Beast & Crown Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Joel Ross

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  EVERY EVENING, FILTHY boots appeared in the elegant hallways of Primstone Manor. Riding boots, dueling boots, dancing boots. Boots made of bull hide and boots made of snakeskin, boots with glass buttons and boots with silk flowers.

  But they all looked like mud clots and dung stains to Ji—because it was his job to clean them.

  When he’d been hired as a boot boy three years earlier, his mother had beamed. “We’re so proud of you, Ginaro!”

  “I’m Jiyong,” he’d reminded her. He was the youngest of fourteen kids, and his mother only called him the right name by accident.

  “You lucky brat!” his third-oldest brother had said, punching his arm. “Just think, you’re wiping mud from noble boots!”

  “Yeah, what an honor,” he’d muttered.

  His oldest sister had ruffled his hair. “If you work hard and never talk back, maybe one day you’ll become a footman! Or even a butler!”

  Ji hadn’t told her that getting promoted from boot boy to footman didn’t sound so great. Either way, you were still down around the toes. And even though butlers ruled the servants, Ji didn’t want to buttle. Sure, he was only thirteen now, but he already knew there was more to life than buttling.

  And there was more to life than filthy footwear, too.

  Ji rubbed his aching neck and peered down the elegant hallway. Paper lanterns dangled from the ceiling and a painting of the Summer Queen hung over a flower vase, but he barely saw them. Instead, he focused on the rows of dirty boots slumped outside the bedroom doors.

  He trudged along, collecting pair after pair. Dozens of wellborn guests were staying at Primstone Manor, which meant ten times as much work for him. They’d come from the city to enjoy the rolling hills, the soothing streams . . . the swan poop.

  Ji smelled them before he saw them: a pair of dainty boots smeared with green-black slime. One of the guests must’ve stepped in a pile of swan droppings . . . and slid. Wrinkling his nose, he reached for the boots. They were made of calfskin, with silver baubles shimmering on chains at the ankles, and they reeked.

  “Yech,” he muttered, stuffing them into the “extra gross” section of his boot bag.

  He’d get a beating if he tracked that stench through the house, so he opened a discreet door in the wood paneling and slipped into a gloomy passage that ran between the walls. Primstone Manor was honeycombed with cramped corridors and stairways, so servants could get around without bothering their betters.

  Ji nodded to a chambermaid but didn’t say anything—no one was allowed to speak in the passages—then picked his way down the stairs that plunged into the bowels of the manor.

  Below the ground floor, the respectful hush of the upper house turned into a raucous clamor. A visiting nursemaid played cards with three footmen near the rice-wine cellar, and a valet wept to a laundress at the side door. In the kitchen, cleavers chopped, fires crackled, and a scullery maid mashed refried beans.

  The hubbub reminded Ji of the old days, when his whole family lived at the same hacienda. He’d missed that sometimes, when he’d first come to Primstone Manor. But everyone knew that servants’ younger kids didn’t stay with their parents for long. At ten or eleven, they were sent to work elsewhere: there was no reason to cry about it.

  Ji scurried through the chaos. Cook snapped at an under-cook, who snarled at a kitchen maid. Someone cuffed Ji’s head, but he didn’t stop to see who—or why. He just slipped into the next room.

  The scullery was normally used for dishwashing and laundry but served as an extra kitchen when guests came. With all the copper tubs and washing drums shoved against the wall to make room for cooking, Ji had to crawl beneath a trestle table to reach the chimney, the cramped alcove where he worked and slept.

  Once inside, he stood to a hunch. The chimney was an abandoned hearth, deep enough to roast a boar. The stone walls were stained with soot, the floor was black with grease, and the ceiling sloped just above Ji’s bowed head.

  Still, after staying there for three years, it felt like home.

  He sat at his workbench and kicked off his shoes, a pair of crude sandals with leather strips. He eyed his brushes and rags, polish and oil, needles and thread. Then he reached for his second-most-prized possession, a tin box overflowing with shoe decorations: laces, buttons, beads, clips, bangles, and pins.

  “Hey, Ji!” Sally’s voice called from the scullery. “Are you in there?”

  “No,” he called back.

  She crawled into the chimney. “Can I sleep here again?”

  “Sure.” Ji frowned at her bloody lip. “You got in another fight?”

  “It wasn’t a fight.” Sally wiped her mouth. “It was a duel of honor.”

  “Against who? Big Min?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then it wasn’t a duel either—it was you getting stomped.”

  Sally flopped onto the pile of rags where she slept when she needed to get away from the stables. “He cheated at dice.”

  “Who cares? You don’t play for real money.”

  “That doesn’t matter. It’s the principle that counts.”

  “He’s twice your size, Sal.”

  She was smaller than Ji, and lighter skinned, with wild curly hair. Everyone had expected her to become a maid like her mothers, but instead, she’d snuck into the stables every morning for months to muck out the stalls. After the grooms got tired of chasing her away, the stablemaster hired her.

  “You can’t let that stop you,” she said.

  “Of course I could,” Ji told her. “And I would’ve, too.”

  “I don’t like cheaters,” she said.

  “And yet I’m your best friend.”

  “You’re more of a thief than a cheater.” Sally wiped her mouth again, then looked at the dirty boots. “Is that your last bunch tonight?”

  “Nah,” Ji told her. “There’s at least two more.”

  “Did you find . . .” She wrinkled her nose. “Anything valuable?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh, good!”

  Ji frowned. “What do you mean, ‘good’?”

  “Well . . .” Sally lifted one shoulder. “I’m kind of hoping you won’t find anything.”

  “You need me to find something.”

  “And I want you to,” Sally told him. “I’m just hoping you don’t.”

  Ji looked up at h
er. “You’re doolally.”

  “Roz says I’m conflicted.”

  Ji gaped at her. “You told Rozario?”

  “Yes?” Sally said, in a little voice.

  “About this?” Ji gestured angrily. “You told her what we’re doing?”

  “Only because she asked!”

  “If someone asks, you’re supposed to lie.”

  Sally glared. “You know I’m not good at lying.”

  “Lying is easy! Just think about the truth and say literally anything else.”

  “You said you trust Roz.”

  “I do, but—”

  “You said she’s the smartest person you know.”

  “She’s the only smart person I know,” Ji snapped.

  He turned away from Sally and cleaned a pair of knee boots, scrubbing extra hard so she’d know he was mad. Though he wasn’t that mad, not really. More like terrified. If Butler found out that Ji was stealing boot ornaments, he’d be sent to the gallows. He’d watched a hanging once, and he still saw the woman’s bare feet kicking in his nightmares. Sometimes, he dreamed that it was him hanging from his neck; then he’d wake up in a sweat, gulping for breath.

  After finishing the knee boots, he looked at Sally. “What does ‘conflicted’ mean?”

  “That’s what I asked Roz,” Sally said, half buried in rags. “It means that I disagree with myself. Like, I want you to find valuable stuff, but I also don’t want you to.”

  “That’s not conflicted,” Ji said. “That’s cactus brained.”

  Sally toyed with her leather bracelet. “You know I hate stealing.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No,” Sally admitted.

  “Anyway, you’re not stealing,” Ji told her. “I’m stealing.”

  “And if they catch you,” Sally said, a stubborn glint in her eyes, “I’ll tell them why you’re stealing.”

  “That’s stupid,” he said. “You’d just get yourself hanged, too.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “What would happen to your brother then?”

  She glowered at him and didn’t answer. She knew that if she were hanged, her little brother wouldn’t have a tiny sliver of a ghost of a chance of living to his next birthday.

  2

  JI WORKED IN silence, scrubbing dung, oiling leather, polishing buckles, and mending tassels. His back and neck throbbed, but that was nothing new. Bits of him had ached every day for the past three years, from hunching over boots.

  “What’re they having a house party for, anyway?” Sally asked.

  “Who knows?”

  “Fun, I guess,” Sally said.

  “Stupid fun,” Ji muttered.

  Sally snorted in agreement, though she actually liked fun—just not as much as she liked truth and justice. She should’ve been born a knight with a gleaming sword and spent her life riding into battle against the mountain ogres. Instead, she’d been born a servant.

  After Sally’s mothers disappeared from Primstone, she’d raised her little brother, Chibo, all by herself. She dreamed of becoming a squire, but shoveling horse manure every day didn’t leave much time for battling monsters . . . though she wasn’t afraid to fight. When the tapestry weavers dragged Chibo away last year, she’d tried to stop them with a pitchfork. They’d broken one of her arms and she’d barely even cried.

  Ji took the dainty boots from his bag, and the stench filled the chimney. His eyes watered and he wanted to spit.

  “What is that?” Sally asked.

  “Swan poop.”

  “Gross.”

  “Look who’s talking.” Ji breathed through his mouth as he wiped the filthy boot. “You smell like horse manure.”

  “Horse manure doesn’t stink.”

  “Only you think that.”

  Ji rubbed the leather with lavender oil until the stench faded. He picked the seams clean, then wiped and polished every surface. He rinsed and dried the laces, rethreaded them, and finally eyed the decorative bangles at the ankles.

  “Hmmm,” he said, jingling them with his fingertip.

  “Uh-oh,” Sally said.

  “What?”

  “Are they silver?” she asked. “I’m feeling conflicted again.”

  “They’re not only silver,” he said, feeling a spark of excitement. “They’re pure silver.”

  “If they’re worth that much, maybe you should leave them alone.”

  He jingled the bangles again. “Why?”

  “Because, y’know . . .” She shrugged. “Stealing’s a crime?”

  “Who cares? With this much silver, we’re done. We’ll have enough to save Chibo!”

  Sally tugged at her frizzy hair. She needed the money to buy her brother from the tapestry weavers before he died. That was what happened to kids who worked at the looms all day: if exhaustion didn’t kill Chibo, the fumes would.

  As the youngest of fourteen, Ji had always been the baby—until he’d met cheerful, impish, reckless seven-year-old Chibo. Finally, he’d felt like a big brother. Chibo was ten now, but he’d always seemed younger. Ji had taught him how to snag food from the kitchen and where to hide from Butler. He’d taught him how to play dice and tie knots and catch eels. He’d always wanted a little brother, and he’d finally had one—until the tapestry weavers dragged him away.

  So Ji had started stealing boot ornaments to pay for Chibo’s freedom.

  “Nobles don’t need fancy beads and buckles on their shoes,” he’d told Sally. “They don’t even care. They drag them through the mud.”

  “Stealing is wrong,” she’d said.

  “So is leaving Chibo to die at the looms.”

  “We can’t steal stuff that doesn’t belong to us!”

  “We can’t steal stuff that does belong to us,” Ji had pointed out. “That’s not stealing.”

  “You know what I mean!” She’d narrowed her eyes. “It’s wrong, Ji. It’s dishonorable.”

  “Honor’s useless,” he’d told her. “Just like boot beads.”

  She’d glowered at him. “What if they catch you? I won’t let you hang, not for me and Chibo.”

  So Ji had told her the truth: “I’m not just doing it for you and Chibo.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know my brother Tomás?”

  “Which one is he?”

  “The oldest. Pa says I look just like him. He started as a tea boy and rose all the way to footman before he caught the fever. His lord and lady wouldn’t let him rest, because they liked how he served soup. He got sicker and sicker . . . .” Ji scowled at the floor. “Until he died. So they hired a new footman. They replaced him like a worn heel. And in Tomás’s whole life, he never did anything that mattered.”

  “Like what?” Sally asked.

  “Like trying to save a friend, no matter what it takes. Or like . . . breaking free of all this.”

  “All what?”

  “All the bowing and scraping,” Ji said, his face suddenly hot. “All the stupid boots and stupid rules. Trying to help Chibo is the only worthwhile thing I’ve ever done, Sally. That’s what I mean. I’m doing this for me. Because otherwise, I’ll just live and die and never matter.”

  A tangle of silken cords bound the silver bangles to the dainty boots. “This is the most fashionable knot this season,” Ji said, tugging at a loop.

  “You’ll never unravel that,” Sally said.

  “Want to bet?”

  “Not without cutting through the—”

  Ji flicked the untied cords. “Done.”

  “Whoa! Not bad.”

  “I’m a boot boy. I’m good with knots.” He tossed the silver bangles to Sally. “Here. The first part of our crime spree is done.”

  She made a face but stood and pulled a stone from the fireplace wall. She tucked the bangles in a hollow niche packed with beads, ribbons, and even a tiny pearl. Those were Ji’s most prized possessions.

  Working fast, Ji tied a pair of cheap tin bangles from his box in place
of the silver ones, copying the elaborate knot.

  “You really think we have enough loot to save Chibo?” Sally asked, shoving the stone back in place.

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “If we can find someone to buy it.”

  Ji finished the knot. “I heard you can sell anything in the city. In the rough neighborhoods.”

  “Because they’re full of criminals.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “And we’re bringing stolen stuff there,” she continued, “which means we’re criminals too.”

  “Only because we have to be.”

  “That’s what all criminals think!”

  Ji started packing the clean boots. “Yeah, but there’s one big difference.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re right.”

  “It’s not funny, Ji.”

  He thought it was a little funny, but he kept that to himself. “So how do we get to the city?”

  She glared at him. “We are not going to steal horses.”

  “Some of us can’t even ride them.” He kneaded his aching forearm. “But what I meant was, there’s no way they’ll give us a week off, to get there and back.”

  “We’ll probably have to lie and cheat,” she grumbled.

  “And steal!” Ji said. “Don’t forget stealing.”

  “Jerk,” she said, and threw a candle stub at him.

  So he tossed the swan-poop rag at her and fled.

  3

  JI SPENT THE next two days scrubbing dishes and sharpening knives until sunset, then cleaning boots past midnight. A snarl of pain settled between his shoulder blades, and his eyes felt gritty with exhaustion.

  As he picked at a pebble jammed in a boot sole, he longed for the olden days. Roz said that centuries ago, before the first Summer Queen, every human had a little magic. Not much, just enough to keep a bonfire burning, keep a bouquet fresh—or keep a pair of boots clean.

  But when the monstrous hordes attacked, those little tricks couldn’t protect them. With humankind on the brink of extinction, the Summer Queen gathered all the human magic into herself. She defeated the monsters and saved humanity . . . but nobody had magic anymore, except for queens and kings and their chosen mages.

  Which meant that bonfires died, bouquets wilted—and freshly polished boots were soon caked with thick, horrible mud.

  On the second evening, Ji headed for a fancy corridor where the highest-ranking guests stayed. He tucked four pairs of boots into his bag, stifled a yawn, and heard voices in the curving stairway.