Chapter Ten #3
were little greenlings who tended to the forest. I felt so very sorry for them, dreaming up a succession of more tragic twists
of how they had been left behind by the other fairykind.”
I smiled. She had a soft heart, one this city hadn’t yet hardened.
“I didn’t understand I was seeing through their glamours and that no one else could,” Felicity continued, picking up a silver
hairbrush. “I learned rather quickly not to speak of it, especially once I realized I could sense which villagers had fairy
relics and even fairy blood, as I can feel it in you. My father was a religious man, and he . . . well, it was all devilry
to him. Not fairies, but demons. He tried everything to save my soul. Prayer . . . the rod.”
A terrible image of suffering formed in the silence, the stillness of her hands. My heart ached.
“It is a story with a happy ending, I promise. Lord Foxcourt knew what I was and had use for me,” Felicity said, seeming to
reclaim some of her usual brightness.
More use for her than a lady’s maid? I bit my tongue, letting her finish.
“And so, a farmer’s daughter fled on a mail coach in the dead of night and found herself in Linden for the first time.” Felicity smiled again. “I tell you all of this not for your sympathy, though it’s appreciated, but to encourage you to think about your situation differently.”
“How so?” I asked.
“We can choose to be anyone we wish to be,” Felicity said. “At first it may seem as though we are playing a character, but
with enough time, we become it. We will that character into being, and in that way, we write our own narrative. The past is
only a backstory, unless you allow it to wield the quill.”
My hands folded together in my lap as she brushed through my curls. If only it were as easy as she said; in the world I would
be entering, the past was everything. Lineage was destiny. It was the source of all privilege, wealth, and power that mattered.
But . . . I could try. What did the opinion of the Patricians matter to me, when I had so little respect for them? I would
never be one of them, no, but I would never wish to be. They had bought their bespoke magic scents from William Rosebourne,
and if they wished for more, they would have to come to me. And I would choose who received a bottle.
Mama had told me once that a true lady was marked not by her finery, but by her courage and kind heart. If I couldn’t have
the former, I could at least cling to the latter. They had been my constant companions these last twenty-five years.
“I’m glad that you’re here,” I told her, meeting her gaze in the mirror, “and that you’re safe.”
“I’m very fortunate to have a new life here,” Felicity said, “and I’m grateful the earl cares about our well-being—what, you
don’t agree?”
Apparently, I hadn’t hidden my disdain as well as I’d hoped. “I’m relieved to hear that he isn’t a beast to everyone he encounters.”
Felicity’s brow creased. “Forcing you to accompany him last night was rather uncalled for, especially after your ordeal—”
“An ordeal of his making,” I muttered.
She had started to lift the brush to my hair, but at that, she lowered it again. “What do you mean?”
The scaly bastard. He really hadn’t told them. “He was the one who arrested me and sent me to Fairgate in the first place. You really didn’t know?”
Felicity’s lips parted, her gaze drifting from the silvered glass, drawn astray by the dark story playing out in her mind. She drew in a breath and held it for a long moment. I should have kept my mouth shut—seeing the surprise and hurt in her expression made me regret the impulse.
“No,” Felicity said as she brought the brush to my hair. “No, I didn’t know that.”
Within minutes, Felicity had my hair brushed into a gleaming curtain and twisted into place. She attacked the heavy mass of
it with more hairpins than I had ever seen in my life. The simple ritual seemed to steady us both, and soon, the brightness
had returned to Felicity’s face.
“I’ve never seen hair this shade,” Felicity marveled as she mastered the uncooperative curls. “Strawberry blond with threads
of white gold.”
“I expect I’ll have more white hairs by the end of this,” I told her. At her confusion, I explained the bargaining nature
of the magic.
Felicity was torn between fascination and outrage. “The beautifying one? You give up a part of yourself for it?”
“Far be it for me to deny the brimstone-eyed society matrons of a youthful flush.” Seeing Felicity wince at the description,
I added, contritely, “I may need to borrow Miss Mannerly’s . . . It’s been quite a while since I was taught anything about etiquette and society.”
Felicity grinned. “I will be your tutor then. We can go through Miss Mannerly’s each morning, and in exchange”—she glanced toward the door, as if to ensure no one was on the verge of bursting through it—“will
you tell me everything about the explosion? The tremendous sound of it, how very scalding it must have been—erm, if it’s not
too terrible to recall, of course. I’m rather hoping to include one in my novel, you see.”
I let out my first real laugh in an age.
At last, a bargain I was glad to agree to.