Chapter 10
Ifrown. “Isn’t it how they chose the king in the old days?”
“I don’t know anything about history,” Elizabeth mutters. “I don’t really want to live in the past.”
“Come along!” Cador calls out.
We follow him across the bridge toward the Lyria Tower.
I try to push the mental image of that charred stone out of my mind, focusing instead on the tower in front of us. Water streams from large windows, and a light, misty spray kisses my skin.
We cross through an open archway, where a pool gleams in the center of a round chamber. Gowns hang from the walls all around, beautiful silken dresses in jewel and metallic colors.
By the window is a silhouetted figure, a man watching the water trickle down outside. He’s sipping a cherry red cocktail like the one spilled on Elizabeth’s dress.
Staggering a little, the man turns and stiffens. Rings glitter on his fingers, and he stares straight at me. “What in the gods’ names is this abomination? Did you bring me a peasant?”
His words are slurred. He’s obviously drunk.
Cador gestures at us. “Jasper, I’ve brought you Baroness Alis of Listenoise and Countess Elizabeth de Benoic.”
“What the fuck is she wearing?” He drains the last of the cocktail, then throws the empty glass out the open window.
“Listenoise. The Waste Land. Is that really what we’re doing here?
It’s all gone to shit, hasn’t it? I once dressed icons of glamour and power.
But they’re gone now, aren’t they? Prince Talan lives in the ruins of Avalon.
The king is dead. And now they’re just letting in ragamuffins and sluts from the Waste Land.
Might as well dig up the two princely corpses from Aether Tower and dress them. They’d look more regal than this.”
“She’s a baroness,” says Elizabeth sharply. “What is your title?”
“Ooooh, a baroness,” he says in a high voice that rings with mockery. “Hardly a fucking prince, though, is it?”
“The Waste Land is very fucking interesting, actually,” Elizabeth snaps. “It’s as exclusive as it gets. No one can get in or out. We all live in luxury, don’t we? Luxury is boring. Alis is something different.”
Jasper goes very still, then cocks his head.
He taps his fingers together. “True, yes. Very exclusive. And unique. You make a very good point, Elizabeth. It is interesting. Prince Talan always kept people guessing. He’d be intrigued…
” He drops his voice to a scandalized whisper.
“What is the Waste Land like? I’ve always wondered. I’d heard everyone there was dead.”
“I’m not dead.”
“They have nothing to eat there except stale bread,” Elizabeth adds, “and their lovers are grotesquely unfaithful.”
For just a second, Jasper quirks a smile. Frankly, he looks like he’s hungry to binge on schadenfreude. “Nothing but old bread and cheating lovers?”
I nod solemnly. “There’s no mead, either. There’s white wine, but it tastes like vinegar.”
Jasper’s lip curls. “That’s vile. What’s your palace like?”
“I live in a hovel,” I reply. “Not a palace. It’s a literal closet, with clothes that hang above my head.”
Jasper’s interest is clearly piqued, and he stalks closer, eyes locked on me. His voice drops to a whisper. “Of course. And what’s outside your hovel?”
The stolen cars come to mind, along with stray pieces of newspaper blowing through the street and the discarded chicken bones people leave on the pavement after a drunken midnight snack.
It’s been rough for centuries. I remember reading that long ago, a factory owner on my street was beaten to death in a marsh for mechanizing the looms.
I lift my chin. “Rubbish catches in the breeze, tumbling across the landscape like clouds of thistledown. The poor steal chariots and set them on fire. Gnawed bones are scattered on the street, and sometimes, angry mobs bludgeon the wealthy to death in swamps.”
“Fascinating,” Jasper says, eyes gleaming and voice raspy. “It’s worse than I thought. Very exclusive, yes.”
It stings that they accept my tales so easily when they should be saying, “But surely you look far too glamorous to be from that hellhole!”
“What are the Fey like in the Waste Land?” Jasper asks, taking a step closer.
I think of my neighborhood at three a.m. “Aggressive. Destitute. There’s noise everywhere. Many stagger around vomiting. Others wander with dead eyes. There are some good ones, of course, but plenty who will rob you blind. Often in the middle of the night, I’m woken by screaming.”
“Amazing.” He points at me. “I like a challenge. You are a challenge. Something rare. And now, Alis, you’re going to have something you never had before.” His voice drops to a sensual purr. “Luxury.”
And he’s not wrong about that. Before the Undercroft, my early childhood home was a little cottage in the woods, with rushes covering the ground and a bed stuffed with straw.
A loving place, but spare. I didn’t spend long there.
I grew up in the king’s barracks—underground, sleeping on the dirt floor in a small, crowded cell, hidden from the world.
The warmth of Tristan’s nearby body was my only luxury.
I suppose that little closet was the nicest place I lived, really. Our flat was clean, and we had running water, a modern mattress, and a pillow.
Jasper spares Elizabeth a bored glance. “Take whatever dress you want. I’m going to make something custom for the ragamuffin.”
He grabs me by the shoulders and turns me to face a mirror set into the walls. “A woman from the fetid horrors of the Waste Land…” he whispers behind me. “Let me think of how to transform you.”
I catch my reflection and grimace, guilt twisting my heart.
I am my mother remade: prominent cheekbones, full lips, and dark lashes above lavender eyes.
But the whole picture is worse than I’d expected.
My shoulders hunch. My T-shirt hangs, half in and half out.
Eyeliner smudges the skin beneath my eyes, streaked by the rain, and my hair is a frizzy mess, like it’s trying to fly from my skull to escape the indignity of it all.
In short, I look like shit.
On the plus side, I really look like I’m from a place called the Waste Land.
“What shall we do with you?” Jasper mutters to himself. Then he barks in my ear, “Ranae!”
He snaps his fingers, and a Fey woman rushes into the room. Ranae, I assume. She has ink-black hair cut in a bob and wears a gown of delicate silver.
Jasper has already found another cocktail from somewhere, and he takes a sip. “Ranae, we have a challenge here tonight,” he says. “A vagrant of sorts. A vagabond. A wastrel.” He shouts the last word, suddenly furious.
Ranae stares at me. “Is she supposed to be here? Shouldn’t we report her or something? Because she might be carrying lice or another sort of critter.”
“She’s a baroness,” Jasper says, whispering for some reason, then mouthing, as if naming a shameful venereal disease, “From the Waste Land.”
Ranae’s eyes widen, and her lip curls. “Oh, dear.”
Jasper points at me, squinting one eye. “Go on, then,” he slurs. “Take off your filthy rags, Baroness.”
I’d forgotten this aspect of Fey culture—the part where they’re totally fine with being naked around each other. It’s not how things are done in London, but I try to get into my Fey mindset again. I pull off my shirt, my jeans—everything but my underwear. That stays.
Jasper clasps his hands together in a prayer pose, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.
“Let me think. Inspiration from the kingdom of bones…a garden blooming from the ashes, a morning sky. Dazzling bowers of flame beneath a night sky. Light in the darkness. I want dawn breaking. A new beginning. Yes, sun rising over the festering bones, over the stale bread and the unfaithful lovers and burning machines. Ranae!” He shouts her name, although we are all standing close together.
“What?” she snaps.
“I want beautiful, but minimalist!” he continues. “Minimalist, yes? Show off her figure, will you, in an hourglass shape. Light and dark, yes? This is revival. This is a renaissance for a life of bones and filth and utter grotesque depravity.”
Stings again, that I have described my real life, and this is how they summarize it.
Ranae chants a spell, and a smooth, silky fabric wraps around my body. Slowly, the silk dress stitches itself together over my form—simple, yet elegant, black chiffon pulled tightly over the colors of a fiery dawn. The overall effect is one of embers burning within ash.
A new woman wearing a pout comes in, her white hair draped over a violet gown. Arms crossed, she looks at me and says, “Another one trying for the crown.”
Jasper swirls his drink. “Will you fix”—his voice drops to a whisper again, his eyes wide and urgent—“her hair? And whatever is on her face. I need her hair to shine and gleam like Lord Cador’s. He uses linseed oil, I believe, so his hair doesn’t look like that.”
I’m quickly starting to understand that he whispers whenever he finds something utterly repugnant.
“And Millie?” he barks. “Nothing too ornate. Under the grime, she’s quite beautiful, so let her face be the finest jewel. Add shimmer and a blush to the lips as if she’s just been thoroughly kissed. Like the way I kiss, Millie. You know.”
“It’s Tillie,” the white-haired woman spits.
Ranae adjusts my dress as Jasper barks orders and Tillie cleans my face with a cloth. When my old makeup is scrubbed off, she sets to work on my hair, first smoothing it out with oils, then running a wide-toothed comb through the curls.
You know? I could really get used to this life, maybe learn to live with the threat of death by dragon fire and the drunken insults. Like Niniane said, you might as well enjoy the last bright sparks before you die.
Finally, when the two women are finished, I’m staring at a totally new person.
The dress is perfection. It hugs my waist, sweeps over my breasts, and trails to the floor. The dark fabric blends into flaming hues of violet and peach near the hem, and my blue-black hair drapes in waves over my shoulders.
Cador sidles up to me. The moonlight streams in past the falling water, silvering his pale skin. “Gorgeous. Look at you. Reborn.”
Elizabeth is now dressed in a gown made from cloth of gold, and she looks like a goddess. She smiles at me. “Utter perfection. Both of us. I mean, I liked our first outfits, but now we’ve got fancier gowns. Now, let’s grab a bottle of mead so we can try to forget about the combat trials, shall we?”
Cador clears his throat. “You can get more mead, but then you’ll need to head right down to the dragon ceremony.”
My eyebrows flick up. “The what?”
“You’re going to get your sigils,” says Cador. “Your heraldic emblems. It’s fate, Niniane says. In the menagerie, one of the animals will be called by your family’s noble bloodline, and you will wear that symbol in the trials. These creatures are bonded to the noble houses, of course.”
Shit. I don’t have a single noble relative in my bloodline. There will be no unicorn waiting to bless my blue blood.
I force a smile onto my face before he notices. “That’s so fun. But what happens if no animals choose us?”
Cador’s expression darkens, and he leans in closer to whisper, “Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen, because that’s when Goch gets involved.”
My confusion must be apparent, because he adds, “The red dragon.”
Elizabeth stares at him. “Bloody hell. Really? I thought this would be more of a banquet and conversation situation. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, you know? I didn’t realize we were going to face swords and dragons and warriors trying to kill us.”
“But you two will be fine,” says Cador with a gracious smile. “I know it. You’ll help us revive the Golden Age of the Fey.”
My throat goes dry, and heat inflames my skin like I’m already burning. “Elizabeth? More mead is an excellent idea.”