Chapter 42
Forty-Two
The next day was spent recovering before the stresses of the final trial–dressed up though it might be as a banquet. I slept too late, emerging with my stomach growling and every muscle aching well past noon, but it didn’t matter.
The warm scent of tea curled through the air in the common room. Platters of shiny fruit, sandwiches, and cakes were spread across the table. I had the discomfiting feeling that Fieran had ordered all this food for my sake.
As much as I hated being seen so clearly, I hated being hungry even more. I was not going to complain, so I sat down at one of the benches and began to eat.
A mortal servant hustled into the room, then stopped and stared at me, awestruck. “Sorry,” she said to me, a beat too late. Then fear flashed across her face, as if she wasn’t supposed to speak to me.
Or to us? Were mortals not supposed to speak to us? Given how I’d asked Fieran for a wish, I supposed I could understand if the shifters felt dogged by mortals with secret demands.
I smiled at her, trying to make her feel at ease. “What’s your name?”
“Heida.” She hurriedly began unloading the tray she carried. Because I needed more cakes, clearly, and another carafe of spiced, milky-sweet tea.
“I’m Cara. It’s nice to meet you.”
She looked up, tongue-tied but pleased to meet me—thrilled, even—and my smile turned genuine.
“It’s strange being the only mortal in here.” I waved my hand to indicate the room, hoping to forge some kind of connection based on our shared mortality.
“You’re not really mortal, are you?” she asked. “You look like one of them.”
“They used magic to make me less…” I trailed off at the flash of jealousy that had crossed her face. “I’m still short.”
She smiled, her expression easing at that reminder. “Well, me too. Don’t you feel like a child next to them?”
“I do, until you realize how prone to tantrums they are. I have a seven-year-old sister who is more mature. We can’t be fooled by the height.”
She laughed, then her gaze flashed up. I knew there was a shifter coming down the hall behind me even before she hastily set down the last plate of meats and cheeses, then turned and fled.
I turned to see who had ruined my fun.
“Brace yourself,” Anayla said as she came around and dropped into the seat across from me. Her hair was loose for once, spilling in blue waves around her narrow waist; she wore her usual black leathers with a Bismyth purple corset. “Kami’s going to visit to help with your hair.”
“And to make me pretty enough to be seen by you all?” I muttered.
“Not your enemy, Cara,” Anayla said mildly as she searched the table for the perfect snack. “I’ve been trying to be your friend.”
“Why?” I asked bluntly.
She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Why? An excellent question!”
I couldn’t help but grin, and after a second, her expression shifted into a smile too.
“I’m glad you’re here, even if neither of us can figure out why,” I told her.
Kami came in through the door then. “Ah, look, the mortal star we all orbit around.”
“You’re on your own,” Anayla told me, picking up a cookie. “It’s my revenge for you trying to reject my friendship. Even though I won’t let you.”
She winked at me, then headed back into the hall.
“Well?” Kami propped her hands on her hips. “I was told to make you beautiful, and we can’t spare a moment, can we?”
I couldn’t hold back a laugh. I felt light-hearted in a way I rarely did after talking with Anayla. “We probably should have started an hour ago.”
Anayla gave me a sharp look—as if she were offended that I was not offended—then scoffed. But I was already up and walking to my room, and Kami followed me.
“Sit so I can do your hair for the trial tonight.” Kami was already combing through my hair, a little harder than needed, but it didn’t matter because the comb went through my hair like warm butter.
I sat. I didn’t mind the idea of wearing beauty like armor tonight as I faced the Fae Court.
“What do you want?”
“An end to Fae rule? Magic for mortals?” I caught glimpses of her face—distinctly unamused—in each of the five spare gilt mirrors that had been hung in my room because they weren’t needed elsewhere. “Could my hair be pink?”
She made a small, disgusted noise that didn’t answer my question. “I’m going to do an updo.”
Then, reluctantly, “I’ll make the ends pink.”
“Thank you.”
“I saw Fieran carry you out of the first trial.”
And thus I was being treated with fresh disdain.
Fieran came in while she was still fussing with hairpins. He leaned against the wall, his presence all-consuming.
That only made Kami’s jabs more pointed, her comments alternating between insults for me and compliments for him. He seemed oblivious to both.
“Impressed by what your money bought?” I asked dryly, gesturing toward the altered mask of my face and hair.
He frowned. “Not particularly.”
For once, Kami and I shared the same disgust.
“I made her beautiful,” Kami snapped. “Or at least as close as we can manage.”
“She’s always beautiful,” Fieran said, dismissive as ever.
I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or if he truly didn’t care about the difference between my mortal face and the magicked version.
“It just has to be done,” he added. “They’re all snobs.”
Kami jabbed a pin into my scalp hard enough to make me wince. “Fieran, you are absolutely—”
“Done having you in here,” he cut in smoothly, finishing her sentence. “I’ll handle the rest.”
“No, thank you,” I said quickly, even as Kami made a horrified little noise.
But what either of us wanted never seemed to matter to Fieran. He ushered her out, shut the door behind her, and crossed the room toward me. I reached up to touch the pins digging into my skull.
“Take it down,” he said impatiently. “Tonight will be bad enough without it.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered.
I fumbled for the pins, wincing when sharp metal scraped my scalp, until his hands joined mine. His fingers brushed through my hair, slow and deft, easing pins loose. The sensation made me bite down on my lip, refusing to let him see how much his touch affected me.
“What should I wear tonight?”
“You’ll look like a queen in anything,” he promised me.
My laugh came out sharp. Even he wasn’t that good a liar. “I know what I am, Fear.”
His gaze met mine steadily. “So do I.”
I turned my back on him and walked to the elaborately carved wardrobe on one wall. I ran my fingertips over the silky material of the gowns, in rich jewel-toned blues, purples, greens, and blacks. Bismyth colors. “Do you think I’ll really wear all these?”
It was hard to imagine staying in this world long enough to twirl on the dance floor in each gown.
It was hard to imagine myself on a dance floor.
I’d danced a few times in the Twisted Stone—most recently, a quick turn around the floor when Galin had humored me—as a fiddler played, the floorboards uneven under my feet and some man not quite holding me right.
“Yes. I think you’re going to survive, be claimed, be chosen by a dragon.” His voice was low, dark, smooth, and too close. He reached over me to pull out a purple gown. “Wear this one tonight.”
“Are you in the habit of giving me orders?”
“I try. Are you in the habit of taking them?”
I turned to face him, and the silky purple fabric slipped between us. “No.”
“Then it appears we are a match.” He carried the dress toward my bed.
I pulled out a plain black gown with lace sleeves and a low-scooping back. “Kami would have helped me dress.”
“I’ll do her work as my penance then for sending her away.”
“You were rude. Don’t you think eventually her adoration will wear off if you aren’t nice to her?”
“It’s not me she adores. It’s the idea of me.
” He took the black gown out of my hands and began to unbutton it, and I had the strange flicker of feeling that he had known I’d choose the black if he chose purple.
“I’d rather have your genuine disdain, accompanied by the way you look at me as if you see straight through to my heart. ”
“Or rather, straight through to the gaping hole where it should be?” I touched the spot on his chest over that missing heart before I fully realized what I was doing. His chest was so solid, so warm, under my fingertips.
His breath stuttered under my touch. Or maybe not, because he just seemed amused, and maybe I had imagined it. “That’s right.”
I pulled my hand away. We should sleep together and see if it would cure my temptations. Maybe I’d be lucky and he’d be a forgettable fuck.
His hand, warm and heavy, was on my throat, then tilting my face up to his. His golden eyes traced over mine. “Gods, I love that look.”
“Of hatred?” My brows arched.
“Are we going to pretend that’s it? I can if you like, for the sake of your pride. Undress.”
My mind was clearly not keeping up, because I hesitated.
“The dress?” He prompted me, raising the black fabric.
He was so terribly close, distracting me with the warmth of his body and with that smoky scent I was coming to associate with either annoyance or desire, I wasn’t entirely sure which. Perhaps both.
I almost asked him to turn away, but there was that gleam in his golden eyes that felt like a challenge. It felt as if he were saying, I know you want me, mortal.
And I know you want me, monster. I slid my thumb into the waist of the leggings I’d worn for sleep and slid them down. He watched me as I straightened, stepping out of them. Then I pulled the tunic slowly over my head, and his throat worked as I dropped it to the ground.
“Dress me,” I murmured, holding my arms up like a useless doll, like I’d never been in my life.
The dark material went over my head. His hands slid over the bare skin at my sides, over my hips.
He knelt at my feet, fixing the full, shimmering skirts. His dark head was bent before me, and it was such a strangely domestic moment—him fixing my skirts. I almost put my hand in his hair, curious to feel what it would be like.
He straightened, looking too tall and handsome in his dark uniform, embroidered with purple.
“Remember the ruse,” he told me. “Pretend you find me bearable.”
“You’re going to make me as good of a liar as you are.”
His answering smile was wide and unrestrained.
“Tonight will be terrible,” I reminded myself.
“Yes.” He offered me his arm. “But we’ll have each other.”