Chapter Eleven
That evening, the muggy air coats my clammy skin. I scratch at my hairline, then lift my waves to cool my neck.
“Will you stop fidgeting?” Kassandra hisses ahead, never looking back at me. Her dusty-rose gown cuts into a V down her back and flutters away from her waist.
“Apologies,” I mutter. We stroll in the cloisters surrounding the Illusion courtyards, the evening light dipping every leaf and stem in scarlet.
To our left, the hedge heights rise and fall like rolling hills.
Even now, I still have yet to grasp the shape of the Illusion grounds, a winding labyrinth that twists on precarious whims. Only from the movements of the sun that stream through her windows have I been able to gather that Kassandra’s apartments occupy the southern wall, her parents’ apartments on the eastern side, above us at this moment.
I barely spoke a word to Kassandra when I appeared for service early in the evening.
I could hardly look at her without thinking of Jae, of him catching her in his arms after she formed the diamond dagger.
That she and the king’s executioner were the last to touch him.
Stemming the grief and rage and hatred in order to function felt like choking down more faerie food.
If Kassandra hadn’t saddled him with more debt, I never would have become her Night Crest. Wouldn’t have suggested the scheme in the first place. If she had just stopped at the water foal, the plan would have gone perfectly.
Yes, Jeremee’s death is my fault. It is also hers.
Dread grips me now at where we are headed. An invitation to Kassandra from the king had popped into the air early into my shift, asking her to accompany him tonight for a stroll through the Illusion courtyards.
To distract myself, I ask, “How did the king make that note appear?”
“Ah, finally decided to talk to me tonight?” Kassandra says, and I feel a flash of loathing.
“The note was laced,” she explains. “Moved through the plane like Hector did with the crown box at the coronation.” I try to ignore the rise of memories.
Kassandra goes on. “There’s an old fae nursery rhyme, ‘Houses and Mouses,’ to help children remember the abilities of each House in addition to root magic.
‘Matter and Mind / Blood and Bone / The Many Senses / The Severed Soul / Live one / Wed another’—” She stops.
“You get the point. ‘The Many Senses’ refers to Illusion’s ability to manipulate the senses into perceiving what isn’t there.
‘Blood and Bone’ is Healing’s power to stimulate blood flow and mend bones. ‘Severed Soul’ is Death.”
“And ‘Matter and Mind’ is Reign,” I say.
“What does control look like, exactly? Is it the rock that directs where a river flows? Or is it the river that erodes the rock over time, carving its path? Control takes many forms, and Reign decided to name itself. Matter and Mind.”
“And lacing is the control of matter?” I ask.
“It’s Reign magic that works in tandem with the plane.
The king broke down the very matter of the parchment so he could weave its essence into the plane on the smallest level.
He can then zip the letter through the plane to a desired location and separate out its essence into earthly matter once more.
Hector laced the box and crown from a safe location to his hands last week. ”
“He remade it,” I say.
“More like re-formed it. The Vandornes seem to be the only fae who can do it.”
I bite my lip. “Could you use the plane to lace an Illusion to someone? Not a physical letter but perhaps the appearance of one? Or an auditory message like what…when Lord…”
What the fuck have you done? her brother had seethed right before he did the unthinkable.
Kassandra quirks a brow. “Since when do you think before you speak?”
“Since there is much to think about.”
We fall silent, passing an Illusion guard in silver armor, a bow slung over his shoulder.
The arched cloister meets another, and based on the setting sun, we’ve reached the northern side.
The temperature drops in the shade. Halfway down the corridor, Kassandra stops in front of a break in the stone, an entryway that leads into a hedge.
She strides forward, the air wavering, and melts into the plant.
A mirage. Great.
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to discern the edges of the Illusion, lest I scratch an eye on a real branch.
The plant in front of me smells fresh, earthy.
It appears detailed. Yet when the wind blows, a cluster of leaves remains stagnant while the surrounding ones tremble.
It’s a small, discreet opening. I reach forward, and my hand disappears behind a curtain of cool haze.
I step through the Illusion. Twinkling lights greet me, small glowing orbs that float through a courtyard. Rosebushes encompass the space, complete with stone benches and an empty birdbath in its center, the pedestal dripping with vines.
Kassandra perches on a bench, eyes closed, the fading sunset drenching her in tangerine, her silver hair licked by fire. A second-story stone balcony peeks above the enclosed hedges.
“My lady,” I start. “If you’d like some more privacy, we could choose another courtyard?”
“This is perfect.”
My boots crunch over gravel, finding a shaded spot in the corner. The courtyard cools in the elongating shadows. Still, a bird chirps, and the plane hums a lovely, low presence. Fresh air expands my lungs.
Jae would have loved this place.
My genius twitches to life. I haven’t felt it in days, too weighed down by grief.
Go away, I tell it, anger rising at the memory of helpless scratching. You’re useless.
The genius spasms. As if I am the one who failed it and not the other way around. As faeries, we’re told that this part of us is simply another tool, like hands for scrubbing and legs for bowing. Yet sometimes, mine acts as a separate entity inside me, with its own needs and wants.
Go. Away.
“Are you arguing with the ants?”
I snap back to the dusky courtyard. My mistress still lounges on the stone bench, not looking my way.
She waves a hand. “Your ire is like peppercorn under the nose.”
“How? How can you sense my emotions?”
Kassandra tenses. I suck in a breath, shocked at my own bluntness. But shock soon fades to apathy. I have spoken out of turn; I will be punished.
Instead, my mistress tilts her head. “Do you remember when I picked you? When all the faeries lined up, the parlor stank. I couldn’t figure it out because the smell was being picked up by my genius first, not my nose.
It was a magical marker of some kind. I had never sensed such a thing before. It was…fascinating.”
That day, every breath had been torture, so heavily I missed my mother, who had passed only weeks before. I hated being in that gilded room, watching Kassandra survey our lineup, a Healer tending blisters from her shoes. Not when my mother refused a Healer despite my begging.
I will not put you in such debt, she had rasped toward the end.
Even when I brought one anyway, she tried to bite off the Healer’s finger.
Debt or death. She had been determined to die without treatment to spare me a century of repayment.
So as Kassandra stomped around her parlor that day with bandages for a blister, the other Scarps had trembled with fear, but I trembled with hate.
With fury. For we already cannot afford to live, and still, they ensure that we cannot afford to fucking die.
“There you are,” Kassandra says now. “Stinking of that feeling again.”
“Is this a facet of Illusion magic?” I manage through clenched teeth. “To sense the emotions of others?”
“No.” She shakes her head, and I fall quiet. “You have another question,” she states.
Her permission takes me by surprise. “Faeries understand that most High Fae can smell fear because sometimes…well, sometimes, we can smell our own. If it’s strong enough.”
“Metallic and sharp, like blood.” My mistress smooths out her skirt, her face hidden behind curls I styled. “Yours is the only full spectrum of emotions I’ve been able to perceive.”
The silence that follows is deep and unsettled.
Finally, I ask, “Is this why you picked me, my lady?”
“I picked the rot in you,” she says. “I picked you, for I do not like feeling as if it only exists in me.”
Silence again. We have crossed so many lines in this conversation, I do not know where we stand anymore.
“What is the rot in you, my lady?”
My mistress does not move, as if to do so would break the spell. She breathes and says so quietly I almost miss it, “That I look at other females.”
The words slice through the swamp of grief I’ve been drowning in. So we are both rotten in more ways than one. A faerie servant who can’t manage her pride and the Heart of Illusion who cannot beat for High Fae lords.
She has trusted me with a dangerous secret.
One that, if revealed in the wrong light, could get us both punished.
It’s harmless, cute even, when adolescents are simply practicing with one another for their husbands one day.
It’s fine when males are allowed to leer, to cheer on and grope afterward.
Yet a lady married to another does not create an heir, does not continue a legacy of wealth.
A female faerie married to another does not produce a worker.
A debt system only works if the owed and the owned both multiply.
I would not out another, even a High Fae. To do so is to risk their life. But Kassandra is about to meet the king for an evening tryst and tonight I am feeling curious and reckless.
Cocking my head, I ask my mistress: “Is that all?”
“What do you mean, is that all? It’s illegal!” She looks over her shoulder, profile rimmed in red light.
“It’s illegal to touch another female,” I say. “The law says nothing about looking.”
Her throat bobs. “Have you…do you look, too?”