12
I trace the constellations and metallic threads of the tapestry with my lone remaining claw as the sun sets once more. There are no candles in my room. Nothing to light the darkness that seems to thrive in the castle. So I simply lie still on the rug.
If Celeste were here now, she’d roll her eyes and tell me to get up.
To make the most of the adventure ahead of me.
A week ago, we were studying for math tests and trying to memorize the periodic table of elements, and now I’m in a magical castle with my own room and some kind of rite ahead of me that I don’t know anything about.
It sounds enchanting, for a second. Like a fairy tale escaping the pages of its book and sprinkling me with pixie dust. But it’s not enchanting. It’s a nightmare.
I touch a finger to my remaining claw. It’s as sharp as broken glass, as strong as diamond, and cuts my skin instantly. I am a nightmare.
“Oh, dear. Tell me you’ve at least bathed!
” My door is thrust open, and torchlight from the hallway floods the room.
I squint against it, holding a hand up to my eyes as they adjust. A young woman—maybe only two or three years older than me—with an Irish accent as thick as cream rushes inside, hastily shutting the door with her foot. “Get up. Get up!”
She peels back a corner of the tapestry, sniffs, and winces. “So you’ve not bathed. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Untamed copper curls dance around her freckled face as her brown eyes flick from my head to my toes. “This is not good. Not good at all. Fauna! Fill the tub!”
I sit up, if only to stop her from tugging on my tapestry, and watch as a second woman, twice the size and age of the first, carries in a woven basket filled with bubbling tinctures.
Except… she carries it past us and toward the opposing wall, where a huge landscape painting of the ocean hangs.
Pressing on each corner of the gilded frame, the woman—Fauna—causes the painting to begin… moving.
Oh my god.
I hold my breath as the turquoise ocean waves part loudly, dramatically, and reveal a secret passageway within.
Holy shit. A rush of scents escape the new darkness, all of them floral, crisp, and clean.
Fauna enters, seemingly vanishing into blackness, before flames burst to life and the inside illuminates with an orange sunset glow.
“There, Oona,” Fauna says, exiting without the basket and wiping her hands on the dusty apron tied around her voluptuous waist. “Now get on with it before Lord Dubrow decides we need more tutelage in the art of maid-work.”
Leaving then, Fauna slams the main door shut so hard, the walls shudder. The copper-haired woman turns to me. “I’m Oona, if you couldn’t tell. Now, you need to get in that bathing room and scrub for your life, or we’re all going to be extremely regretful, understood?”
“N-no. Not really,” I stutter, too confused to do much else but stare at the gilded frame that has become something of an entrance.
Oona follows my gaze with a determined frown. She bats at her curls, blowing them away with breathy sighs, before marching toward the new doorway. “It’s a bathing room, girl. Have you hit your head?”
“But it’s—”
“Magic?” she finishes for me. “The remaining faerie magic is beyond even our own. Hidden alcoves and undisclosed corners litter every inch of this place. Makes it an absolute horror to clean. But clean I must! Especially you. You’re filthy, and you smell like death.
” She reapproaches and yanks me to my feet.
Forcing me forward, her hands at my back, Oona shoves me through the painting and into a pearlescent, sparkling bathroom.
I turn on my heel, gazing with an open mouth at the high mosaic ceiling while I continue to hug the tapestry to my body. Pristine marble reflects torchlight, a cavernous tub sloshing bubbling pink waters in the middle of the floor. Windows limned with seashells look out onto… onto a forest.
How is that possible? How is any of this possible?
I stagger a step, legs still delicate and frail, and Oona uses the movement to shove me indelicately into the tub.
I land with a splash, and sugary, cotton-candy waters spill into my mouth.
Spluttering, I surface immediately, followed by the ruined tapestry.
She plucks it out of the bath with a scowl.
“We’ve twenty minutes to get you bathed, dried, and dressed,” Oona says. “That’s not to say anything for that bird’s nest you’re calling hair. So either wash up or do me the favor of ripping out your own heart so at least the mess will be contained to one room.”
I gnaw at my lip, nervous— anxious , but fast as a housefly, Oona is there in front of me.
She flicks it. “Enough of that.” She ducks me under the pink bubbles for a second too long, but her grip isn’t rough, at least. It’s just firm.
Reminds me of Celeste braiding my hair before school, fixing whatever mess my father had attempted to do himself.
Which is probably why I don’t fight. I miss her. I miss home.
Oona’s voice is close enough too. Sweet like honey, even when her words sting like a bee.
I peer up at her with wide eyes, and she almost manages a smile. “Scrub yourself. There is a towel beside you. When you’re finished putting on your undergarments, I will dress you. You have five minutes.” She hurries out of the painting, leaving me alone.
The privacy is welcome but short-lived. I may not understand much, but I’ve always been good enough at reading people to trust Oona at her word.
I rub a shimmering bar of lemon-scented soap over my skin, ignoring the small bruises and cuts before I wash the stains of old blood.
Then I work a bit of creamy strawberry solution through my scalp.
It untangles my hair in seconds. I barely put down the bottle before Oona returns.
“One minute,” she barks.
I climb from the tub, limbs gawky and awkward as I step onto the cold floor with a shiver.
Leaden and sore, my muscles yearn to return to the warm water.
My body yearns to sleep. But I can do neither, so I dry off with a fluffy towel and return to my room.
Oona hands me a pair of sheer white stockings to wear, followed by a thin white chemise.
I’ve never seen anything like them outside of the period dramas that Celeste’s mother loves.
“Why… why are you dressing me like this?”
“Like what?” She tilts her head, paused halfway between me and a huge wooden wardrobe.
I point to myself. “Like some kind of ritual sacrifice. Like you’re about to feed me to a demon.”
Now she does smile. Her lips pull back, showing off two rows of perfectly sharp, white teeth. It’s a needed reminder that she’s not my father, and I am not home. Oona is a werewolf. She’s one of them .
“The Seven Courts enjoy their traditions. Werewolves don elegant dress to display grandiose wealth. We live in the opulence of our ancestors. But… we do allow for modern amenities from time to time. Indoor plumbing, for instance, was immediately installed when the technology became available to our people—centuries before the humans understood it, mind you. And air-conditioning.” She gestures to a hidden vent in the ceiling, its light but icy breeze feeling like frozen fingers combing through my hair, and then throws open the wardrobe.
I clutch the edge of the bed. A single claw tears through the linens. Oona sighs, but I don’t hear it. Can’t hear.
“No.” Violent, bloody scarlet dazzles in silk and lace. It triggers every horrible memory from the last few days. “No.”
Oona purses her lips. “Clothing isn’t a suggestion, dearie. You can’t very well perform the rite in stockings alone.”
My heart races the longer she holds a red dress before me. Another claw breaks through my finger. I gasp around the sudden bolt of pain. Oona lowers the gown, her movements shaky. “You need to calm down.”
I double over. Hold my knees for support.
My spine ripples with awareness. My bones twist, as if preparing to snap.
Oh god oh god oh god. Control it, Vanessa.
I try to tether the fear, the grief and anger and rage, inside my chest, but I can’t possibly collect it all.
There’s too much. My feelings are bigger now than they ever were when I was human.
They’re devouring me. I don’t understand them.
I—I hate them. A growl vibrates dangerously in my throat.
Oona places a hand on my back, where my spine wriggles at her touch. “Oh, stars ,” she whispers. “We can’t shift twice before the rite. But you… you…”
Shift.
Am I shifting?
“Any other color,” I whisper through trembling lips. “ Please. I can’t wear that.”
Quick as lightning, Oona returns with a deep purple dress—expertly woven with raindrop crystals cascading down the stiff corset-styled bodice and spilling onto the silk skirt.
The shade of plums. Of my eyes. It makes me think of death.
Of wolves . My nightmarish claws rip through the bedding and into the mattress as I steady myself.
“The rest of the wardrobe is red,” Oona says. “Your coloring… The burgundies and maroons look best against your pale skin. The queen ordered them made by her very own Weaver. She—she does not want us to highlight your eyes if we can help it.”
I glance at the open wardrobe and the garments swinging inside. So much red, it could be a waterfall of blood. Revulsion shudders through me. “Throw it away,” I rasp. Then, harsher—stronger—I say, “ Burn them. I don’t want to see them again.”
Oona says, “Of course,” and retreats.
Just like that.
I look up, shock soothing the deadlier parts of me. She only takes a few steps. Through the painting, and then right back. But when she returns—it’s with a torch.
What?
She throws it onto the wardrobe.
“What are you doing?” I leap upright, tripping and knocking into a branch of the tree as the fire erupts. Shit. What do I do? What… what do we do?