Chapter 9
I’ve done many foolish things in the year since I’ve come to Harvard. But no situation—not the late-night spying sessions, nor the frantic searches through every illicit book in Widener—is as dangerous as the one I’m putting myself into tonight.
I stand in the corner of my bedroom and gnaw on my bottom lip as I peer into the open bottom drawer of my wooden dresser. I have exactly one dress. Mom tried to send me to school with more, but I shook her off.
“I’m not going to Harvard to attend parties, Mom,” I’d said. “I’m going to study.”
“But it’s college,” she’d argued. “You’re supposed to party.”
“And you’re my mother. Shouldn’t you be happy my goal isn’t to spend every weekend getting roofied at some frat?”
She’d sighed, rubbing both eyebrows in that way she always did when I was being purposely infuriating. “I’m not trying to get you roofied, Quinn. I just worry about you. You’ve spent all of high school curled up with your books. Don’t you think you deserve a break?”
I laid a hand on my heart, gasping in feigned offense. “Are you… are you calling me a loser?”
“Of course not.”
“It’s okay, Mother Dearest.” I pushed the dresses back into her arms. “Just remember: denial is the first step on the path to acceptance.”
Now, staring down at the limp, wrinkled dress stuffed into the back corner of the bottom drawer, I have to admit: Mom was right. I should have brought more than one.
“Cara?” I yell at the open door across the common room.
“What?” she calls back.
“I need your help.”
“Can it wait? I’m planting naked photos of Angela Merkel in Bernie Sanders’s personal server.”
“As important as that sounds.” I step over the nest of clothes on the floor and stride across the common room. “This is even more important.”
She pouts over her screen. “But I think the two of them would be cute together.”
“Let’s not start any world wars this week, hm? Listen.” I glance over at her perfectly-organized closet. “Do you have any dresses?”
“Ahh.” She pushes back her desk chair and stands, shooting me a knowing glance. “Speaking of royalty. Tonight’s the night, huh?”
“Tonight’s the night. And I have nothing to wear.”
“Well, then. You’ve come to the right place, darling.” She sweeps over to the closet and pushes the door farther back. “Behold! The hidden stash.”
In the back left corner of Cara’s closet, obscured by a row of long-sleeved flannels and black leggings, hangs a department store’s worth of chiffon, lace, silk, and sparkles.
Hidden stash indeed.
I wander slowly over, running a hand along the fabrics.
I know I’m technically dressing for a date right now, but I’m not worried about falling for Daerios. First off, there’s the matter of me detesting the entire elvish population. Of my mission to dig up their most closely-guarded secret. But beyond that, there’s this one simple fact:
By now, I’m utterly convinced that, romantically speaking, I am dead inside.
Before Dad and Michael, I caught crushes like the common cold.
There was Tommy from the back of the school bus, Phillip with the paint smeared across his nose, Matthew who ran faster than anyone on the playground.
They changed with the seasons, emerging and brightening and withering as the leaves did.
Then Dad died and Michael vanished, and with them went any attraction I felt toward men. Boys passed me in the hallway, tousle-haired and sculpted with the muscled hands of adolescence. I viewed them with distant interest, the way one might look at an intriguing portrait.
I cannot have sex. Every time I try—which, admittedly, isn’t often and is typically fueled by alcohol—I fail.
A boy reaches down to touch me, and I’m afraid that I’m going to be completely dry, and then I am, and I feel bad about it, thinking I’ve offended the boy with whom I’m attempting to sleep, and I want to yell, It’s not you, it’s me!
Because it is me. It’s my dry, broken, busted body.
So, I feel perfectly safe as I run my fingers over the fabric of the beautiful dresses in Cara’s closet, imagining which one I will wear, because I know I cannot develop feelings for the man who will see me in it. I cannot develop feelings for anyone.
“What the hell,” I say, tugging out a silver scoop-neck cocktail dress that sparkles in the setting sun, “are you doing with these?”
Cara shrugs. “I’m a woman of many interests.”
“Clearly.” I flick through all of the options. “When do you even wear these? During lecture in the Science Center?”
She snorts. “No. I save them for section. Give the TAs something to look at, you know?” She picks up her coffee—her second cup since 4 p.m., not that I’m counting—and shrugs again. “Nah. I just like to keep them around in case something interesting ever happens.”
“Interesting,” I repeat.
“Right.” She takes a sip and grins. “Like my roommate getting invited to a final club ball by an elvish prince.”
I tug the silver dress from its hanger and toss it at my roommate’s face. She laughs, batting the fabric away.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s find the one.”
I wait for Daerios down in Quincy Courtyard, unwilling to let him come up and see the disaster of my dorm room. It feels too intimate. Not to mention humiliating, when the prince probably uses magic to keep his own room consistently spotless.
Plus, if I’m to use Daerios for information and, ultimately, betray his entire species, the less personal our relationship feels, the better.
After cycling through nearly every dress in Cara’s closet, we settled not on a dress, but a set: a high-waisted black chiffon skirt with a long-sleeved lace crop top.
The bodice is opaque, the sleeves mostly see-through, with black lace floral patterns snaking down my arms in loops and swirls.
The neckline plunges down in a deep, ridged V, and opens wide in the back.
A sliver of my stomach shows between the skirt and top.
All in all, a distinctly un-elven outfit.
“It’s a ball,” Cara had insisted. “You want to stand out.”
“I’m going to be the only human in a room full of otherworldly, god-like creatures. I’m going to stand out regardless.”
“Well.” She zipped up the side of the skirt. “If you’re already going to make a splash, then let’s soak them clean to their undergarments, right?”
I shook my head. “Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?”
Cara just winked.
Now, I fiddle with the neck of my shirt, trying to calculate the probability of one of my nipples falling out during the evening. The number I land on is disturbingly high.
“Well,” says a deep voice from within the Stone Hall tunnel, “if it isn’t my—”
I turn to face Daerios as he steps out of the shadows of the tunnel and into the lamplight, and the sentence seems to die in his throat.
His eyes widen as he takes in my outfit.
They travel down my plunging neckline, pausing at my belly, at the breath of skin exposed to the night air.
They roam the swishing fabric of the skirt.
Then, slowly, they drag back up to my face.
I blink awkwardly, hyper-aware of the thick black liner that Cara penciled around my eyes, the mascara weighing on my lashes. The garnet-red lipstick.
Why, oh why, did I let my roommate dress me? I look nothing like an elf.
But then again, I realize, as Daerios’s lips part ever so slightly—speech dangling, lost in the space between us—neither does he.
Daerios isn’t wearing typical elvish formal wear.
I would know. In my years spent obsessing over the elves, I found blogs dedicated to almost every aspect of their culture, including fashion.
The blogs laid out the different aspects of elvish formal wear in detail, including paparazzi shots of elves captured during their limited public appearances during special occasions—such as the king’s annual address.
In general, it seems, the elves shed their standard, no-nonsense tunics and cloaks on special occasions, in favor of long, ornately embroidered vests with leather belts and cream-colored undershirts.
They often add a hooded cloak, made of rich fabric in the color of their species—teal for Water Elves, green for Wood Elves, imperial grey for High Elves, and so on.
The cloaks usually have hand-carved wood buttons on the lapels and elaborate nature-heavy designs stitched into the hem with gold or silver thread.
I was prepared to see Daerios in an outfit like that. It would be a bit painful, I knew, because he was already so handsome in his everyday clothing that I couldn’t imagine how much better he would look in formal wear. But I was prepared.
What I wasn’t prepared for was a tuxedo.
A very nice tuxedo. One with silk lapels, a black pocket square, a black bow tie, and silver cufflinks. One that fits his body so well it looks like it was tailor-made for him. Because, let’s be honest, it probably was.
My brain short-circuits. Rational thought flees my mind. The only words I can seem to conjure are the same six, playing in my head on an unhelpful loop.
Daerios Ariar is wearing a tuxedo.
I’ve never really seen Daerios’s body before. Elvish cloaks are elegant, sure, but they do nothing to reveal the figure of the person wearing them. They hang loosely from the shoulders, draping all the way to the floor.
A well-fitted suit, on the other hand…
Daerios has broad shoulders. Not too broad—elves are generally lithe and graceful, and the prince is no different.
But there’s a distinct strength to his upper torso, made obvious by the fabric hugging it so well, emphasizing the way it tapers inward to a slimmer waist. And he’s tall.
God, he’s tall. His legs are impossibly long.
Tonight they end in a pair of shiny black loafers, not boots.
My eyes drag slowly back up to his face. He’s freshly-shaven, his jaw clean and sharp under the courtyard lamplight. From top to bottom, he looks like James fucking Bond.
Neither of us say a word. He stares at me. I stare at him. The stunned silence between us seems to thicken. To fill with something strange and unnamable. I’m suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.
Daerios takes a step forward. When he speaks, his voice is gravelly. “You look…”
“We should go,” I say quickly, cutting him off. I don’t want to hear what he was about to say. I need to keep as much emotional distance between the two of us as possible, which will only be made that much more difficult by pretty words or compliments. “We don’t want to be late.”
The prince’s face shutters. He withdraws a step, one fist squeezing open and shut at his side. A muscle ticks in his jaw, and then he nods. “Of course. Follow me.”
He turns, disappearing into the tunnel.
I take a deep, steadying breath, allowing myself a few seconds to slow my racing heart before I follow.