Chapter 7
IN THE SUDDEN silence, I circle the room.
The rich, dark furniture is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, exquisitely carved with twisting forms, occasionally broken up by jagged points as though daggers fight to break through the organic shapes.
Beady eyes peek out, and on the doors of the armoire, I find little pointed faces peering from between the vine-like tendrils, their expressions twisted with cruel intent.
The full-length mirror next to it looks normal enough, but I turn it around, unable to stand looking at the skinny drowned rat before me.
There’s a spacious bathroom with a large bath at its center made of black, smooth rock—perhaps onyx or obsidian.
My muscles ache at the sight. I will escape this place, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a hot bath or two first. For now, I strip off my wet clothes, empty my pockets on to the bed and wrap myself in a silky robe that’s warmer than it looks.
Restless, I peer out one of the narrow windows. Snow piles upon snow, it glitters in the strange cool light from this place’s black sun. Drystan…
I refuse to think of him as my future husband. I’m getting out of this mess before that happens.
He said it was late, but the sun is high—mid- to late-morning, by my guess.
So the unseelie are nocturnal. I’ve always assumed the stories have them appearing at night because the new moon is what allows them to travel across the veil between our worlds.
Plus, isn’t that creepier? A creature that only comes to inflict its cruelty at the time when we humans are at our most vulnerable, with eyes too weak to be of use in the dark. Seems I was wrong.
I lean against the window frame, head bowing.
Seems I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.
Rhiannon is a lie.
My fate has been bound to this place since before I was born.
My parents have been carrying a dark secret all these years.
If they’d told me, I might’ve been able to help. I could’ve turned my research to ways to escape fae bargains or thwart goddesses or…
But one thing burns through all the others with cold fire.
I am a lie.
All of these things I’ve been wrong about drag on me—or maybe it’s just that the tincture is wearing off.
Wrists and knees aching, I trudge over to the bed and flop down.
The velvet covers are soft and lulling, but they don’t smell of home.
Sweet and woody. Not Albionic, warmer, like the carved wooden box Annem brought from her homeland and keeps jewelry in.
And there’s something else. Something that lulls me further but I can’t place it. Familiar and yet strange, like a dream.
As I shift to try and get comfortable, the items I emptied from my pockets dig into my hips. I retrieve the bottle of tablets and the smaller one of belladonna, then the parcel Lowen pressed into my hands as he said goodbye, and place them in a row before me. All I have of home.
I expect to cry. I should cry. But I’m all wrung out.
Tearing back the brown paper of Lowen’s parcel, I uncover oxblood-red leather, and maybe I’m not entirely wrung out, because my vision blurs when I realize what he’s given me.
Another notebook.
This one has entwined thorns embossed on the spine and a slender pencil tucked inside, ready for work. I press my hand to my mouth, holding in a sob.
It only gets worse when, slipped into the front, I find one of Lowen’s sketches. This one is unfinished, the bottom right corner disappearing into rough outlines where the rest is a perfect rendition in light and shadow of the beach by the village and the sea beyond.
He knew I missed seeing it. He did this for me.
And I couldn’t even bring myself to tell him to go and live his life.
Now I might never get the chance. I need to get home. If nothing else, to tell him. I owe him that much.
Head and heart heavy, I tuck the sketch back in the notebook and pick up the bottle of tablets.
My medicine.
I didn’t take one this morning—what with being dragged away to the Underworld and all. I tip out the blood-red tablets. It feels like the only spot of color I’ve seen since coming here. Everything is gray, black, or white—except for Drystan’s eyes.
There are ten left. Ten.
The traveling apothecary is due to come to the village next week—we would’ve restocked then. But now…
Perhaps I can stretch them out, cut them in half. Will half be enough?
It has to be.
My nail bends as I try to snap a tablet in two, so I end up using the edge of the hairbrush on the bedside table to break it. It’s messy, crumbling the center, but it kind of works.
Even halved, the tablet is a little too wide to swallow comfortably with a cupped palmful of water from the sink, but I’ve grown used to relaxing my throat and lifting my chin and enduring the sensation of that hard knot slowly working its way down.
Before I drop back into bed with the new notebook hugged to my chest, I gulp down more water in an attempt to wash away the bitter taste. As always, it’s a losing battle.
“My lady?” A singsong voice summons me from a suffocating sleep.
I sit up, clutching the robe to my naked chest. The dream flees as I catch my breath, but whatever it was, there was something chasing me. Something with sharp teeth and even sharper eyes. A half-remembered rhyme drifts away.
Death upon the water.
Death upon the land…
I blink into the darkness surrounding me. The black drapes. The velvet pillow at my back. The monster was a dream, but this… I have truly been bargained away to the Underworld.
“It’s evening, my lady. Time to get up.” I barely have the presence of mind to shove the bottles and notebook under the pillow before the drapes open, and I wince at the sudden light, which silhouettes a slender woman. “Oh. Oh.”
Once my eyes adjust, I squint up at her.
Pale skin contrasts with black hair, though she isn’t nearly as pale as Drystan or sickly like me.
Pointed ears peek out from between her thick hair—another fae, then.
Dark eyes narrow as she surveys me and her small mouth purses gently.
“Well,” she says on a breath. “I was not expecting that.” A glint enters her eyes. “And I’m sure no one else is.”
She wears a simple knee-length tunic that skims her figure, with wide trousers beneath. Their simplicity only accentuates the flowing silk, which shimmers from silver to pale gold to whispering aqua, depending on how the light hits it.
I’m no longer wearing my worn linen nightclothes, yet I still feel like a piece of broken driftwood among grand, lacquered sculptures.
Despite my discomfort, I clear my throat of its sleep roughness. “Good morning?” Does that count as minding my manners?
Her straight eyebrows shoot up. “And a human who’s more polite than I am, no less.” She bows her head, though I catch the edge of a grin before she does so. “Forgive me, my lady. I’m Min. The royal sartor.”
I’m not sure what a sartor is, but she works for Drystan and she’s fae—each of those on their own is enough to make me wary. Thank the gods I hid my medicine.
The confusion must show on my face, because she adds, “I advise on clothing, hair, accessories—anything relating to appearance. Or, at least, I’m supposed to.
But now you’re here… His Majesty has tasked me with preparing you for the night.
” Her gaze passes over me quickly and her expression remains neutral, but I know what she sees and what she must think.
She has her work cut out for her.
Still, she offers a hand to help me out of bed. Holding the robe around myself, I just about manage to take it and hop out of the too-high bed without falling. And hopefully without the stiff agony of my joints showing.
This close, I can see a pinkish crescent scar sits below her left eye, dimpling the otherwise smooth skin of her cheek.
“Thank you.” I squeeze her hand, remembering Drystan’s rule about manners.
Though maybe I’m making an etiquette misstep, because her expression… Well, it doesn’t so much change as go suddenly still.
Of course. I haven’t introduced myself. “My name’s Annon.” It may be a lie, but it feels true.
Her head cocks, making her shiny hair catch on her shoulder. “An unusual name,” she says at last. She nods as she leads me into the bathroom, where the air is thick with steam and the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle. Foam overflows from the bath.
“Oh, Min, you are a star.”
The corner of her mouth flickers as though she’s resisting a smile. “And you are clearly in need of a little looking after. Come on.” She gestures at the bath with one hand and holds out the other, giving the robe an expectant look.
Not-so-subtle jab aside, I suppose this is the life of rich folk…
of future queens. Last summer my illness got worse after we changed my medicine because of a supply issue.
I was so weak, Annem had to help me bathe.
Is this so different? Besides, Min seems considerably more approachable than Drystan.
Even if I don’t trust her, I can ask her questions and get to know a bit about this predicament I need to get myself out of.
I relinquish the robe.
I know I’m too skinny. No matter what I eat, I can’t seem to put on weight, like my illness takes all the sustenance out of food and leaves nothing for my body.
But Min merely makes the robe disappear with a gesture and again offers her hand to help me into the bath, gaze averted all the while.
The intense wave of gratitude that breaks over me is warm and for a moment scours my throat.
Annem always tries to make me eat more. She doesn’t say anything about my weight, but every time I bathed last summer, she would stare at my jutting hips and the deep hollows above my collarbones.
I know she worries, but could she do it more quietly?