Chapter 4: The Iron Box
752 Words
Ella woke on her fifth morning at Vex Manor and reached for the basil on her windowsill. Still alive. Still green. She was still here.
She dressed and went to the kitchen. Her station was empty. Knife block gone. Spice jars gone. Victor stood at the main range with his back to her. "Kitchen has been reorganized. Your new position is in the corner."
Ella said nothing. She opened the refrigerator. Half a dozen eggs. One carrot. A small block of butter. Everything else she had prepped yesterday was gone.
She took the carrot and sliced it thinly. She heated butter and fried the slices until the edges curled. She beat two eggs with salt and let the residual heat cook them softly. From her pocket, she took fresh basil, picked from her windowsill, and tore it over the eggs. Victor watched her carry the plate out, his face like old milk.
Dorian sat in his usual chair. He ate everything. He did not comment on the food. He said, "You smell like basil."
"I keep some with me."
He was quiet for a moment. "Victor moved your station."
"I do not need a good burner. I need ingredients."
"The garden is yours. Take whatever grows there. Rowan will handle the rest."
It was the first time he had stepped into her war with Victor. Not fighting for her. Giving her ground.
After breakfast, Ella went to the garden. She decided to clear the deepest corner, where brambles had claimed the earth for years. She had been digging for nearly an hour when the trowel struck metal.
She pulled it free. A small iron box, rusted black. She pried it open.
Inside were two things. A tiny silver spoon, its handle carved with symbols she could not read. And half a sheet of burned parchment covered in more symbols. In the corner was a mark. A circle. A plant growing through it. Roots below, leaves above.
Ella's hands shook. She found Rowan in the study.
Rowan stared at the spoon. At the parchment. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, "This is the mark of the Moonbound. The servant bloodline."
Ella asked what that meant.
"Long ago, there were human families who served the wolf packs. They were not wolves. But their gifts helped us. Some were cooks. They were called the Moonbound. Their food could heal wounds. Ease curses." He paused. "I thought they were a legend."
Ella looked at the symbols. They matched her father's notebook. The page she had never understood.
"Your grandmother was one of them. A Moonbound chef. You are her blood. The food you make works on the Alpha not by chance. It works because your blood remembers."
Ella thought of her father's words. You are feeding whatever is broken. She had thought it was poetry.
She returned to her room as the sun sank. She pushed open the door and stopped.
On the windowsill, beside her basil, lay a single dead leaf. Wolfsbane. She recognized the gray-green color. The same leaf she had found in the spinach her first week here. The leaf that numbed her tongue.
This leaf was fresh. Placed here today.
She ran back downstairs. Rowan took the leaf and his face went pale. Afraid.
"Kael knows," he said.
"Knows what?"
"What are you? " The Moonbound bloodline can break a moon curse. He has been hunting your kind for years. He thought you were extinct." Rowan closed his fist around the dead leaf. "Now he knows you are feeding Dorian. He will not let you live."
"How did he find out?"
Rowan did not answer. His eyes moved toward the hallway. Toward the kitchen.
Night fell. Ella sat on her bed with the iron box in her lap. She thought of her father. She wondered if he had known.
On the third floor, Dorian stood at the window watching the garden corner.
Rowan stood behind him. "Kael knows about her."
Dorian did not turn.
"The iron box was her grandmother's. Your father made her bury it. You knew."
"I knew."
"Then why have you not told her?"
Dorian was silent. Then he said, "Because telling her means telling her what my father did to her grandmother. What our family owes hers. She is here because of our debt. Not hers."
He turned from the window. His steel-blue eyes caught the last light.
"Let Kael come. This time, I will not let him touch what is mine to protect."
- Writer
