I froze.
The seamstress turned stiffly, as if her neck was fused to her shoulders. When she faced me, I had to bite off my gasp. Her nose ended in a mass of small pink tentacles, like a star-nosed mole’s. We stared at each other for a moment, silent and gauging. Finally she spoke. Well, tried to speak. She could only manage garbled syllables. With a frustrated grunt, she hefted herself up and shuffled toward me.
Maybe she thought I was a servant? No. Not a chance. Not in a satin gown.
She pointed at the maid’s uniform in my hands.
I tightened my grip. “I need it.”
“Tra —” she wheezed. “Tra —” Her clawed toes jutted past the edge of her flip-flops as she hobbled forward, pointing at my chest. “Trade.”
“Trade the gown for the maid’s dress?” I plucked at my gown. She nodded. “Deal,” I said and turned my back to her. “Please unzip me.”
Despite having thick claws for fingernails, she had a delicate touch, and the gown fell away from my skin. As I shimmied out of it, the folded paper that had been in Cosmo’s hand fell out. I snatched it up and read “21:00 on roof.” The roof? What kind of escape plan was that?
I pulled on the ragged dress, fastened the collar around my neck, and then rubbed my hands on the basement wall until they were good and filthy. Without a second of hesitation, I smeared the damp grime over my face and down my arms. Finally I tore off my blue Ferae test and threw it into the corner. I had to get Rafe and be back here by nine, which was — I checked my dial — in an hour.
I glanced at the seamstress, who was brushing the satin across her cheek, and then she held the gown against her body. She swayed while making a rhythmic, chirping sound. Singing? Had the gown stirred up some long-buried memory?
She stopped abruptly and looked toward the corridor. A second later, I heard what she had: boot steps in the passage. The seamstress tugged off her head scarf and offered it to me. I took it gratefully and managed to pull it over my hair just as a five-man squad of handlers hustled into the room. Three of them hurried past, giving the seamstress and me the barest glance before moving on to search the hallways beyond. We stood silently among the mannequins as the two remaining handlers poked around the sewing room. After a moment, the seamstress slid my gown — now her gown — over a naked mannequin and thrust a pincushion into my shaking hands.
A handler strode over to us. “Did a young woman come through here?”
The seamstress shook her head while pinching in a side seam on the gown. I handed her a pin. The handler shifted his gaze onto me and I quickly shook my head. His look turned to one of disgust and he moved on, which meant — unbelievably — that I’d passed for a manimal!
I released my breath as the handlers left the sewing room. I’d bought myself a little time, but that was all. If I was going to escape from here and free Rafe, I had to get the handlers off my back. But how? Maybe if they had a bigger problem than me to occupy them. Something so bad or so dangerous that it would require all of the handlers’ focus and energy …
Not something, I realized. Four very dangerous someones would do the trick. And to make it happen, all I needed was a key.
I turned to the seamstress. “Omar is dead.” Her eyes widened at the news and then her lips pulled back. A smile? “Do you know where they would put his body?” I asked. With all the chaos, hopefully no one had thought to empty Omar’s pockets.
The seamstress led me down yet another dark corridor and pointed to a walk-in freezer. “Thank you,” I whispered, and with a nod, she was gone. I pried open the rusting door and stepped in, only to stumble. Omar had been dumped just over the threshold, limbs akimbo. I shoved him onto his back and unclipped the key from his belt loop — the very key that he’d used to taunt the queen. I clipped it into the neckline of my maid’s uniform.
I was just about to step out when a thought hit me. The queen — her breeding program. I pivoted to look at the shelves that lined the walk-in. Where else would she store the infected blood but in a freezer?
And there they were — vials, on a shelf, tucked inside a metal box with a glass top. I unclasped the top, lifted a vial, and read the word scrawled on masking tape along the side: “cuscus.” Was that a kind of animal? I didn’t know. I pulled out another vial. This one read “colobus monkey.” That was definitely a type of animal. I counted the rows. There were forty vials of blood in the box. A yelp of triumph escaped me. Thank goodness I was inside a freezer.
I quickly refastened the lid and put the box back on the shelf. I didn’t have time to check if the vials were all different or if there were duplicates, and I couldn’t take them to the zoo with me. The blood would spoil at room temperature. I’d have to leave the box here until just before Rafe and I met Everson on the roof.
I slipped out of the walk-in freezer only to hear the handlers’ whispers down the hall. I hurried in the opposite direction and came to a large room lined with animal pens. The servants’ quarters. This was where Cosmo had once lived with his mother. Thinking of him left me feeling shivery and close to collapse. I crouched in an empty pen with the heel of my palm pressed to my lips to trap a welling sob.
Cosmo … I buried my face in my arms. I could keep certain images pushed to the edge of my brain but not the sounds. Those kept playing in my mind, distorting and magnifying. The crunch of the handlers’ batons battering Cosmo long after he’d crumpled to the ground. The wet noise of Chorda tearing out the queen’s heart. His deep-throated growl. I curled onto my side in the hay, dizzy and on the brink of vomiting. But I couldn’t afford to give in to my grief. Not if I was going to escape and free Rafe. I squeezed my calf, digging my fingers into the bandage. Pain blazed up my leg and sharpened my mind.
A creak outside my pen propelled me into a crouch. I peered over the rough wooden wall. Manimals wearing thick collars had emerged from their pens to stare at me with glowing eyes. I swallowed against the ache in my throat and wondered what explanation I could possibly give for invading their privacy. And then I saw the babies cradled in their mothers’ arms and the children peeking out from behind their parents’ legs.
Hate for Chorda and his handlers hardened in me like clay in a red-hot kiln. How evil did you have to be to force people — children even — to live in pens in a dark, dank basement? It wasn’t their worst crime against these manimals, but after seeing so much mistreatment, it was one cruelty too many. Something inside of me snapped and suddenly I knew how it must feel to go feral.
A spiky-headed man straightened, his pointed ears erect. A badger-woman’s nose twitched. And then they all scurried back into their pens, dragging their children with them. A moment later, three handlers stomped into the room.
29
Flashlight beams crisscrossed the servant quarters. Hay snapped underfoot and gates were thrown open as the handlers searched the pens, breathing heavily under the weight of their leather aprons. I pulled my head scarf low over my eyes. The handlers kicked manimals awake, questioned them, and raked through their possessions.
A glaring flashlight sought me out and I lifted my face the way I thought they’d want. Someone gave a satisfied grunt. “Anything?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Only people who belong here,” said a husky voice. A familiar voice. I peeked over the top of my pen and saw Everson in a leather apron. He had bandages on both cheeks from where the feral had scratched him.
“People,” snorted the guard nearest to my pen. “That’s funny. I’m done with this pigsty. I’m going back to the barracks.”