Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
LARA
I take all the broken crockery out behind the house and dump it into the trash for Fintan to deal with in the morning.
My chest aches, and it is absolutely not because I walked in on Ivrael kissing some Ice Bitch in the dining room.
Brushing my hands off, I head back into the kitchen and move through my usual evening routine.
I am not distracted , I tell myself. I’m just busy thinking, working out my new escape plan.
In fact, ever since Ivrael kissed me in the gallery, I’ve been far too busy trying to determine the best time to steal the map from his study and make my escape to the firelords’ mountains to even think about the kissing, really. It’s just as well he’s busy with her. The last thing I need is to be distracted by him. My desire to get out of here has only grown since Ice Bitch showed up and started hanging all over him.
Nope. I’m sure as hell not jealous.
But when I lie down on the hearth to go to sleep, the image of her sitting on his lap, kissing him, keeps running through my head.
Ugh . I run my hands over my eyes and blow out a breath, working on calming my racing thoughts. I really do need to concentrate on coming up with a plan. Okay, Lara. Think .
I do know when he’s bound to be most distracted. The night of the ball he’s holding in honor of Prince Jonyk. The one he told us about this morning. Before the Ice Bitch arrived. Back when I was busy not thinking about Ivrael kissing me.
There will be more people in the manor, but they will all be preoccupied, so my original plan doesn’t have to change, not fundamentally—except for the part about slitting Ivrael’s throat.
It’s not that I don’t still want to kill Ivrael. In fact, part of me actually wants to kill him more than ever, I acknowledge with a wry grin. But there will be far too many people in Starfrost Manor the night of Jonyk’s ball, and I don’t want to risk being caught.
So I will forgo killing him if it means I can get home to my sister. After all, Izzy’s the most important person in my life, and returning to her is the most important part of the plan.
With that thought, I glance down at Kila, curled up in the crook of my neck, and my heart constricts. I may have to change the plan a little, I realize. She may not be Izzy, but I suddenly realize I can’t leave her behind when I go.
My life here moves erratically between drudgery and sheer terror. Kila makes that bearable—and has, almost since the moment she arrived.
I cup my hand over the Starcaix raya protectively and stare into the fireplace, watching the flames flicker and remembering the day Kila came into my life.
About a month—about three of the Caix’s ten-days—after he’d saved me in the graveyard, Ivrael had disappeared for several days. Starfrost Manor had seemed lighter when he was gone, but also less alive—as if he were some brooding Mr. Rochester animating the entire house with his presence.
I’d felt it the instant he returned, as if I knew he was back even before he made his way to the kitchen. When he strode through the door, all the air in the room seemed to swirl around him as if it took every bit of available oxygen to support him, leaving none of it for the rest of us to breathe.
I found myself holding perfectly still. Around the Icecaix, and especially around Ivrael, I always ended up acting like prey attempting to avoid the gaze of a predator.
Reaching into an inner pocket of his coat, the duke pulled something out and set it down on Adefina’s preparation counter in the center of the large room.
I moved closer from where I’d been standing—or maybe hiding—by the fireplace. I couldn’t see past Ivrael, and I didn’t want to get too close to him as he gestured to whatever he’d placed in front of his cook.
“See what you can do with it,” the duke instructed Adefina tersely before turning on his heel and stalking back out.
As soon as he was gone, I stepped up next to the cook, getting only a glimpse of what he’d left behind before Adefina swooped in and scooped up the creature, cupping her hands around it.
“Oh, you poor little thing,” she said.
I had just enough time to see that it was a tiny person with blonde hair and green wings, wearing a shimmering white gown that fell just past her knees. Her skin looked like it would have been pale to begin with, but in that moment, it was practically blue with cold.
With the tiny creature cradled against her chest, Adefina moved toward the fire, where she glanced around before holding her hands out closer to the warmth. “Get the tea kettle,” she instructed me. “Fill it with water and hang it over the fire. Then get one of the small bowls from the shelves, a washcloth, and three tea towels. Also a teaspoon.”
I scurried around the kitchen as Adefina waited, gently rubbing the fairy’s limbs with her fingertips and crooning nonsense phrases designed to comfort, telling the tiny creature she would be all right soon enough.
“This one’s near froze to death,” the cook said as I laid out the supplies in front of the hearth. “His Lordship ought to know better than to bring a smaller Starcaix into the Icelands.” It was the first time I heard her utter even the slightest criticism of the duke. “He knows they can’t survive here.” She shook her head. “Hold her,” she said, thrusting the tiny person toward me. “And mind her wings,” she added. “They’re delicate.”
I nodded, taking the miniscule body into my own hands, cupping them around the pixie as I tried to send warmth into her body using sheer willpower.
After a moment, Adefina poured the now-warm water from the tea kettle into the bowl, and then ladled out a teaspoonful and tested it against her wrist. Her lips twisting, she dipped her forefinger into the bowl and nodded. “That ought to be just about right.”
Then Adefina settled her bulk down onto the hearth, sitting with her legs crossed. She took the fairy from my hands and removed its gown, then quickly placed the small, naked winged woman into the bowl, careful to support her head to keep it from dropping into the water.
Using the teaspoon, she began scooping the warm water over the pixie’s shoulders and back, allowing it to sluice down past the base of her wings, careful never to submerge the wings themselves.
As I dropped down beside Adefina, the door that led to the main section of the house flew open and Ramira sailed through, her perpetual sneer of disdain deepening when she saw us loitering by the fire. Her face turned red as she encountered the room’s heat.
“His Lordship requires luncheon,” she announced. Her voice, haughty and demanding, bounced off the walls.
“Yes,” said Adefina, “and I’ll have it ready for him momentarily.” She handed me the teaspoon. “Here. Keep her warm, and when the water cools, take her out and dry her, then wrap her in one of the tea towels.” She rocked forward and heaved herself to her feet. “And be sure not to be getting her wings wet.”
“Got it,” I said. “Warm water, no wet wings, dry her when the water cools, and wrap her in a towel.”
“What is it?” Ramira demanded, stepping close. She peered over my shoulder. “Ooh. Yuck. It’s a raya.”
“That it is.” Adefina’s dry tone practically crackled through the air.
“What’s it doing in the kitchen? Don’t we have pest control?”
I hadn’t thought Ramira’s expression could convey even more disgust, but a corner of her lip curled up, and she glanced around as if searching for a fly swatter.
“While you’re at it, Lara,” Adefina said, “why don’t you put a few more logs on the fire—seems it’s getting a bit chilly in here.” The cook’s nostrils flared, and she raised an eyebrow as she smirked at Ramira, never looking away from the sweating maid.
“They scream prettily if you pull their wings off,” Ramira said as if she were confiding in me.
“You won’t be pulling the wings off this one,” Adefina told her, stepping between Ramira and me.
“Then you had best keep it in the kitchen,” Ramira said. “If I see it in the main house, I’ll knock it to the floor and stomp on it. It’ll smear nicely under my boot.”
I shifted to put my body between Ramira and the fairy and hunched over the bowl, feeling even more protective of the tiny creature than I had before.
In the bowl, her skin was beginning to gain a pink glow—one that seemed like it was probably more natural to her than the blue tinge she’d had before.
“I’ll be back in a moment for the duke’s luncheon.”
I glanced back over my shoulder in time to see Ramira give a toss of her head, then turn and flounce out of the kitchen.
A slight buzzing noise drew my attention back to the bowl. The pixie’s wings were scraping together, and she had begun blinking her eyes.
“I think she’s waking up,” I announced.
“Good,” Adefina said from across the room. “Mind she doesn’t bite you. The raya may be little, but they’re fierce.”
“Okay.” I drew the word out, not entirely certain how I was supposed to keep the fairy from attacking me.
I lifted her out of the makeshift bath and wrapped her in one of the tea towels.
She promptly wriggled around until her wings were free, then stared at me accusingly. She squeaked something at me, and I leaned down closer to hear what she was saying.
“Where am I?” she demanded in a high, jingling voice. She frowned fiercely, and I had to bite back a smile at the sight. Adefina was right—she was fierce.
“You’re in Starfrost Manor, Duke Ivrael’s home,” Ramira replied, swinging back through the doors. “And if you enter the main part of the house, you’ll be sorry.” She turned her gaze toward Adefina. “His Lordship’s food?”
The fairy glared up at Ramira. “As if I would want to venture into an Icecaix household.” But as Adefina finished the ritual of setting meat pies onto the lunch tray to be sent to the duke’s room, a flicker of fear crossed the pixie’s face.
Adefina stepped forward with the tray in hand, shoving the duke’s food toward the housemaid.
“I have your dress, if you want to put it back on, but I think it should probably be washed first,” I told the pixie as Ramira left again.
“Not to worry,” Adefina said. “I’ll run her up something from the scraps in the closet. Something suitable for a small Starcaix in an Icecaix domain.”
She moved to do just that, while the fairy huddled miserably under the blanket of the tea towel.
“How did you end up here?” I asked her.
“I think your duke bought me.”
The laugh I gave was more derision than amusement. “He’s not my duke. He bought me, too.”
Kila eyed me curiously. “Are you Starcaix?”
This time I snorted outright. “Human.”
The tiny woman tilted her head and stared at me curiously. “I’ve never seen a human before.”
As it turned out, she was fascinated by human culture, quickly overcoming her cold-induced lethargy to discuss everything she could think of to ask me—starting with my name. In return, I learned she was Kila.
Within two days of her arrival, Kila had recovered enough to become what I would soon learn was her usual chatterbox self.
Adefina started insisting the tiny Starcaix help in the kitchen.
“But I don’t want to be a kitchen drudge,” Kila complained.
Adefina rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t be a kitchen drudge. You can barely do anything.”
Kila’s wings buzzed angrily, and she darted in close to Adefina’s face, moving like a hummingbird. She shook her tiny fist at the cook. “I can do plenty of things. Just because you are so huge that you can only pick up equally giant objects doesn’t make me useless. I can capture dust motes or get up to the ceiling or?—”
“Or right now, you can add some spices to His Lordship’s evening meal.” Adefina pointed at the spice rack. “Make yourself useful.”
Kila’s Barbie-doll face had scrunched up in irritation, but she’d taken on the job.
Now, as I stare into the fireplace, working out how and when I can take the map and get to the firelords, I realize I’ll also have to figure out how to keep a tiny Starcaix raya alive on a journey like that, through the cold and the snow. The kind of weather she’s made clear she could never survive for long.
My shoulders tighten and tears prick behind my eyelids as it occurs to me that I might not be able to save both my sister and my friend.
Oh, god. Am I actually going to have to choose between them?