You can’t steal from Cernunnos.” Yam let out a sigh. “He can’t let something like this go unpunished.”
“But you’ve got it back now!” The boy insisted. “No harm, right?”
“Cernunnos already knows.” Yam didn’t like to spend too long thinking about how it was possible, but if a pin dropped in Inisfail, he knew about it.
“Cernunnos?” The boy asked, face screwed up in concentration as he put together the full picture of where he had found himself. His face changed the second he noticed the bronze torc around Yam’s neck.
“You’re a Stag,” he said quietly, something like awe in his voice. Yam thumbed the torc unconsciously, delicate stag horns molded into each end. She faintly brushed the scar underneath the torc before dropping it back onto her collarbone.
“Please,” the boy pleaded, “I didn’t know, you can’t do this, I need to get back to my sisters and our farm, I can’t farm with one hand. We’ll starve!” The boy craned his neck to look back at Lucan, eyes registering the same torc wrapped around his neck. “Please just let me go,” the boy begged.
“We can’t,” Yam pinched the bridge of her nose. Or it will be our hands he cuts off, she added in her head.
“Please, I’ll do anything!”
“He is fast,” Lucan gave Yam a considering glance.
“Don’t,” she warned.
“What is it? Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
“Trust me, kid,” Yam grabbed the hair on the crown of his head and forced him to look at her. “Take the punishment.”
“It’s his decision,” Lucan said evenly. Yam let go of the boy’s hair and he turned up to watch Lucan as he spoke. “Cernunnos will pardon the theft, and give you a loan to feed your family.”
“Lucan—”
“In exchange for Binding yourself to him.”
“I’ll do it,” the boy nodded eagerly.
“Not so fast,” Lucan clicked his tongue at the boy. “We’ll take you to see him, and he’ll decide if you’re worth Binding.”
“And if he decides I’m not?”
“Then he’ll name your punishment, or make you another bargain for the pardon.” The boy nodded slowly. Yam’s stomach turned at the idea of the other ways Cernunnos allowed people to earn a pardon.
“I’ll do it,” the boy said resolutely.
“What’s your name?” Lucan steered the boy out of the alley, one hand on his shoulder and one hand tight around his bound hands.
“Murtagh,” he said proudly as he looked up between the two of them. “But you can call me Moss.” He looked too excited to Yam, she had to resist the urge to smack some sense into him.
“Is it true you have more money and women than you know what to do with? That you can take down a man twice your size? That Stags rule every inch of Inisfail?” The questions spilled out of Moss like a burst dam. Yes, Yam thought. All it costs is everything.
“Sure is, kid,” Lucan winked at him. “Ain’t nothing better than being a Stag,” he said stonily. They walked down the main avenue of the city, mid morning traffic creating a river of people to wade through. Yam stayed silent and fell behind them. Her hand drifted to her belt where she found herself raising a generous pinch of powder to her nose. The immediate rush of color and warmth dulled the real world around her. She lost awareness of the people who stepped out of their way timidly, lost awareness of Lucan and Moss walking ahead of her, lost awareness of herself, if only for a moment.
When Yam returned to her body, still a few steps behind, they had turned down a smaller side street lined with unassuming shops. From far away, the Green Demon glowed, green strips of fabric yawning over the door and red hyde lanterns floating out front. Inside the fogging windows, people crowded inside were already starting to indulge, even though it was barely past midday. The dark brick buildings that surrounded the tavern looked unremarkable from the street, but held their own secrets.
“Whoa,” Moss’ childishly high pitched voice interrupted Yam’s thoughts. “What’s this?”
“The Cut,” Yam said brusquely as she shouldered past Lucan to sidestep into the narrow alley on the right of the tavern. She tilted one shoulder forward to fit through, and held her breath to avoid the smell of stale piss and hops. Along the brick wall halfway down the alley sat a rusted door with a faint carving of a stag head. Yam knocked roughly on it before the door whined open. A hand creased with grime waved them in. The straw-haired twins were standing guard that day, both massive, with their arms crossed and shirts rolled up over forearms the size of Yam’s head.
“You’re late,” one of them said in a deep voice. Their names were Castor and Lock but Yam could never keep straight which one was which. In her head she just called them the bollocks.
“Got distracted,” Yam waved vaguely in Moss’s direction.
“Fresh meat?” A bollock asked, appraising Moss. The boy didn’t cower.
“We’ll see.” Lucan flashed a smile. He certainly knew how to charm. Sometimes Yam thought he looked like the buzzards that trolled the hills outside the city, with their sharp beaks and beady eyes, their wings that they spread to fly but also to puff out their chest and prove they existed.
“He is displeased with your tardiness,” The bollock said as he opened the door straight ahead of them. A narrow tunnel stretched out behind it.
“Cheers,” Lucan nodded at them, smile gone, as he and Moss passed by.
“Bite me,” Yam muttered at whatever his name was right as the door closed behind them.
They walked through the tunnel in silence but Moss’s breathing quickened in the cramped space. The tunnel was dim with small flames flickering inside lanterns to illuminate their step only every so often. The boy shuffled between them and Yam leaned down to whisper in his ear.
“You can still take the punishment, and leave with your life.”
Before Moss could reply, Lucan wrenched open the door at the end of the tunnel and flooded them with bright light. He walked through and gestured for Moss to follow, hands still bound behind his back.
The other side of the tunnel always felt like an optical illusion. Beyond the door, an expansive greenhouse opened up in the hollowed out shell of the building. The top of the building’s brick walls were broken off and replaced with glass that curved to form a ceiling, bathing the room in light from Inisfail’s perpetually overcast and drizzling sky. An enormous oak tree in the center almost reached the glass ceiling, its canopy towering over most of the room. Even from far away, Yam could see the first buds sprouting from its branches like nails on a thousand-fingered hand. They took the small path edged with celandine that led through the garden to a clearing under the tree’s shade.
At the base of the tree, cross-legged and barefoot, Cernunnos sat facing away from them. His broad back was covered in his typical dark green tweed jacket, and his thick mane of raven hair cascaded over his shoulders. Yam and Lucan approached, leading Moss with them. Yam knelt down with her head bowed and Lucan quickly unwrapped the wire from Moss’s hands before joining her. Moss stood there for a second too long and Yam tugged him roughly to his knees.
“Why is the thief here, and not nailed to a post?” Cernunnos prompted bluntly in his deep voice without turning to look at them. Yam’s toes curled in her boots at the reminder that Cernunnos always knew what was happening, as if he had spies constantly whispering in his ears about everything that went on in Inisfail.
“We chased him through four districts, sir.” Lucan spoke.
“You’re getting slow?” Cernunnos’s voice held a sneer.
“No, sir, he’s fast. He’s interested in a bargain. Needs money to feed his family.”
At this, Cernunnos turned his head slightly and let his cold, gray eyes drift over his shoulder to look them over. Yam shook her head to herself. It was almost laughable how predictable Cernunnos was when he smelled a weakness he could exploit.
“You think he could be a half decent fighter?” He stood, his three piece suit with hardly a crease out of place. Large, weathered hands braced Moss’s shoulders and stood him up roughly. He turned his chin side to side to look at his face and weighed Moss’s comically skinny arms between his hands.
“He’s got potential,” Lucan offered.
“Parents?”
“They’re dead,” Moss spoke. The sound of Cernunnos’s back hand striking the boy’s face cracked through the air. Yam bit her tongue.
“First lesson of being a Stag, boy, you’ll speak to me only when spoken to. And you’ll address me as ‘sir.’” Moss nodded solemnly, managing to keep his hands at his side and not touch his rapidly reddening cheek.
Cernunnos raised his brow at him.
“Yes, sir,” Moss said quietly.
Cernunnos nodded and paced away from them to face the tree. Yam tugged on Moss, gentler this time, to return him to a kneel.
“It could be of use, sir,” Yam heard Dougal’s voice before she saw him walk around the base of the tree. He was the Principal Archivist of the Inisfail branch of the Royal Archives, and Cernunnos’s steward. He personally kept every single book and ledger in the Stag operation. “You’re running lower in numbers on the east line because of that skirmish at the Albion border.”
“How many died?” Cernunnos asked as calmly as if he asked whether it would rain later.
“Ten, sir.” Dougal cleared his throat. Yam blinked. Lucan had mentioned something about this but Yam hadn’t asked for too many details, opting for another pinch of powder instead. The possibility of dying while Bound to him was a constant weight in her gut that she preferred to leave be.
“Shame,” Cernunnos remarked without feeling. He turned back to the three of them.
“I’ll make the bargain. He will be Bound tonight.” Moss exhaled next to her. “Bluefingers, watch the boy. Bring him back at dusk.”
“Yes, sir,” she grumbled while wondering why she had to watch the boy when it was Lucan and his snake mouth that had offered Binding up to him in the first place.
“You’re dismissed.” Cernunnos flicked his fingers at them. Yam stood and pulled Moss up with her.
“Lucan,” Cernunnos added. “A word.” Yam led Moss back down the path, the way they came, unsure what Cernunnos would be speaking to Lucan about in private.
“You’re Bluefingers?” Moss asked her after they had entered the tunnel once again.
Instead of speaking, Yam held up her hand as they passed a light, her fingers stained blue from an especially messy accident she had while experimenting with a rare cobalt alloy without gloves. She could feel him gawking.
“But you’re so–” the boy began babbling to himself but paused on a sharp inhale. Yam looked back at him right before wrenching the door open into the landing where the bollocks stood.
“Yes?” she asked dryly, prepared for the usual reactions people had to her. But you’re a woman, was usually the first. Too young, too attractive, not attractive enough. Someone could always find a fault in her when they learned who Bluefingers really was. She pulled Moss along by the scruff of his neck without acknowledging the twins.
“Have fun babysitting,” one bollock snickered as she deposited the boy back into the alley. Her head was beginning to pound.
Yam reached into her pouch but found it was empty. She leaned her head back on the damp brick wall and rubbed her temples, watching the clouds rolling past the slit between buildings.
“You’re so young,” Moss finished his thought, watching her as if just by being near her he would find himself in a deep powderhole if he wasn’t vigilant.
“Older than you.” Yam sniffed unconsciously. She could almost taste the residue of her last dose and it haunted her senses.
“Yeah, but I’m nobody.”
“I was nobody when I was your age too.” Yam pushed herself off the wall. “I need more powder.”
Yam opened the door behind the crowded bar of the Green Demon and took the stairs up to the second floor. She assumed Moss was still following her but wouldn’t blame him if he tried to run. She would, however, not be running after him a second time today. To the left was the glossy red door that led to the pleasure rooms, and to the right, the black door that closed off the powder parlor.
Yam opened the powder parlor door and nodded at the Stag who stood on the other side of it. The room was windowless and dark, filled with smoke and the remnants of clouds of powders. Sparse lanterns floated through the air lazily, lighting up the low couches and pillows arranged on the floor with husks of life draped over them. The bodies of the patrons were languid, with glassy eyes that looked in awe at the ceiling or at each other. The room was filled with the low whispering of people lost in their own world, and vague moans of pleasure as the powders pushed people further into an abyss.
The feeling of Moss following close on Yam’s heels was almost a comfort. Perhaps if he was frightened enough to cling to her he would come to senses about his decision. She turned towards the young powdermaid mixing behind the bar that ran the length of the room and pulled Moss to sit at it.
“Elise,” Yam called the powdermaid. “Watch him,” she pointed at Moss, who sat at the mirrored bar, enraptured by the shelves of countless glass vials that lined the wall in front of him. “He’s got sticky fingers.”
“Hi, honey,” the sugary voice Elise used to talk to Moss made Yam roll her eyes. She never sucked up to Yam like that and Yam was the one who gave her the job and divvied out her weekly earnings. “I think I have something I can give you back here, give me a minute.”
Yam ducked beneath the bar and grabbed a few jars of compounds and extracts. She angrily muttered to herself about being sidled with an annoying and immature kid incapable of making decisions while she deftly combined the mixture in a bowl. She could vaguely hear the powdermaid laughing with Moss about something inane.
“I need something that dulls pain,” a voice spoke clearly from the other side of the bar. Yam knew most of the regulars in the parlor, and could recognize the husky voice of someone who frequented powder easily. This voice was crisp and clear.
“Let me see what I have for you, honey,” the powdermaid twirled around to survey the shelf behind her.
Yam stood up to see Dougal’s archivist apprentice standing in front of her. Despite Dougal’s deep involvement in the Stags, somehow his apprentice at the Royal Archives remained distanced from it all. She couldn’t remember his name although she remembered it was something strange sounding. He wore the satiny blue robes that were the uniform of those dedicated to serving the Queen, and a pair of delicate reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He watched her steadily as Yam took a pinch of her powder mixture and inhaled.
While the aetherium clouded around her, Yam reached back and plucked a stoppered vial of a mild powder that dulled pain.
“This will do the trick.” She pushed it across the bar to the apprentice. “What’s it for?” Yam generally didn’t ask questions about where her powder ended up, but she couldn’t help her curiosity this time. She had never seen him in the Cut before. “Nasty paper cut? Big bad books finally get you?”
The apprentice was wholly unamused.
“It’s for Dougal. Cernunnos is working him to the bone.”
“Same as the rest of us. Not everyone gets to sit in a library all day.” Yam studied him. His posture and apparent discomfort seemed to say he thought he was above all of this. Above Yam.
“They’re archives, not just a library. We protect the history of all of Arcadia.”
Yam snorted. The apprentice sucked in a breath to continue his tirade.
“Give me a break. You protect the history of whatever the House of Flowing Waters decides is worth protecting. Which is anything that supports the rule of the Queen.”
“You work at the Royal Archives?” Moss piped up next to them. Yam refused to be the first one to break from the apprentice’s gaze.
“I do,” the apprentice turned to him. “I’m Quia,” he offered his forearm to Moss.
“I’m Moss,” the boy grabbed onto his forearm and they held each other for a moment. “I’ve never been to the Royal Archives.”
“You can come anytime. I can show you around. There is a lot of interesting history there.” At this, he glanced back at Yam. “Important to pass it on to future generations.”
“Thanks,” Moss smiled brightly. Yam almost envied how quickly this boy’s mood could lighten. “Can we go after I’m Bound?” he turned to Yam. Quia and the powdermaid both stilled at the mention of it, and Yam cursed this boy and his casual repetition of words he could not possibly comprehend.
“He’s being Bound?” Quia whipped back to Yam, outrage twisting his features.
“It was his choice. He stole from Cernunnos. It’s this or lose a hand.”
“He’s too young.”
“I was his age when I was Bound.”
“And look where that’s gotten you.”
Yam let his judgment roll off her. He knew nothing. “It’s his choice,” she held up her hands; it was out of her control.
“Why are you all acting like it’s such a bad thing?” Moss asked. He looked around all of them.
“Honey,” Elise reverted to her sugary voice, “it’s painful. And it’s…permanent.” She looked at Moss with pity. Yam rolled her shoulders and straightened her spine. She would take fear over pity any day.
“It’s barbaric,” Quia said under his breath.
“I want to be a Stag. I don’t want my sisters or I to worry about money ever again. And I want to be feared.” He puffed out his chest. Yam couldn’t help but huff a small laugh.
“You will be, honey,” Elise patted his hand. “You’ll be the scariest Stag that Inisfail has ever seen.” Moss twisted his face into something goofy and turned to the powdermaid. She laughed.
“He’s just a kid,” Quia spoke softly, only to Yam.
“Not all of us have people in our lives to protect us from making bad choices,” Yam replied, annoyed that he was allowed to voice all of her concerns and she could do nothing to change it.
“I’ll see you at the Archives sometime, kid,” Quia brushed Moss’s shoulder. The boy beamed at him. His royal robes shimmered in the dim light as he walked out of the parlor.
Yam emptied the bowl of her mixture into the pouch on her belt and sealed it. She looked back where she had pulled the mild pain duller off the shelf, and saw the more intense version next to it. Slipping the vial into her belt, she hopped over the bar and tugged Moss behind her.
“Bye!” he waved over his shoulder at the powdermaid. Yam heard a soft, melancholic goodbye from behind the bar.
“Where are we going?” Moss asked.
“Back to the Green Demon. You’ll need some liquid courage for tonight.”
“Sounds fun,” he said cheerily. Hopefully the Binding would cure some of the kid’s incessant need to befriend everyone. It was quite good at that.
Dusk had come far too quickly for Yam’s liking. She had pushed a glass of strong spirits into the boy’s hand and thrown back a few glasses herself while she found the hardest Stags at the tavern for Moss to talk to. She put Moss in front of seasoned killers and the boy didn’t bat an eye. No matter what anyone said to him, the boy was set on being Bound. Of course the one thing that might dissuade him from going through with it they were forbidden from sharing. The process of the Binding was a staunchly kept secret, one you were only privy to if you had gone through it yourself. One of the many paradoxes of being a Stag that made Yam want to rip her own hair out. She downed the rest of her drink and pulled Moss up by the collar.
“Time to go,” she said simply, her limbs heavy with the prospect of what was to come. Moss had managed to charm every Stag he had talked to, and he received a pat on the shoulder or a ruffle of his hair from all of them as they walked out.
Yam took a generous inhale of powder as she guided Moss back through the alley to the side door and through the tunnel into the greenhouse. Lucan waited at the base of the tree, hands clasped behind his back. She stared straight ahead and refused to meet his eye when he nodded at her. At least after this she would be rid of the boy, she comforted herself. Things could go back to normal.
Walking around the base of the tree, among its roots, she started to descend the hidden staircase. The stairs wound around the tree’s root system until they came to the heavy wooden door set into the roots.
“You’re sure about this?” She turned to Moss one last time. His nerves were finally starting to show but he nodded steadily. Yam pushed open the door and entered the familiar room.
The ceilings hung low and the fire in the hearth burned bright. The room was lined with Stags, with Cernunnos standing in the center next to the fire. Dougal stood immediately to his right, his face unreadable. Cernunnos held out his hands in welcome, his mouth stretched open to bare his teeth in a grim smile.
“You’ve made an excellent choice,” he boomed in the otherwise silent room. “Kneel before me.” Cernunnos swept his hands in front of him.
Moss slowly but steadily stepped forward and sank to his knees in front of him.
“For the crime of theft, your debt is ten years, to be paid in my service.”
Moss swallowed.
“Do you accept this Bind? Only to be removed when your debt has been repaid?”
“Yes, sir,” Moss spoke. The debt will grow every day you spend in this prison, Yam fought the urge to scream. Her knuckles turned white gripping her powderbelt, tamping the urge to pull him out of the circle.
Cernunnos turned and walked towards the fire. Two Stags stepped forward and knelt down next to Moss to clasp his arms. Moss looked at them, confused. Cernunnos bent over the fire and when he stood back up he held the white hot torque between two clamps.
Moss took one look at it and jerked his head around to find Yam, his eyes full of fear. He began struggling between the two Stags who held him, trying to push away.
“No–wait,” Moss cried, “I don’t want–” He was cut off when a third Stag came behind him and put a leather belt in his mouth, muffling his words into grunts. He tried to push up but the Stags kept him on the ground. As Cernunnos stepped closer with the torc, now burning a bright orange, he smiled at Moss’s reaction. As the torc got closer to Moss’s neck he devolved from grunts to blood chilling screams in protest.
Cernunnos circled the torc behind Moss’s head to his neck and then drew the clamps together.
Moss’s screams turned guttural as the superheated torc was tightened around his neck and the room filled with the smell of burning flesh. Yam could feel the pain of her own Binding still on her skin, a phantom pain that never truly went away. The screams from the distant memory filled her ears on top of Moss’s.
Cernunnos removed the clamps and let the torc fall to rest around Moss’s neck. Normally Yam turned away for this part, but she felt compelled to witness it this time. Moss had spit streaming down his face but hadn’t bitten off his tongue thanks to the gag. His face looked like he had gone elsewhere, a place Yam remembered well. Where the mind took you in one last act of self preservation, where things like this didn’t happen to a person. But it was Cernunnos’s reaction that caught her off guard. She didn’t expect anything, but she noticed he almost seemed to stumble. His gray eyes blinked and looked faraway, like he too had gone somewhere else.
The Stags let go of Moss, smoke still floating up from his neck. He collapsed onto the ground, out cold from the pain and shock.
“Get him a bottle and a girl and he’ll sleep it off,” Cernunnos said as he wiped grease off his hands, back to his state of complete composure.
Yam recalled her first night, thrown into a cramped room in the Cut with just a bottle to help and a thin mat to sleep on. The pain had made her feverish and delirious, the only comfort coming from restless sleep provided by the bottle. She tried to turn and walk back the way she came, tried to remain unaffected by the events of the day. But her legs refused to move. She swore to herself before turning back to Moss.
“Leave him,” she barked at the Stag who was about to throw him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. The Stag backed off quickly.
Yam gently pulled Moss’s arm over her shoulder and lifted him to stand. His head lolled onto her shoulder. She walked them slowly back up the stairs. At the base of the tree the garden was dark and Lucan was nowhere to be found. Yam shook her head. Coward, she accused him silently.
The walk through the Cut to her quarters was slow-going. Moss came in and out of consciousness, only moaning and barely dragging his feet when he was awake. Finally she reached her door and pulled Moss over the threshold. Her quarters had significantly upgraded since that first night in the Cut. Her talents as a chemist–which she had quickly realized were sorely needed in Cernunnos’s heavily agricultural, and thereby outdated, operation–had made her quite important to him.
Yam laid Moss down on a lounge by the fireplace and rested his head on a pillow. Digging through her supply cabinet, she found an antiseptic powder and strips of cloth. Moss groaned as she elevated his head further and moved the still hot torc out of the way to dress the wound. She sprinkled the antiseptic before wrapping his neck in cloth. As she worked, she noticed the edge of a gold chain around his neck that had fused with the torc. The bottom of it still hung loose so she thumbed it out from under his shirt and saw it had a small orb-like pendant on the end with a red stone inset in the center. Stamped on the underside was the indicator for real gold. Why would he be stealing when he had a healthy amount of gold sitting around his neck? She tucked it back into his tunic.
Sitting back on her heels, Yam saw he had streams of tears shining on his cheeks. She pulled the pain duller that she had taken from the powder parlor off her belt and sprinkled some in her hand.
“Moss,” she tried to get his attention. He groaned in response. She held her palm with the pain duller up to his nose. “Moss, take a big breath in through your nose.” Just lucid enough, he followed her instructions and breathed in, the powder pulled up with the air. Moss sighed and his body slowly went limp.
Yam stood. She gave herself another hit of powder and yanked the stopper off a bottle of cheap barley spirits with her teeth. As she took a healthy pull straight from the bottle, she heard a soft knock.
Yam opened her door slowly, bottle still in hand.
Lucan stood on the other side, and as Yam opened the door fully, she saw a girl next to him wrapped in the red silks of the pleasure room.
“I’m sorry,” Lucan said softly, with the smile that he only showed in the small hours of the night, as if it could rectify the fact that Moss would never again wake up a free man. This one was different from his buzzard smile. It was the smile Yam had first seen when they met on the streets of Inisfail several years ago, before Yam became a Stag. It made him look younger, like he was someone capable of being happy.
“You’re wasting your breath. I’m not interested tonight.” Yam began to swing the door closed again but Lucan braced it with his long fingered hand.
“Don’t be upset. The boy wanted a way out, and I provided it.”
Yam recalled how Cernunnos spoke to him privately afterwards, how Lucan likely was given a reward for delivering a new Stag to Cernunnos’s lap. Ever the altruist, Lucan was.
“I brought you a treat,” Lucan’s eyes danced to the girl who stood next to him. “We can enjoy her together.” He took a step forward, already expecting Yam to say yes. She had a moment where she saw herself clearly, saw that she would allow Lucan and this stranger to come in, would drown herself in bodies and powder, and she would continue on tomorrow as if today had been nothing.
She wordlessly stepped aside to allow them in.
