Page 14 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
The corridors outside her chamber—dorm, she calls it—are narrow, lined with dull-painted doors and reeking faintly of whatever strange chemicals her kind uses to scrub away dirt. Students pass us in both directions, some alone, some inchattering clusters. Their eyes slide up toward me and linger, even with the glamour in place. I’ve muted my height as much as I can without straining the weave, but I still tower over them.
“Keep walking,” she murmurs over her shoulder, as if I were the one slowing us down.
“Iamwalking.”
“You’re prowling.”
“I always prowl.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.”
We spill out into the open air, and the world expands around me in a dizzying sweep of light and noise. Glowing signs scream at me from atop buildings—SALE,OPEN 24 HOURS,FRESH COFFEE. Windows glint like drawn blades in the morning sun. Metal carriages hurtle past on long, gray roads, their growls layered with the high-pitched yelp of something called a “bus brake.” I catalog each sound, each shape, like a general taking stock of the battlefield.
Humans everywhere. Too many. Their scents tangle in the cold air—perfume sweet enough to sting, the grease of fried food, the sharp bite of smoke. The air hums with them. Voices overlap in a hundred different conversations, snatches of laughter, arguments, gossip.
I glance down. Skylar walks quickly, threading through the crowd without hesitation. People shift out of her way, though more than a few turn their heads to look at me. I keep my shoulders squared, my stride deliberate. It’s the same tactic I used in the court at Vhoig—show neither aggression nor weakness, and watch everything.
She leads me into a cavernous structure lined with metal carts. They sit nested together like a row of broken siege engines, squealing as humans drag them across the floor.
“This is a grocery store,” she says, grabbing one. “We get food here. And other stuff.”
I follow her inside, and the smell hits me like a mace to the skull—overripe fruit, raw meat, something cold and metallic from the rows of glass-fronted cases humming against the wall. Light glares down from above, cold and artificial. I tilt my head back, following the long strips of glowing white that replace the torches I’m used to.
Skylar tosses items into the cart without breaking stride—boxes printed with bright colors, bottles full of strange liquids, packages of meat wrapped in a clear, crinkling film. I pick one up and turn it in my hand. The cut is precise, the flesh pink and neat. “Who prepared this?”
“A butcher.”
“Your butchers wrap their kills in glass?”
“Plastic,” she corrects, and when I stare, she waves a hand. “We’ll cover materials science later. Right now, just—try not to freak out over the cereal aisle.”
We turn a corner and my steps falter. Aisle after aisle, stretching farther than the great hall at Aeztharr, each one groaning with shelves stacked high with bright, gaudy boxes. The smell here is pure sugar—so thick it almost coats my tongue. Cartoon animals grin from the packages, their eyes too wide, their colors unnatural.
I narrow my gaze. “This is… food?”
“Technically.”
I keep walking, filing it all away. Not the taste—yet—but the display. How they shape it to entice. How they herd their people through these corridors and feed them messages along with their sustenance. The rules here are different from Protheka’s, but rules are rules. You learn them, you use them. And if you use them well enough, you can bend them.
Skylar catches me watching the humans more than the products. “You’re not casing the place, are you?”
“I am… studying,” I say.
“Same thing, if you’re you.”
By the time we reach a strange ritual—standing in line to offer coins and a small plastic rectangle in exchange for our loot—I’ve memorized the layout, the points of entry, and the flow of movement. Even the way the employees’ eyes glaze after scanning a hundred identical boxes of ‘mac and cheese.’
On the way out, the cold slaps me in the face, sharper now than when we entered. I glance at Skylar as she juggles the bags into her arms. “Your people waste so much,” I say.
She gives me a look. “And yours don’t?”
I think of the court feasts in Vhoig, the tables groaning with food while the mines starved. I don’t answer.
Instead, I fall into step beside her, the crowd parting around us like water around a stone. The glamour itches at my skin again, but each time my gaze catches the pale, delicate faces around us, I remind myself—it stays. For now.
CHAPTER 6
SKYLAR
