The Bread Thief | Percabeth | Victorian Era AU

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕾𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓: 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖔𝖒

"What do you think of your new housegirl?" Frederick asks after the next few mornings Anne began working in their house.

Annabeth frowns. "You talk about her like she's a new saddle for my horse."

Her father shrugs. "Well, she is--"

"Don't even finish that sentence," Annabeth groans as she rubs her temples. "Am I allowed to leave yet?"

Frederick smiles but it's reptilian. "Yes, however, I have a favour to ask of you."

Annabeth's insides twist when she hears her father. His voice is almost terrifying. "What is it?"

"I have a hearing today," he declares, waving Juliette over to fill his coffee, which she gladly did without so much as mumbling a word. "I would like you to observe."

Annabeth scoffs loudly. "Me?" she asks, almost mockingly. "Why would I want to do that? Why would you want me to do that?"

Her father pinches his eyebrows together in a way that he probably thinks looks threatening but all it looks like is him trying to take a shit. "Watch your tone with me. I want you there because one day it will be your job and you and Luke will be running the Magistrates together."

"I'm not stupid," Annabeth says. "A woman can't work on the Magistrates much less be head of it. If Luke and I wed, he will run the Magistrates and I will be his arm candy. My job will be to sit there and look pretty as he has people hanged for petty crimes, which is a tad dramatic."

"When," her father corrects. "Not if, when. You will marry Luke."

Annabeth rubs her temples and curses under breath in French. "Why are you like this?"

"I ask myself that question about you every day."

"I have somewhere to go before this hearing." Annabeth goes upstairs to get dressed.

"Too bad," her father calls. "You are to be there immediately. Go after."

When she opens the door to her bedroom, she sees Anne sitting at her desk, scribbling away in a small notebook.

"What are you doing?" Annabeth asks, going over to her closet to get herself dressed for the first time in her life.

"Taking notes," she mutters mindlessly from the desk. "I have to plan out every detail. I have to learn your father's schedule, I have to know his every move or this will not work."

Annabeth sighs and ties a purple sash around her the waist of her dress. "My father is making me go to a hearing today. I don't know what for. He always tells me it's too gruesome for a girl as sophisticated as myself so I haven't a clue about why he wants me there," she mindlessly says aloud to Anne.

The courtroom looks as boring as Annabeth had imagined it. Her father and Hermes sit on a ledge with a desk. They look down on the people who came today to watch whatever crimes came through. Annabeth sits off to the side on a bench with other girls, both much older and younger than her.

The first case is just petty theft. It was his first strike so Annabeth's father let him off with a warning even though he was supposed to hang him. She doesn't know much about the courts or what is supposed to happen, but she suspects from Hermes Castellan's scowl that her father bluntly ignores that he is not doing his job the way he is supposed to.

Luke comes in a while later and takes a seat on the bench on the opposite side of the courtroom with other gentlemen watching the courts.

Annabeth is bored out of her mind. Halfway through the day, there were so far six cases that needed to be heard. Her father declares there will be one more before they stop for the day.

Thank God, Annabeth thinks quietly to herself.

She sees Anne in the audience of commoners who are sometimes allowed to watch. Anne is just watching everyone very closely. When she makes eye contact with Annabeth she gives her a heartbroken look that makes Annabeth want to vomit.

The doors to the courtroom open and two guards are dragging a half limp body that has been beaten black and blue and yellow. He is covered in his own blood on his face and hands. His trousers are ripped and one eye is swollen thick. The boy looks very familiar as he's dumped at the feet of Hermes and Frederick.

The boy forces his head up to look around the courtroom. His eyes land on Annabeth and she has to force herself to keep down her morning coffee and breakfast. The boy was Percy. He had been caught.

Even worse, he had been caught for something Annabeth did.

"Perseus Jackson," her father says. "You were being tried as a thief but then you ran, so you will also be tried as a fugitive." He pauses, looking over at Annabeth, and gives her a small smile before returning his attention to Percy. "At your last hearing you pled not guilty, then you were found guilty. Since your thievery was your second strike, and you were a fugitive, you will be hanged by the end of the week. Dismissed."

The guards take Percy away and Annabeth is trying not to cry. Her father knew that she would be destroyed at Percy dying, and he smiled at her. She hated her father before, but now she wants him dead.

Her mental plan with Anne shifts just a little to fit her new idea.

From across the courtroom, Luke makes eye contact with her. He shrugs as if to say: Well, what can you do? He brought it upon his self.

Annabeth turns her head away from him and seethes quietly as she files out of the courtroom with the other ladies. She brushes past Anne. "Meet me behind the gentlemen's club after dark," she whispers so only she will hear here.

When Anne gives Annabeth a nod, she leaves the courtroom to go back to her house, climbing the hill, working against the wind.

Annabeth will not let Percy die for something he didn't do, but she isn't sure her plan will work, and if it didn't, she will die too.