Chapter Nine Alexa, What is a Celebrity Crush?
Back at the Maidens’ Chamber, a chorus of shouts greeted me.
“Sweet lords,” someone cursed.
“Dottie, shut the door!” Denise squeaked. She’d been lying on top of her bedcovers but pulled them up as if the whole court was craning their necks out in the hall trying to see inside.
I shut the heavy door quickly behind me and found all the women—minus Meg and Ariana—already in nightclothes, the bottoms of their shifts tied up around their knees, drawstrings undone, hair braided and wound upon their heads.
It was easy to see why—it was hot. No, it was more than hot—the room was sweltering.
The stone walls of the castle had baked in the late sun and the tiny windows were no match against the oven.
“Maybe we should leave the door open. Get some airflow,” I suggested.
Lu scoffed. “And let the men see us all humid-like?” Her red curls threatened to escape their bounds.
I was eager to change out of my own clothes.
The splint mail came off in pieces. I hoped I’d remember how to assemble it in the morning.
I stashed it under my bunk, and then tied my own nightgown up around my knees and pushed the sleeves over my elbows.
I retrieved a ponytail holder from my toiletry pouch and pulled my hair back.
There was a pail of water at one end of the room I’d seen the others use and I splashed some on my face and smoothed my hair.
I’m sure my brown strands were frizzled as well.
Then I flopped on my bed, already miserable from the heat.
Compared to the gossip and buzz of last night, there wasn’t much chatter. Several of the women waved feathery hand fans. Only one lantern burned—no one wanted an iota of extra heat.
Sweat pooled between my breasts. I touched it absent-mindedly. My neck was damp, as well as my thighs. I fanned my nightgown out in several great gusts, but it only moved already warm air around. I couldn’t stand it. How people survived without AC, I didn’t care to know.
“I can’t do it,” I said, “Does anyone want to sit outside on the castle walls?”
“The battlements?” Lu asked. “I’d have to dress again, and I’m not putting those sweaty clothes back on.”
The others seemed to agree.
“Well, I’ve got to get out of here,” I said. I didn’t care if anyone saw my pajamas.
At the end of the hall, there was a promise of airflow.
I climbed a set of nearby stairs and emerged on top of the castle wall.
Torches and fires littered the darkness of the village set in the base of the great hill.
A few voices carried distantly, and I thought I heard a strand of notes from a lute, but they were gone as quick as they had come.
I leaned back against the wall, the blocks still warm from sunset, then sank to my bottom and pulled out my hair tie, letting my hair fan around my shoulders.
I ran through the events of the day in my mind.
Despite my earlier despair, the distraction of the armory and especially the water helped.
I was anxious once again to honor Sherry Whitehorse’s intentions now that I realized my actions were already impacting the story.
I’d significantly shortened the ghostwriter’s battle campaign.
With no need for Ironclaw to go south and Amédée already retreating, the book could focus on cozy plotlines and romance once again.
My biggest issue was Ironclaw was looking more and more like a dead end.
I spun through a few ideas and then dozed until I felt a hand push hair back from my face. I flinched.
“What are you doing out here, Lady Mayfair?”
“It’s Dottie,” I murmured and opened my eyes to find Lord Draw. His black hair was untied and fell to his shoulders.
“Lady Dottie,” he said uncertainly.
The instant embarrassment at my appearance cut through my grogginess. If anything, I was angry he was still dressed in his gray robes, belt, and sash despite the heat of the night, as if that was a comment about my own weak constitution.
“Why are you wearing clothes?” I blurted.
“Clothes are the custom around here. We’re not all attention-seekers.”
“The Maidens’ Chamber had to be over a hundred degrees. The windows are only as wide as my head.”
“Measurement by head. Hmm, we’ll have to implement that across the queendom. But first, come, let’s get you more water. Rainwater,” he assured me.
I went easily enough—we were going to have to talk openly at some point, he and I—and recognized the way to his room.
The glass on his windows were pushed open on hinges.
For all the good it did, it was just as overheated at the Maidens’ Chamber.
The fireplace was dark, but he lit several candles before handing me a wrap of fabric—obviously to preserve some scrap of my moral character.
I reluctantly pulled it around my shoulders and Draw poured me a cup of water.
I slumped into the chair I had sat in the previous night and drank the entire cup in one go.
Instead of refilling it, he stood, looking me over shrewdly. I resisted folding my arms around myself but sat a little straighter. I couldn’t do anything about the dampness that had grown across my torso and I wasn’t going to untie the knot around my knees in front of him.
“You plan to depart with the host tomorrow?” he asked. I frowned, and he hurried on. “It’s only that castle life seems to be pushing you enough and life on the roads of Landsome are vastly more unpredictable. Perhaps you should follow behind once the main camp is laid—”
“You think the queen would let me out of her sight? Besides, I’ve got to go where the story takes me.”
“Yes, your theory....” His tone was polite enough, but there was an edge to it. He settled into the opposite chair. “I’ve been thinking about that all day.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “I should take you to a medic. Or would a cleric be better?”
“I’m not crazy,” I insisted, “but I am sorry I told you. That was a lot for me to put on you. That kind of statement could only have made you feel...”
“What?”
I set the cup down. “Like your life is a sham?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t entirely nice. “I see. You think where you came from is the real place. This here...we’re not real people. We’ll disappear as soon as you go back to-to North America.” Draw’s usual collection faltered.
I flushed at my own theories being thrown back at me. But wasn’t that what Sorrel told me? This was fiction. I was here to grow in some way, help the books. When I got back home, it’d be words on a page once more.
Draw ran his fingers through his hair. “Did you hear from your Fairy Bookmother today?”
I shook my head, relieved to have something more concrete to discuss—though no less fantastical.
“I can only call upon Sorrel twice more. When I woke up in the forest, I thought someone was playing a trick on me, but when I called for Sorrel, she appeared, floating in air like a spirit.” I shook my head.
“You might not believe it, but I’m pretty savvy—”
“Oh, don’t put words into my mouth, Lady Dottie.”
“I can’t figure out how she could have done it if she wasn’t really magic.
Plus, I’m here. The world I live in doesn’t have castles or battles.
I wear khaki pants to work where I stare at numbers on a computer, and then go back to my parents’ house and read books.
” I was oversharing, so I cut to the point.
“The most alarming part is it doesn’t seem like Sorrel can decide when to send me back.
It’s just supposed to happen when I’ve..
.fixed the story and completed my purpose.
” I left out that I thought my purpose might come to fruition upon waking in Ironclaw’s bed.
“But why you? Why did she send you?”
I stared at the ash of the fireplace, willing an answer to come to mind—one that was socially acceptable, the kind of answer I’d give to Sara and Gemma at work. But no, that’s where I went wrong in the first place, wasn’t it?
“Well.” I let out a giggle that ended in a snort, then covered my nose and rushed ahead before I could talk myself out of it.
“I’m the series’s biggest fan. Or maybe I’m just the one who Sorrel thought needed this the most. I’m sure other people have read the books as often as I have, watched the TV show as obsessively.
” I saw the question on his face before he could ask it.
“TV—it’s like pictures in a story. But all the other readers probably have lives—jobs they care about, their own home, friends.
I don’t have any of that. I do all the things I’m supposed to just so I can get home and read Landsome Roads.
All my thoughts were here. The characters—the people—were vivid to me in a way my own coworkers weren’t. ”
“And life in your own world is very different than this?” I saw a flicker of interest in his olive eyes.
I settled back into the chair, a bit breathless.
“Imagine your world, but a thousand years in the future. The roads are paved, not with cobblestone, but with perfectly flat concrete. Instead of wagons and carriages, there’s cars.
They have wheels, but you don’t need a horse, and they can go ten times faster.
” I faltered. What else could I talk about that Draw would understand?
I haltingly told him about water towers and grocery stores, then moved on to cell phones and computers.
I ran through a thousand years of history, and at the end of it all, he had one thing to say.
“Huh.”
A blessed night breeze finally emerged through the windows.
Now should be his turn to stare at the ashes, thinking through the terrible position I was in, trapped in the paltry world of late capitalism.
Except he didn’t.
“I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous. What a wonderous world you live in. What could you possibly like about Landsome so much?” His dark brows were knit together, and he was looking at me with a haughty expression, as if totally appalled but trying to be polite.