Chapter Eight. In Which the Pair Participates in a Festival That Is Most Definitely Not Sinister at All
CHAPTER EIGHT
In Which the Pair Participates in a Festival That Is Most Definitely Not Sinister at All
A portly fellow wobbled up to Risa and Prince Javi, face stricken, the few remaining strands of his silver hair plastered to a shiny brown head.
He was one foot shorter than Risa and looked ready to burst out of his expensive, too-small clothes, an elegant cravat tied around his thick neck.
Beneath his long, slender nose trembled a thin handlebar mustache, and equally thin lips sat beneath that.
“Welcome to Cairn,” the man sang in a booming voice that reverberated in her chest. “I’m your generous, kind host, the mayor!”
Risa could not help but narrow her eyes in suspicion. Anyone who told people that they were generous and kind were usually not generous and kind. She figured the prince couldn’t be stupid enough to take the man’s words at face value, but he, too, waxed poetic about his own great attributes.
“And I am Prince Javier of Kheadon,” sang the prince.
This time, the collective gasp that rang through the crowd was of awe, variations of Prince Javier rising along like a wave.
Obviously, she was stuck in some kind of delusion.
“And she is…” Prince Javi trailed off, looking at her with his eyebrows raised.
He still didn’t know her name.
“Vexed,” Risa supplied, thoroughly so.
“Oh, come on.” The prince dropped the pretense of singing. “We’re already here. We can dump that awful cat at a taxidermy, get you a treat as a belated birthday celebration, and then go on our merry way. Let’s see if we can make that frown … less frown-y.”
The crowd turned in unison, hundreds of eyes boring a hole into Risa’s skull.
She felt like a bug caught beneath a magnifying glass moments before it burst into flames.
Even the mayor was looking at her with a calculating leer, likely making mental sums to determine if expending effort on her would be worth it.
When a predatory smile pulled at his lips, she knew he’d decided.
The smile kept growing until it was much too wide and revealed both rows of teeth.
His skin was pulled taut by the action, the gesture ill-fitting on his face.
It was like staring at a monster trying to stuff itself into the skin of a person, the mask threatening to fall with every precarious move.
There was something unsettling in the mayor’s watery brown gaze that made her stomach plummet.
“Prince Javi, you have saved the day.” Cheers erupted from every corner of town.
The music started up again, more infectious than before.
The mayor placed one hand on Risa’s shoulder and the other on the prince’s and, ignoring her reluctance, steered them toward the main street.
Brunie wiggled out from under her arm and began trotting after them, his ugly face contorted in an expression she could interpret only as irritation.
Bells announced their arrival in the cramped tailor’s shop.
The windows featured mannequins dressed in finery; the most elaborate dress, tiered in ruffles, was displayed front and center in the bay window.
Bolts of fabric were stuffed into floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined every inch of available wall space.
A mahogany counter carved with flowers stood at the back, the surface buried beneath mountains of more cloth.
Linen, cotton, muslin, a shimmery bundle of satin, abandoned scraps.
The faint outline of a till was visible beneath a gossamer strip the color of fairy wings.
Ribbons hung on string across the ceiling—as well as on light fixtures and a coat stand—fluttering like flags on a battlefield.
The mayor led Prince Javi to a plush, opulent armchair behind the bay window, where faces were pressed against the glass, eager for a look inside. Brunie, who had snuck in without notice, planted himself at Risa’s feet with his hackles raised.
“This is my sister’s shop,” the mayor explained, singing forgotten.
His voice was reedy and grating against her ear.
She would not have been surprised if all the singing was to disguise the mayor’s mousy voice, though how one man could inspire several hundreds of people to sing all the time was beyond her comprehension.
The mayor pulled at the heavyweight curtains, and the crowd disappeared behind the rust-brown fabric. He turned back to them, eyes scanning the room until they fell upon Brunie. Flicking his misty gaze to Risa, he asked, “Don’t you want to leave that thing outside?”
“No,” Risa said.
She watched anger flash unbidden across the mayor’s face, twisting his features until they looked mislaid. But the rage burned brief and then it was gone, shuttered behind his eyes. He turned his attention back to the prince, an agreeable smile plastered in its appropriate place.
“Please forgive our overenthusiasm.” He sauntered to the counter and found a small brass bell beneath the mess. He rang it, a crisp note chiming through the shop. “It isn’t often that a royal visits our small, humble town.”
“No worries,” Prince Javi answered breezily.
“Especially during our festival,” the mayor added, tone ominous.
But it piqued the prince’s interest. He straightened, eyebrows lifted high. “What festival?”
The mayor grinned, and once more Risa was struck by how wrong it looked. Teeth too straight and too white and too large for his too-small mouth.
“Every year, we celebrate our wonderful little town of Cairn and all the good luck we have been blessed with. And you, Prince Javi, have saved us!”
Risa rolled her eyes. As if he needed more to add to his cache of things he did not earn or deserve.
Prince Javi settled back in the chair, pleased by the news. Something else fluttered behind his satisfied smile and the cocky rise of one brow. It felt achingly familiar, though she couldn’t quite place it.
“I have?”
The mayor nodded. “Absolutely. Without you, we would have had to cancel our wonderful festivities!”
Nothing about the townspeople and their actions hinted that there was any possibility of shutting down the celebration.
It would have been easier to stop a wayward carriage, or an airship crashing to the ground.
Not that she’d had any experience with either scenario.
She’d never even ridden in a carriage, let alone seen an airship.
Brunie hissed at the mayor—or the prince, there was no real way to know. Risa’s distinct feeling of wrongness returned. The feeling that if she couldn’t get Prince Javi to follow her out now, they might never leave.
The mayor must have sensed her growing distrust. Or perhaps he was fluent in cat and understood Brunie’s warning. Whatever it was, he bounded over to the door with surprising agility and blocked it from view.
“You see,” he said, gaze fixed on Risa, pinning her where she stood, “we are celebrating our four hundred and seventy-fifth year of being lucky. Our eternal spring of sunshine and cloudless skies is only possible thanks to our god. Yesterday, our god found us worthy of another prosperous year and granted us a day of rain. Today we thank him for his generosity. But we need a knight and a maiden to crown! And it isn’t very fun when they’re from our own town.
Super boring.” The mayor’s eyes twinkled.
“Our god will be so pleased with you both.”
Risa may not have been a liar, but she certainly could spot a crock of bull miles away, mostly because she had witnessed Farmer Juan hide his bulls in a distant field before later claiming Risa’s bad luck had vanished them all.
Much like in the tavern scam, the insurance provider did not believe him.
“Prince Javi,” she warned, ignoring the chilling glare the mayor leveled at her.
“Well…” The prince considered it for a moment, glancing at her with a guilty look. “I do need to be on my way … Don’t want to be late to my own wedding.”
The mayor shook his head. “Think of this as an engagement party! You will make a most dashing knight, and then you’ll be free to go tomorrow morning.”
Prince Javi turned to Risa with a pleading look. “Come on. They need me. I mean, us.”
There was an earnestness in that look. An open and unfiltered revelation in his expression she didn’t expect.
For years, stories of his rakish behavior and insouciance had fueled her impression of him, had morphed him into the worst of the worst: someone who had everything he wanted and still remained greedy for more.
The past day spent in his company had confirmed his self-centeredness.
But now she found the image did not match the one looking back at her.
Heat zapped across her skin, the same feverish frisson that came with Brunhilda’s spell and left her breathless.
A woman teetered out of the back room carrying an armload of gauzy gray fabric.
She was identical to the mayor, only stretched long rather than wide: same watery brown eyes; same crease between her brows; same thin, nonexistent lips; same long, slender nose.
Their only marked difference was the coarse ashen hair piled neatly atop her head, perfectly coiffed.
“What a fabulous surprise, Mayor!” she sang in a big voice, her gaze sweeping over the prince, Risa, and the hideous cat at her feet.
“My sister, Miss Rivera, co-owner of this fine establishment,” the mayor explained to them before turning to his sister. “We have our knight and maiden fair,” he sang, gesturing at them with a wide sweep of his arm. “And garments of silk they need to wear.”
Risa guessed they were back to singing.
When Miss Rivera turned a too-wide smile onto her, she swore a dark shadow lurked behind her watery eyes as she raked a hungry gaze down Risa’s form.
“She’s perfect.”
Everything was a blur after that.
The mayor hurried out of the shop with Prince Javi in tow, Brunie escaping after them. Miss Rivera, humming an unrecognizable ditty, hooked an arm through Risa’s and dragged her up a flight of stairs that Risa hadn’t seen before.