In the four years that Ella had worked in the bakery, Mr. Lepore came in at the beginning of each week at exactly nine o’clock in the morning. He would always greet Agnes and Ella, spout of some strange conspiracy story he’d heard, pay for his loaf and leave.
The morning she was meant to give Mr. Lepore his special loaf, Ella was convinced she was going to have a heart attack.
She arrived just as Agnes was unlocking the door, shaking with sweat already soaking her underclothes.
“Are you alright?” Agnes asked, giving her a concerned look. “You look worse than when my Torbin died.”
Ella tried her best to stretch a smile onto her face. Her voice shook as she spoke. “I’m alright.”
The look of concern on Agnes’s face didn’t waver, but she said nothing and let Ella follow her inside.
Agnes got to work on starting up the ovens while Ella began working on the dough. Her hands shook as she added yeast to flour, hooking and kneading the concoction together.
What would happen if authorities traced the poison back to the bakery? Would Agnes be arrested? Would she?
Sparing a glance at her employer, who was humming merrily to herself, not at all aware of Ella’s inner turmoil.
Agnes had given her a job when no one else would. Yes, it had been a favor to Ella’s late father, but she had been grateful all the same. Now, she was using that opportunity to kill an innocent man simply because he had hurt a fairy’s feelings.
The stories of the fae being incredibly sensitive and easily angered appeared to have been based in truth.
With a glance back at Agnes, who had just gone off to fetch more flour from the store room, Ella took the vial out from her skirt pocket and stared at the vibrant blue content. It was a very pretty shade of blue, exactly the same as the flowers had been. She had wondered what kind they were but had been too scared to ask in the moment.
From what Lady Nyx had said about the speed of Mr. Lepore’s death would depend on how much of the poison he consumed at a time, the poison would kill him slowly over the course of the week.
Ella eyed the printed heart paper that they wrapped all of the baked goods in. If Mr. Lepore died before he finished his loaf and the authorities suspected poisoning, that paper would be a dead giveaway.
Loud scuffling noises warned that Agnes was coming back. Ella quickly stuffed the vial back into her pocket and went back to kneading the dough.
Agnes never left the kitchen again, leaving Ella with no opportunity to add the poison to one of the loafs intended for Mr. Lepore. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or worried. Lady Nyx didn’t seem like someone who gave second chances.
The clock tower at Glassen Palace rang eight times, signaling the start of the day.
An hour later, right on schedule, Mr. Lepore entered the bakery, shouting a greeting to Agnes who was glazing some fruit-filled pastries in the back, and then turned to Ella.
“Good morning. You look terrible.”
Ella blinked in surprise. She felt awful but hadn’t thought she looked that bad.
“I’m fine,” she lied, wrapping up a perfectly unpoisoned loaf for him and sliding it over the counter.
“Haven’t been getting into fairy fruit, have you?” Mr. Lepore asked as he handed over his gelds. “The fae are glamoring it to look like our fruit and then sneaking it into our markets.”
Having actually met a fairy that likes to sneak poison into bread, Mr. Lepore’s theories didn’t sound so crazy anymore.
“Where did you hear that?” she asked him.
“My friend Arnie told me,” he said seriously. “He works at the docks, bringing in produce from Waldreich. It’s the only way for the fae to sneak it in since they’re landlocked by Waldreich. Anyways, he said some of the fruit that’s been coming in lately has smelled off. It’s too sweet, and the fruit looks too perfect.”
“Maybe Waldreich’s just having a good crop year?” Ella suggested.
Mr. Lepore gave her an exasperated look. “Oh no, I’ve seen the fruit myself at my local market. Waldreich is normally half frozen this time of year. There’s no way the last of their shipments should look so ripe.”
Ella couldn’t really believe she was having a conversation about the quality of fruit with a man she was supposed to be killing. The whole thing made her want to burst out laughing.
“Which market is that?” she asked, trying to keep her features neutral. Not that she could afford to buy fruit, but the selection at her local vendors looked less than appetizing this time of year anyways.
“The market on Briar Street,” Mr. Lepore said. “I’ve been going to that market since I was a boy. I grew up in the Paisley Hill area, you know.”
Ella vaguely knew the area. It was much nicer than what her family could afford even before her father died. They had gone to visit the shops there occasionally when she had been young though.
A dreadful thought suddenly occurred to her.
“Do you still live there?” she asked, trying to keep her tone casual.
Mr. Lepore nodded. “Yes, I live over on Freddle Road in the house with the cherry tree.”
Ella didn’t frequent Paisley Hill enough to know where that was, but she couldn’t quite believe he told her that.
Mr. Lepore took a silver pocket watch out from his coat and looked at the time. “I must be off,” he said, slipping the watch back into his pocket. “See you next week.”
Ella murmured a goodbye and slumped against the counter, watching him walk out of the bakery and into the crowd. As soon as the little bell above the door chimed, Agnes came back out from the kitchen with a tray of filled pastries.
“Is he gone? Thank goodness. A nice enough man to be sure, but he has the most ridiculous stories. What was he saying today?”
Ella kept her eyes on the door as she said, “something about fairies trying to kill us all with fruit.”
Agnes snorted before glancing back at Ella. “Are you sure you’re alright? You still look pale. Maybe you should take the day off.”
Normally, Ella would argue since she needed the money, but today she had another job to do.
“Yeah, alright,” she heard herself saying.
Fifteen minutes later she was heading down the crowded street towards the Paisley Hill area. Located in the north-east end of Auric, not far from Glassen Palace, Paisley Hill was where people who were well off but not necessarily noble lived.
As she headed towards her destination, Ella couldn’t help but notice the streets around her. Shops were hanging garland with little flowers and ribbons outside on the awnings and over windows. A string of lanterns were being strung up from one side of the street to the other.
Confused, she paused to watch a woman outside of a cafe yell at a man on a ladder that the decorations he was putting up were uneven.
“What’s going on?” Ella mumbled to herself as she turned away.
She got her answer shortly. Passing by a group of men in finely tailored clothes, she saw them all holding copies of the Auric Gazette.
The heading read: PRINCE ASHER HEADED HOME
That would explain all of the chaos and frilly ribbons.
Ella never thought much of Prince Asher. He was simply someone she knew of but would never meet. Once she had seen him sitting next to his father during a parade some years ago, she couldn’t even remember what for. The memory of him half-heartedly waving to the crowd swirled in the back of her mind. Several girls she went to school with swooned at the sight of him, but Ella couldn’t be bothered.
Prince’s didn’t marry peasant girls. There was no point in even entertaining the fantasy, not when she had very real problems to attend to.
Besides, prince charming seemed a little too charming if the gossip pages were to be believed.
The clouds above shifted as she made her way into the Paisley Hill. Located in an area that had at one point been a series of grass covered hills, but had been flattened to make way for houses, Paisley Hill was a collection of large stone houses with pastel colored doors and window frames. Perfectly curated gardens filled with daffodils, snowdrops, tulips and pansies, all sprouting out of the earth in little green shoots, decorated the fronts of the houses. Not a single vegetable patch in sight.
The lawns and shrubbery were all neatly trimmed. Ella thought of the small patch of lawn in her little square yard that was mainly just dirt and random clumps of dead grass. The residents of Paisley Hill would probably die of embarrassment if their lawns ever looked like Ella’s.
Finding Freddle Road had been a little too easy. Ella had stopped at a map kiosk in the city center before heading for the area. Large oak and maple trees shaded each lawn and little wooden fences in pastel colors to match the houses divided the properties.
The street was actually quite quaint looking and Ella found herself wishing she could live here. She pushed the thought away. It was another fantasy she couldn’t afford to have.
There was only one house on Freddle Road with a cherry tree. It sat at the end of the road, encased in a butter yellow fence with flower beds beneath a large bay window. The cherry tree was to the left of the house, obscuring an iron gate that led into the back garden.
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Gathering all of her nerves, Ella looked around to make sure no one was about before hopping over the fence and walking across the lawn. She unlatched the gate and slipped inside.
Mr. Lepore’s back garden was as quaint as the front. Rows of flower beds lined the back lawn, with a little sky blue shed in the back corner, presumably full of gardening tools. A little stone patio was paved just outside the back door.
The door had a little window at the top, and Ella creeped toward the door to peer inside, finding herself looking at Mr. Lepore’s kitchen. Judging by the curtains that were closed over the window at the sink it didn’t look like anyone was home.
Ella placed a hand on the door handle and gave it an experimental twist. Surprisingly, the door clicked open. Standing there with one hand on the slightly ajar door, Ella couldn’t quite believe it. No one kept their doors unlocked in her neighborhood.
Unsure of what to do, Ella was spared the decision when she heard a door opening somewhere near the front of the house. Hastily shutting the door, she ducked down and tried her best to peer through the window without too much of her head showing.
Mr. Lepore came into the kitchen, dumping the bags he carried on the counter. Ella noticed the heart printed paper from the loaf he had just bought from her not even an hour before. Shrugging out of his coat, he placed it over one of the two wooden chairs that were placed at a circular table by the door.
“Birdie?” Mr. Lepore called out in the house. “Birdie are you home yet?”
Ella’s heart dropped into her stomach. She hadn’t even thought about whether or not Mr. Lepore lived with someone. Was Birdie his wife? His daughter? His maid perhaps? It didn’t really matter. This man’s death was going to affect someone in the end.
Ella wasn’t sure what she would do if she came home and found Rosalind or one of the twins dead. She didn’t want to think about it, much like how she didn’t want to think about Mr. Lepore’s death.
No one answered Mr. Lepore’s call. Ella watched as he took a brass kettle down from a shelf and moved toward the sink. She nearly gasped when he turned the sink on and running water poured out. Her house didn’t even have a sink, much less running water. The bakery and Slippered Tabby didn’t have one either. They all just used nearby wells.
Mr. Lepore placed the kettle over the stovetop and lit a match. This was less exciting for Ella. She may have not had a stove, but the bakery certainly did.
Mr. Lepore set about putting his shopping away, taking the loaf from the bakery out of its wrapping and placing it in a bread box, putting a tin of tea in the cupboard, and moving a bushel of carrots into the cold cellar. All the time he had no idea that someone was watching him.
Guilt exploded in the pit of Ella’s stomach. She sank down to the ground, breathing heavily in through her nose as she tried to calm herself down.
This man didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t done anything wrong. But what choice did she have? Ella wasn’t stupid enough to believe that she could just hand the vial back to Lady Nyx and say she changed her mind. Not if she wanted to live anyways. If the fairy godmother knew enough about her to know her full name and that her step-mother was sick, she definitely knew where Ella lived.
“I should have never gone to the Glass Pumpkin in the first place,” she whispered to herself, tears forming in her eyes.
A strange, high-pitched whistling sound came from inside the kitchen. Wiping her eyes, Ella slowly rose up and peered back inside. Steam was sprouting out of the kettle like an angry fog. Mr. Lepore came back into the kitchen, having apparently left, and poured the water into a tea cup on the sink. He set the kettle down and hurried out of the room again.
Slipping her fingers into her skirt pocket, they enclosed around the tiny glass vial. The vial was cool to the touch, sending a shocking chill up the length of her arm.
With a deep breath, Ella carefully twisted the knob back open and slipped inside the house. As quietly as she could, she maneuvered over to the counter, pulling the vial from her pocket, uncorked it and dumped the blue liquid into the tea cup.
For a moment she was afraid the bright color of the poison would stand out, but she watched as the blue swirled about with the little tea bag inside the cup until it faded to match the color of the tea. She stood there a moment, watching in disbelief when the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall.
Scurrying out the door and closing it, she dropped down again, half expecting Mr. Lepore to chase her out the door and demand what she was doing at his house. He did no such thing. Ella heard sounds of cupboards opening and when she felt brave enough, she stood on shaking legs and looked back inside.
Mr. Lepore was standing with his back to her, stirring his tea and humming softly, just like Agnes did when she worked. Placing the spoon in the sink, he took his tea and sat at the kitchen table with his back to her, smoothing out a copy of the latest Auric Gazette.
As he lifted the cup to his lips, Ella wanted to burst through the door and smack it from his hands. Instead, she stayed where she was, paralyzed with a mixture of fear and guilt, as Mr. Lepore tilted the cup back and drank.
How long she stood there, watching him as he flipped through his paper and drinking his tea, she wasn’t sure. She half wondered if the poison gave the tea a strange taste, but seeing as he was still drinking it, she didn’t think so.
With a final sip, his head tipped back so that he could get the last of the liquid, he rose and rinsed the cup out in the sink, washing it.
There was something about watching the man clean his own murder weapon that finally broke Ella. Hot tears began to stream down her face and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a broken sob.
Lady Nyx had said that the poison would work faster the more he consumed, and he had just consumed the entire thing in one sitting.
Ella wondered if she should leave now when Mr. Lepore paused, dropping the teacup in the sink with a loud clatter. His legs buckled and he gripped the counter for support as he hunched forward. One hand shot to his chest.
“Birdie!” he called out in a panic, but Birdie still hadn’t come home. Ella thought she was going to throw up.
Mr. Lepore let out a pained groan and fell to his knees.
“Birdie!” he called again.
He hit the ground, falling onto his side with his knees tucked in tightly and his hands at his chest as he began to writhe around, letting out strangled sounds of pain.
He suddenly jerked onto his back, his hands still clutching at his chest as he struggled to breath.
“Birggie,” he garbled out, this time barely more than a whisper. Suddenly, Mr. Lepore’s head turned towards the back door where Ella was peering in. Their eyes met and for a moment the world went quiet. Then, with a final pained shudder, Mr. Lepore’s eyes went glassy, one hand falling to the ground next to him.
A garbled choking sound wretched itself from Ella’s throat as she stood there, staring down at the man’s body. She had never actually seen anyone die before. Not her mother. Not even her father who was taken away to the hospital before his passing.
Ella wiped the stream of tears from her face. She knew she needed to leave before Birdie, whoever she was, returned. Looking down at Mr. Lepore’s lifeless body, she felt her legs rooted to the spot. She couldn’t leave him alone like that, not after what she had done.
So she waited, watching as the clouds blew across the sky and the sun drifted slowly towards the horizon. A chill crept up her spin and through her limbs, but she ignored it.
Finally, she heard the front door creak open and closed again.
“Theo?” A woman’s voice called. She couldn’t see her, but based on the depth of her voice, Ella guessed her to be middle-aged.
Now it was really time to go. Ella, with one final look at Mr. Lepore, she hurried around the back of the house and out the iron gate. Ducking under the branches of the cherry tree, with white petals falling into her hair as she ran, she hopped over the little yellow fence.
Forcing herself to keep a steady pace so as not to attract attention, she had barely made it two houses down when the screaming began.
She went straight to Lady Nyx’s after. There was no way she could stop at home first. Her eyes were swollen red and she couldn’t stop shaking. No one in the streets gave her a second glance, but Rosalind would immediately know something was wrong.
The Slumps looked just as grimy as ever as she hurried through the street, pushing past men and women in dirty coats, cursing after her as she bumped into them.
The Glass Pumpkin was lit up by the time she rounded the corner. She wasn’t due at the Slippered Tabby for at least another hour.
Slipping down the alleyway, she moved past wooden crates and heaps of trash until she found the back door.
Slamming her fist down on it several times, it swung open to reveal Tasmin looking annoyed.
“It was unlocked you know,” she snapped, moving so that Ella could slip inside. No one else was in the little floral room outside of Lady Nyx’s office.
“Is she here?” Ella asked, her voice breaking as she tried to get the words out.
Tasmin didn’t need clarification on who she was talking about. “In her office… what happened?”
Ella pushed past Tamsin without a word and headed for the room at the end of the hall.
“Hey you can’t just go in there!”
“Watch me,” she snapped back and burst through the door.
Lady Nyx was sitting behind her desk, the latest copy of the Auric Gazette laid out in front of her. Her head was resting on one hand and she looked up boredly as Ella stormed into the room.
“You could have at least knocked,” she said mildly, looking back down at her paper and flipping the page. Ella stood in front of her desk, wiping the last of her tears from her eyes.
“It’s done,” she said resolutely. Her face felt puffy and numb, but her heart was still hammering painfully in her chest and her stomach coiled as it threatened to spill its contents all over Lady Nyx’s desk. “He’s dead.”
The leader of the Nightshades’s eyes glittered under the dim light, like two amethysts held under the sun. “You work fast.”
Ella hated the pleased way she spoke.
“I broke into his house and poured whatever it is you gave me into his tea,” Ella went on. It wasn’t exactly how Lady Nyx had instructed her to kill him, but it worked all the same. She half expected her to be angry, or at least annoyed, but Lady Nyx only looked at her with curiosity.
“And why exactly did you do that?”
Ella explained how the packaging the bakery used was recognizable and that she didn’t want the poison being traced back there. So she found out where Mr. Lepore lived, watched him through the window, and then snuck in when she had the opportunity.
A wide grin spread across the fairy’s beautiful features and there was a glint of admiration in her eyes.
“Not quite as docile as you appear,” she said softly. She removed her head from her hand and motioned for Ella to take a seat across from her. Pulling out a drawstring bag from one of the drawers of her desk, she tossed it at her.
When she caught it, the familiar jingle of coins filled the silence in the room.
“Your twenty gelds as promised,” Lady Nyx said as she straightened. “Now, about that special job I have just for you. Do you still want it?”
“You’re not mad?” Ella couldn’t help the question from slipping out.
Lady Nyx shrugged. “You did exactly what I’d hoped you’d do.” When Ella looked at her questioning she continued. “I need people who can think on their feet, adjust to get the job done and done discreetly. Someone who plans ahead and sees every outcome. No point in hiring someone who’s too stupid to not get caught.”
Ella rubbed her thumb over the satin bag, feeling the etchings of one of the coins beneath the smooth fabric. Gelds were a universal currency across the continent of Terrania. Each coin was stamped with an emblem that represented all of the kingdoms. A serpent for Hercynia. A wolf for Waldreich. A dolphin for Maris. A golden eagle for Cendril. The only one missing was the stag for the fae Kingdom of Malum.
In that moment Ella should have taken the coin and left, telling her she didn’t want anything to do with Lady Nyx or her Nightshades. Instead she found herself saying, “how much does it pay?”
Another smile spread across Lady Nyx’s face. “Five hundred.”
If watching a man didn’t make Ella feel like she was going to pass out, that number certainly did. Bracing her hands on the arms of her chair, she tried to keep her voice steady as she asked. “And what exactly is the job?”
Lady Nyx flipped her newspaper to the front page and turned it to face Ella. Looking down, Ella recognized the headline stating that Prince Asher was heading back to Cendril.
“You heard about that little mishap at our darling prince’s engagement party?” Lady Nyx said, one polished nail sliding over the ink stained pages. Calling the assassination attempt of Princess Neve a little mishap was almost comical.
“Who hasn’t?” Ella said.
“Well, it seems the great King Cygrus can’t pin the attempt on his would-be son-in-law, so Prince Asher is on his way home,” Lady Nyx said, tucking a strand of hair behind one of her pointed ears. “There’s going to be a welcome home ball for him. I want you to attend the ball, get close to the prince and question him about what happened that night. See if he really did have anything to do with poor little Neve.”
Ella blanched. “How do you expect me to get into the palace? I’m not exactly royalty.”
Lady Nyx snorted and leaned back. “I know some people who can forge an invite for you. Trust me, no one really looks at those too hard.”
“And what am I supposed to do about a dress?” Ella asked, gesturing down at her shabby clothes. “I can barely afford food, much less a ball gown.”
“Really? I couldn’t tell. I thought you just liked looking like a street urchin,” Lady Nyx said sarcastically, looking over Ella with thinly veiled disdain. Ella felt her face heat. She didn’t think she looked that bad. Lady Nyx continued, “I’ll get you something to wear. All you need to worry about is charming the prince into telling you what I need to know.”
That was another thing that concerned Ella. Even if she did manage to get past the guards, there was no guarantee that she’d be able to even say hello to Prince Asher, much less have a private conversation with him.
“I have every faith in you,” Lady Nyx said when Ella expressed her concern. “Something tells me you're just the prince’s type.”
Ella highly doubted that, but thought it best not to argue.
“Fine,” she muttered, stuffing her bag of gelds into her coat pocket. “When is the ball?”
“In three days,” Lady Nyx replied. “The evening after Prince Asher’s ship is due back.”
That didn’t exactly give Ella a lot of time to prepare, but for five hundred gelds she’d have to make due.
Lady Nyx told her to return to the Glass Pumpkin right after her shift at the bakery, and she’d ensure Barron provided her with an alibi if anyone came asking.
When Ella left to head to her shift at the Slippered Tabby, she sank down in the alleyway behind the Glass Pumpkin, finally letting the day’s events wash over. She had no more tears to cry, and sat on the cold ground, staring at a crack in the wall without really seeing it.
“What did I get myself into?” she whispered to herself.