Page 40 of A Fae in Finance
“I scream in the courtyard at irregular intervals,” offered a third—the one with two extra arms protruding from his midsection.
I blinked. “Why—what purpose does that serve?”
“Purpose?” The faerie had a very human face, a snub nose and brown eyes and brown hair, and behind his back long green wings folded down like a cicada’s. “I like to do it.”
We blinked at each other in mutual bafflement.
“Eat,” Sahir muttered to me. I shoveled another huge bite of stew into my mouth. Though texturally deficient, it was warm and thick and very comforting.
“We will leave you, Lady of the Cats,” Lene said. She rose, as did several of the others. “But if I may, I would like to visit you.”
“Please do,” I said, “but please don’t call me Lady of the Cats. It’s not, uh, it’s not got great context.”
“Apologies,” Lene said. “I hope I did not give you the name of some great sorceress, dead for her misdeeds but much feared in life. Please tell me if I did this.”
Since this seemed oddly specific, and also to give her great joy, I didn’t say anything else.
Our table was depleted but not empty. None of the remaining faeries seemed interested in engaging with us.
“Sahir, I have a lot more work,” I said, sticking my fork into the stew. “Can we bring the rest back to the room?”
“We do not eat outside this hall,” Sahir said. “Roaches,” he clarified when I stared at him. “They’re better than most at getting beneath the hill.”
With that reassuring thought, I plowed through several bites of stew, shoved the tray away, and stood up. “I’m going back,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”
Sahir grunted and didn’t look up. An auspicious start to our relationship as a knight and his lady.
Four hours later, I knelt on the cold stone of the bathroom, one hand on my work computer keyboard and the other clutching the rim of the toilet. The noise of the constantly running waterfall shower—which I’d come to find soothing—was an unyielding soundtrack to my pain.
I retched again and then tapped the spacebar so the computer didn’t lock, turning my head to look at the PDF open on the screen.
Food poisoning on day one didn’t bode well. Nor did the little voice in my head whisperingpoison, yes. I wondered if the Princeling would consider food poisoning harm, and if this meant he had broken his promise.
Doctor Kitten had perched on the toilet tank to supervise proceedings.
I gagged against the imagined feeling of hands clawing up my diaphragm but made myself read another sentence.
Vampire founders are performing well in the lifestyle sector, I read, and vomited so violently it came out my nose.Blood-based health and wellness treatments are wildly popular, and the new ruling that the FDA won’t need to approve them will only accelerate this trend.
The bile burned my nostrils as it dripped into the toilet. It smelled like cake. I took a shallow breath through my mouth. The shower continued to tinkle musically.
We are following 8 of the most promising vampire-founded startups and have reviewed them below.
I heaved again.
Jeff wanted a report by midnight. I had no idea how I would type. I couldn’t stand. But his email had been clear.
Miri, read the latest equity reports and come up with 2-3 targets for origination by end of day. Jeff.
Why he’d asked me and not Corey, who had absolutely nothing to do, I couldn’t say.
I slid onto my stomach on the floor and opened the email reply box.
Jeff, it looks like there are three targets that haven’t worked with a big bank yet, I started, and had to lever myself up to vomit again. What hadhappened?
Unbidden, the cafeteria workers’ faces came to mind. Had one of them poisoned me? The angry one, or the friendly one, or the indifferent one in the middle?
I sagged back to the ground and tapped out a few sentences.
