Chapter 25
“The tailor is here, my lord,” Edvear tells Ash when we make it back inside.
I try to pull myself back under composure, but the steward glances sidelong at me, a question in his eyes. Obviously, I’m failing. Ash grunts in acknowledgement, striding right past him toward the main living space of his quarters.
A man stands there, spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose. He has a curled mustache and a prominent Adam’s apple poking out above his starched collar. He’s a very slender man, of medium height, with a measuring ribbon hanging from his neck and a sketchpad under one arm. I blink.
He’s a human.
“Prince Trenian,” says the tailor, bowing.
“She’ll need a full wardrobe,” replies Ash in that same brisk tone that I’m beginning to recognize as his way of trying to hide his own discomfort. I fight to keep my lips from twitching. Unnerving him is just too much fun. “Also, a ballgown.”
My head swivels up to his. “A ballgown?”
The smirk is back. “Of course. What else would you wear to the Lulythinar Masquerade?”
“A masquerade?” I breathe, clutching a little tighter to his arm. Would it be like last night’s dance? If so, I don’t want to go. Not one bit.
“What sort of ballgown would please the lady?” the tailor asks. He pulls out a pencil and begins making notes on his sketchpad, his gaze flicking from his notes to me, assessment sparking in his eyes.
Please me? I know nothing about fae dresses. I was hardly allowed an opinion, even on my own human dresses. I peek up at Ash, as if he’s supposed to send a message directly to my brain about what I should want.
“I think a butterfly costume would suit her very well, if that should please her,” says Ash, arching an eyebrow down at me.
My mind goes back to that beautiful butterfly that landed on my nose in the garden—then his kiss once it had flown away. Warmth spills into my middle. “I’d like that very much.”
“Wonderful.” The tailor adjusts his spectacles and tugs his measuring ribbon from around his neck. “Now, Your Highness, if you might consider giving the lady some privacy, I must take her measurements.”
Ash hesitates. It’s only a second, but it’s enough to make the blood rush to my head. Does he not trust the tailor? Is he afraid I’ll be hurt if he leaves me alone? But the tailor is a human. Surely I’m safe with him, right?
“Hylath!” my husband calls.
A gurgling answer spits from the washroom, and the door opens enough for one eye to poke through.
“Come aid the tailor,” Ash orders, letting go of me and heading toward his study. “He requires your help taking Lady Stella’s measurements.”
Ash doesn’t trust even the humans in Faerieland with my safety.I make a mental note of this. I mustn’t be too na?ve around them. Even if the tailor seems quite nice to me.
Hylath growls, but comes to help. Ash barely closes the door to his study before Hylath is yanking me out of my dress until I’m in nothing but my shift. The tailor moves with practiced efficiency, all business as he works. It reminds me of my time at the palace, where I endured standing on a wretched little stool for hours while they took and retook my measurements, draped dresses over me, and my sisters gathered around, sharing their various opinions on my clothes. Because it’s so familiar, I’m not embarrassed.
A sudden question occurs to me. Why did the tailor send Ash away? It’s true that I prefer this arrangement, but how did the tailor know that? As far as the tailor knows, Ash is my husband in every sense of the word, and if that were true, him being present now wouldn’t have broached any concern.
“Almost done.” The tailor wraps his tape around my waist as he scribbles something on his pad. “Hylath, would you kindly fetch a dressing gown for the lady and then summon His Highness?”
Hylath blinks all five eyes at once, as though irritated to be ordered around, but with a grumble, she hops down from the stool she’d been standing on to hold the measuring tape for my height.
“Just your shoulders now,” says the tailor. He rearranges the measuring tape across my shoulders, then around. He leans closer, brow furrowed with concentration as Hylath leaves the room.
I keep my eyes fixed on the far side of the room.
Then the tailor’s voice tickles my ear, low and urgent. “If you need to escape, send a request to me for a white dress.”
My breath catches.
“Quite narrow shoulders you have, my lady,” he says as Hylath reenters the room with a long blush-pink robe. At the tailor’s beckoning, she wraps it around me and secures the tie firmly across my waist, ensuring my decency before she squawks loudly in the air. I resist the urge to cover my ears.
Almost immediately, Ash’s door swings open. “Don’t order me about like I’m your servant,” he says grumpily to Hylath.
She waggles her tongue at him. I still don’t understand what that is supposed to communicate, but Ash grins in response. Then, with all the drama of a royal, he flops onto the couch facing me, spreading his arms and legs so wide he takes up almost the entire piece of furniture.
My heart is still hammering from the tailor’s words. I hope nothing shows on my face.
Escape?
The thought of it terrifies me. But I’d be lying if I said a part of me doesn’t tuck that knowledge away. I’ll consider it later.
And consider it, I shall.
I would need more information, though. How dangerous would it be to escape? And once I’ve escaped, what then? I cannot return home to the palace in Aursailles. I’d have to survive on my own somehow . . . somewhere.
“I have many color swatches for your perusal.” The tailor is as pleasant and unruffled as when he first entered. He holds up a stack of large, colored squares of fabric. Returning to my side, he offers his hand to help me down from the stool and motions me toward a simple folding chair he brought with him. Then he sets the squares across my torso.
Ash frowns at the color—a dark burgundy. The tailor pulls back the swatch to reveal the next: a slightly different shade of burgundy.
This is going to be a long morning.
Ash’s brow creases, his eyes flitting from the color to my face, and I try to keep my blush at bay. “Hylath, undo that bun. Her hair should be down for me to properly see what suits her coloring.”
With a grunt, my maid totters back over me, her blobby fingers unwinding my hair with far less care than Ash handled it this morning.
I glance up, find Ash’s eyes heavy on mine as Hylath arranges my long hair over my shoulders. I hold his gaze, unsure what that look means, unsure why his bright eyes seem to darken just slightly.
He looks away first, clearing his throat.
“How is the color, Highness?” the tailor asks. This one is a deep red.
Ash shakes his head. “Skip the reds. I want to see the lighter colors you have.”
The tailor obliges, holding up a periwinkle swatch.
My husband’s mouth spreads in a slow smile. “That’s more like it.”
The tailor thumbs through the swatches, pulling out similar colors and a wider variety of pinks, blues, purples, and greens.
“This pink is quite lovely with her eyes, yes?” says the tailor, holding up the next one.
Ash’s gaze drills into mine. I lick my dry lips. He smiles again. “Quite.”
I flush and look away, unable to keep staring into those sapphire-and-gold eyes. What am I to do with all this attention? It’s quite overwhelming. I have the sudden longing to take refuge in my room so I can think, perhaps make plans of my own. Do the fae have libraries? It might be good for me to locate some histories, maybe some dramas or poetries too. Things that will help me understand these people better. Here, ignorance is deadly.
I want to understand why the High King hates Ash so much. I want to know if I can trust my husband, or if offering to help him is utter foolishness.
I want to know if Ash is the hero or the villain.
I want to know if he is good.
“That is everything I need for now,” says the tailor as he snaps his bag shut and readjusts his spectacles, looping his measuring ribbon around his neck once more so it hangs over his vest. He smiles and bows at Ash, then at me. “I’ll require two days for the wardrobe. At the end of the week, I will bring the ballgown for a fitting. The dress you ordered last night for this evening will be delivered within a few hours.”
Two days for an entire wardrobe? And a ballgown by the end of the week? What sorcery does he use to sew? I climb out of the chair he brought as my questions buzz around my head.
“The gown will be ready before Lulythinar, right?” asks Ash.
“Of course, Your Highness.”
With that, he bows once more and leaves with his bag and chair. Hylath lets him out, then scurries off with a chirp to the washroom. Perhaps she’s cleaning it after this morning? Or does she intend for me to follow so she can help me back into my dress and redo my hair?
The dress has been laid over the back of one of the dining chairs. I’m just about to retrieve it when Ash’s voice sounds from the couch.
“Come here.”
I look up with a start. He studies me from beneath that prominent brow, his eyes the color of a sea at midnight.
I think . . . I think I might know what that expression means.
If you need to escape, send a request to me for a white dress.
A lump forms in my throat. I need to keep a clear head. That will be especially difficult if Ash’s lips find their way to my shoulder again. It would be better if I put my hair back up and redressed.
“I’ll b-b-be back in a m-moment,” I manage, scooping up my dress and scurrying around the couch, giving Ash a wide berth. Is that a chuckle behind me? I can hardly hear anything past the blood roaring in my ears.
It’s a good thing Stella left.
I wipe my hand down my face, give myself a little shake, and get to my feet. Work has piled up, and I wouldn’t be so behind if I hadn’t fallen asleep last night. It’s just suddenly much more difficult than before to focus.
I enter my study and shut the door behind me. My desk is a disaster of paper, but I set to work shuffling through the stacks and rifling through drawers. Where did I put it? I told Edvear to set it on my desk, and I know I saw it around here somewhere . . . It’s been so long since I organized—
Ah ha! There it is.
I pull the small, crumpled parchment out of the pile. It’s folded in half and yellowed with age. I stare at it, slumping back into my chair. It crinkles as I unfold it.
239 Humpidy Lane, Mithral, Valehaven Forest.
I sigh, toss the address onto the table. My manservant Calver was in my employment for thirty years. It’s not an enormous amount of time, but it’s enough time for that ache to hit, especially when, for the first time, it wasn’t him setting out my clothes this morning.
Stella will be gone too.
I’ll be left with nothing but reminders of her sweet laughter at the sight of a leaping fish, or her smell clinging to the room adjacent to mine. Now I won’t be able to walk into the washroom without imagining her there before the mirror, her long, wet hair dripping on the floor.
That’s why I’m doing this. Because no matter what short-term sacrifices I must make, those sacrifices will be worth it. If I win this gamble.
The tattoo of the broken crown itches on my wrist. I need that constant visual reminder of the bargain I made with my father. I need it, but oh, I hate it. I hate that it means it’s too late to get Stella out of this.
This situation is what it is.
I need to stop bemoaning this turn of fate—and truly, it’s quite conceited of me to be frustrated that I like my wife, as if this situation would be better if I didn’t. It shouldn’t matter if I liked her or not. Her loss should still impact me.
But it is different. Because it will be worse than losing my staff. It will hurt, and I will hate every minute of it, but I know better than to get attached to my staff.
I give a rueful snort at that. Do I, really?
Either way, the day Stella dies will change me forever, and I doubt for good.
A soft knock sounds at my door. I lift my head, even as my heart lurches. “Come in.”
The face that pokes around that corner is a little hesitant. I smile.
“Your steward announced the midday m-meal. Shall I wait for you?” Stella asks, pale fingers drumming silently on the door. Her hair is back up in that blasted bun I despise so much, and she’s dressed again in her beautiful dove-gray dress.
I pause. It would be better if I told her to eat without me, to just have Edvear drop something off at my desk after she’s eaten. But I push back from my desk. “I’ll come. But first, a thought from you. Or else I’ll kiss you.” The practiced threat rolls off my tongue, and I cannot deny that every time I say it, part of me hopes she’ll opt for the latter instead of the former.
It’s better that she’s still so terrified at the thought of a kiss from me.
Her eyes widen. And then, to my surprise, she pulls the door shut. Straight in my face. I stare at it for one moment, and then I cannot help the way a grin spreads across my face as I shove to my feet, march across the room, and yank the door open. “You know the rules. If you won’t tell me a thought—”
I stop. The sitting room is empty.
Is she . . . hiding from me?
My grin widens.
I prowl down the hallway to the bedroom, fling the door open, and give a sniff. Not here. The washroom is empty except for a scowling Hylath who mops the floor of the washroom with her tongue. She tells me she’ll throw up over my letters if I step on her wet floors. I quickly vacate those premises.
Then I push open the door to the dining room—and there she is. Just sitting primly at the table, spine straight as she delicately sips from a teacup. “My thought is this. You surprise me much too frequently with these requests for my thoughts. Even if your assessment is true and I have many thoughts that I choose not to speak, those thoughts become very difficult to collect when faced with imminent consequences. So truly, it isn’t a fair request that you make of me.”
And with that, she takes one dainty bite of her food.
That is quite a speech coming from her.
Maybe if we had the chance to be married for decades or centuries, I wouldn’t be surprised by her at every turn. But two days into marriage, everything is a surprise.
Mountains of Ildrid, how it sends glee shooting through my chest!
I want to surprise her back.
Instead of taking my seat across from her, I come around behind her chair. She stiffens, eyeing me warily. Perfect. I duck toward her and wrap my arms around her middle, hugging her as she sits rigidly in her chair.
Even when she tries to be stiff, she’s so soft.
“It thrills me that you’re so easily flustered at the idea of me kissing you,” I say into her ear. “It makes me want to carry out my threat.”
Her cheeks turn the color of wine in a matter of seconds. It’s so satisfying. I feel as though I’ve won a prize, and I want to do nothing but keep winning them, over and over again.
And that’s when stupid Edvear comes around the corner carrying a dish. I straighten too quickly, drawing away from my wife, and take my seat. My collar is suddenly too tight. I give it a few tugs.
Neither of us look at each other for the rest of our meal.