Chapter 11
Talvie
Daria is staring at me like I’ve lost my head, but I plow on with my recap. “Then! Then he calls me his fiancée. I get that it's so he can keep his kids, but it’s insane! He just expects me to pretend we're engaged?”
“Well, did you?” she asks.
“I was in shock!” My hands shake as I taste another bit of sugary icing. I’m way too on edge with one disguise. I can’t add to it. “I hate deceit. Besides, those kids…I can’t help him.”
“So you said no.”
“No! I just—” The words tangle on my tongue. “He seems like a good person. And he has a good reason. And the kids seem... good?”
“So it’s good,” she replies dryly.
“Yes.”
“Then you said yes.”
“No!”
“Val.” Daria raises an arched brow. “Are you drunk?”
“What? No, I’m just kind of…buzzing?”
“Okay, girl, that’s enough icing for you.” She plucks the bowl from my hands, and yeah, okay, maybe there are more finger swipes than icing left now. “When I said I was putting you on dishes for today, I didn’t mean for you to clean them with your tongue. You know how to wash dishes, yes?”
I stare at the stack of pots and pans beside the sink and the big machine I have no clue how to operate. But I should know. Surely regular people know. So I nod. “Sure. Of course.”
How hard could washing dishes be?
No, no, no! Why does this keep happening?
Washing dishes should be safe. You put some soap on them, add water, scrub a bit, and done. Easy peasy.
Or so I thought.
Suds tower out of the sink, cascading onto the floor in thick, frothy waves. I used only a bit of soap, like Daria said, I swear! This pixie-strengthened stuff is even stronger than she told me. It’s madness!
The bubbles are multiplying, spreading like a sentient force, creeping outward on a mission to fill the entire kitchen. This soap is taking over the world!
I have to control it.
Panicking, I grab the extendable water hose over the dish station. I’ll rinse them away before anyone sees. Wash them down the drain before they completely consume me. I can’t let Daria see me causing any more disasters.
Aiming at the worst of the towering suds, I squeeze the hand grip. Water sprays in a strong shower that knocks the top of the tower right off.
Yes!
Now I just have to rinse it all down the floor drain.
Wait…No!
Instead of disappearing, the suds climb higher. They rise from the floor like a tidal wave of frothing foam, and now water is sloshing at my feet too, sending mountains of bubbles gliding across the kitchen floor.
“Why are you growing?!” I yelp, spraying more water in a desperate attempt to contain the chaos. The more I spray, the more the suds grow. They’re over my head, blocking my way out of this corner entirely. It’s insanity.
“Val?” Sharp alarm fills Daria’s voice, hailing from somewhere beyond the pillars of foam. “What happened?”
“Nothing! Nothing! I’ve almost got it cleaned up, don’t worry!” I aim the water hose at the towering wall of bubbles, trying to carve a path.
It’s a mistake.
Suddenly, there's the unmistakable splat of water hitting skin.
Daria shrieks.
I whip the hose in the opposite direction, but now water catches the edge of the stove. Something goes up in a furious hiss, and new shouts from the cook join Daria’s sputtering yells.
In a final, desperate move, I yank the hose toward me—better to drench myself.
But no one warned me a soap-slicked tile floor is a drowning death trap!
Someone should warn people about that!
My feet betray me, each choosing its own direction, making disastrously opposite choices. I go down in an agonizing split. The sound of my trousers ripping up the middle tears through the kitchen. Cold water floods my underthings.
Just as I think things cannot possibly get worse, the poor, abused hose still clenched in my grip gives up supporting my weight. It wrenches free from the wall with an ear-splitting screech of metal.
There might be more shouts from the kitchen. I wouldn’t know. The geyser of water exploding from the wall drowns everything out.
Carrying the last of the freshly cleaned pots back inside the now suds-free kitchen, I nearly crash into Lark. He stands in front of the dish sink, surveying the damage and looking far too amused.
“So, did you pull when you should’ve twisted?” His arch smile is all dimples and trouble.
“Something like that.”
I’m sure he’s already heard the whole story. I’m sure everyone has heard the story of the hopeless new girl who flooded the inn with dishwater. Mine will be a cautionary tale retold over ale and laughter.
“Come to see my humiliation for yourself? Witness my firing?” I ask.
“Nope. Here to help.”
He lifts a hand, and for the first time, I notice the toolkit he’s holding.
After Daria got the water shut off, I peeled myself off the floor, along with my dignity and very wet, very exposed underpants.
I braced myself for Daria’s wrath. From the red in her face, I expected her to yell or even strike me.
Instead, she took one long look at my bedraggled state—my ruined trousers, my trembling lip—and simply ordered me to go change.
I considered running. Lumi convinced me to stay.
It’ll only look suspicious if you disappear now that everyone’s heard about you. Stay and help clean up. Then we’ll see where we are, shall we?
When I slunk back downstairs, I helped carry everything covered in soap outside where we sprayed them clean with the hose for the stable troughs.
I’m fairly sure Daria’s mule was mocking me.
By then, they’d shut the whole kitchen down to squeegee the rest of the water and soap out.
The tavern will serve rolls and sandwiches from the bakery down the road tonight.
Daria still hasn’t spoken to me, but she will.
And then I’ll be out on my ear.
Only guilt over the damage I caused keeps me here. Hope for anything more is pointless.
“You’re here to fix my mess?” I ask.
“Yep. Just your local friendly handyman.” He looks entirely too relaxed about the ordeal.
“You’re a handyman?”
“Right now I am. I’m whatever I need to be to earn a little more time here. Since apparently I need to ‘stay put’ for the kids.”
I exhale. “Well, maybe you can take my job when I get fired.”
A brief flash of fear crosses his eyes before he blinks it away, reminding me of his request earlier.
Maybe having me act as his fiancée means more than I realized.
But now more than ever, I can’t do that.
I’m a complete disaster. I’ve already drawn more attention to myself than is smart for a princess in hiding.
He shouldn’t want me anywhere near his family.
That was my face on that flyer.
My true face, not this one. Small mercies.
Lark gives me a lopsided smile. “I’m sure Daria won’t kick you out for one little broken pipe.
This’ll take no time to fix. I’ll have it good as new before you know it.
” He waves toward the sink, which a moment ago stood destroyed, but impossibly looks completely repaired already.
Clean tiles gleam around a brand new fixture.
“What—?” My fingers reach out to touch, feeling nothing but smooth metal.
“See, it’ll look better than ever.”
“It already does. How did you do that?”
“Ah, well, looks can be deceiving.” With a wink, he nods to the sink that is a broken mess once again.
“Illusion magic.” I’m as surprised as I am impressed. “You did that so easily. I didn’t even see the magic weaving into place, or notice its edges. I felt it too! How could I feel it?”
“I have my talents,” he jokes. “And I can actually fix this for real too, not just with a pretty illusion to cover it up. Your job is safe.”
His reassuring hand on my shoulder means more than the words, and I soak in the comfort while I can. I can’t believe it will be that easy.
Where I come from, there are no second chances. With my spectacular record of failure so far, I’m way past third, fourth, and even fifth chances.
“I appreciate the thought, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Lark regards me carefully before he speaks. “You know, you might find we Wild Ones stick together more here in the Frozen Forests than, well…where you’re from.”
He says the last part while turning toward the sink, a shiny silver tool in his hand, and I can’t tell if the note of knowing was only in my imagination. I back up to lean against the counter opposite the dishwashing station, my thoughts racing.
He can’t know. If he did, he would already have claimed the thousand-purse bounty. Anyone would, and he needs it more than most.
He just means the Sundalands, I remind myself, where I told him I’m from.
When I changed earlier, I double-checked Lumi’s reflections, worried they might have slipped in the chaos of water and soap and torn clothes. Lark is obviously talented with illusions, meaning he might spot imperfections if there are any. But everything was perfect. I still look like one of them.
No, a man with seven mouths to feed wouldn’t pass up the fortune offered on that flyer, so he doesn’t know. Any Point Fae worth their ears would claim that prize whether they needed it or not.
He’s different, isn’t he? Lumi muses, as if reading my mind.
Well, of course he’s different. I glance over, noting all the wild features about him.
The way his pale skin contrasts with his dark sleeves.
The messy ash-blond hair curled at his nape beneath the floppy points of his hat.
The tall frame that broadens from his waist up to his shoulders, stretching the limits of his tunic as he twists the broken pipe free from its joint in the wall, his forearms flexing.
I swallow.
Lumi’s words from earlier run through my mind on a loop.
No one will be looking for a Wilder girl working at an inn. Even more certainly, no one would look for a Wilder woman with a fiancée and seven orphan children.
Lark expertly fits a new piece of metal tubing with a collar around it, reaching without looking for each new tool he needs. The sheer competence is admirable. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and I can’t help wondering how he learned all this.
I know politics, fashion, court rituals, and the steps to more dances than I can name. But what do I know of the world out here? I couldn’t even do dishes without an epic flood. I don’t know the simplest tasks that these people take for granted.
As I watch him expertly fix the damage I wrought, I mull over his request.
“Lark, I’ve been thinking,” I start.
Still bent over the wide sink as he seals a metal plate into place around the replaced pipe, he turns to grin over his shoulder. “And here I thought you were just enjoying the view,” he says, wiggling his hips.
I can’t help it. A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it.
“I get it. It’s a nice view.” He stands before I can confirm or deny any such thing, his gaze shifting to beyond my shoulder. “Hi Daria. All fixed.”
“So I assumed, given the flirting going on over here,” she says.
I jump to my feet, my hands smoothing down the skirt I changed into. “I wasn’t—I mean, we weren’t—I just brought in the last of the pots and Lark was working.”
Her lips quirk. “Relax, girl.”
“I am so sorry. Again… I don’t know how to apologize for this, and I understand that you’ll want me to leave. I—I don’t know what happened.”
Lark turns around while I keep blathering on, stammering out more apologies to Daria, whose expression is unreadable.
“Found your culprit,” Lark says, cutting off my endless word vomit and holding out the soap bottle. Only it looks slightly different now. “The cap is cracked. You probably didn’t notice there was a bunch more soap coming out the side.”
My jaw hangs open. Did he just—? Why would he help me? I never even had a chance to tell him I was considering saying yes to the fake engagement if he would teach me some skills, but he’s helping me anyway. For free. Who does that?
Daria takes the bottle and inspects the broken cap. I remember the way I felt smooth metal in his illusion earlier.
“That would explain it.” She gives Lark another unreadable look before turning to me. “What did I say, girl?”
“Um, to use only a little soap. But I swear—I tried…”
Her free hand comes to my shoulder. “I said to relax. Take a breath, Val. You look like you’re going to pass out. Did you get hurt? You took an impressive tumble to rip your trousers enough that you were flashing us all.”
“M’fine,” I mumble, the heat in my cheeks saying otherwise.
Lark chuckles. “It sounds like I missed a good show.”