Chapter 23
Alittle past noon, stone cottages pop up with a canopy of trees still shading the road from high above. A man watches us as he adjusts his horse’s saddle. Two children squeal, chasing one another and crossing the path a hundred yards ahead of us. Chickens peck at feed in the grass. They ignore the five strangers walking past them.
We cross over a bridge with a babbling brook beneath it, leading into a town made completely of stone. Small cottages and two-story buildings make up Tenny Rocks. A wooden sign creaks on a storefront, hanging by a nail and squeaking every time the breeze blows. Unlike the man with his horse, the people in the town don’t appear bothered by us, going about their everyday lives.
Grayson leads us to a building with a sign reading “Tenny Rocks Inn.” Light blue shutters line each window, giving it a homey feel. A fenced-in courtyard stands to the right where customers sit at tables talking, eating, and drinking. Fiddle music drifts from somewhere behind the structure, playing a familiar tune I heard once-upon-a-lifetime ago.
I follow Bastian into the inn, grateful to interact with humans who aren’t Avrenians or my family. Their life in the wilderness reminds me more of the way I grew up: each person has an assigned task and carries it out so the society can continue.
“Say nothing about where we’re going,” Bastian says so quietly, I almost don’t hear him, before greeting the innkeeper. “Good afternoon, Katiana.”
She scowls at him, empties the bag of credits Grayson sets on the counter, and pushes one at a time to the side with her finger as she counts. Katiana is a woman almost as large as Bastian. She wears a white apron over her flowered dress, her dark hair tied back beneath a kerchief, and sports a bit of a mustache on her upper lip. I never want to meet her alone in a narrow alley.
Without looking up, she scoops the credits into the bag and mutters, “I should take this money and throw you out on your ass, Bastian Hale.” She draws phlegm up her throat and spits it onto the floor by his feet.
“You stupid wench.” Bastian draws a dagger and dives at the counter. “These are new boots.”
Grayson and Evie pull him back as Levi plucks the dagger out of his hand.
“You know how he is, Kat.” Grayson shoves Bastian’s arm to the side. “All brawn and no brain. Pay no mind to him. We’d like your penthouse suite.” He leans over the counter and pecks the monster of a woman on the cheek, then puckers his lips in an irresistible pout.
Cheeks flushed, Katiana fumbles for an iron key on the wall, unable to resist Grayson’s charms. “One of you will have to sleep on the floor. Two beds are all I’ve got.”
“You’re a gem.” Grayson pats her on the cheek after taking the key from her. “Remind me to save you a dance at the River Walk tonight.”
The unhealthy shade of red continues to flame over the innkeeper’s cheeks. She places the bag of credits below the counter. “You’re… you’re going to be there?”
Evie shakes her head, turns, and climbs the stairs.
“Wouldn’t miss it, darling.” Grayson gives her one last look at his pearly whites before following his girlfriend upstairs.
The penthouse suite is quite cramped for three grown men and two women. Besides the beds, there’s a rocking chair, a small cabinet with a washbasin, two bedside tables, and a tiny window letting in a sliver of light.
Levi strikes a match from his pack to light an oil lamp. “I can take the bed on the floor.” He kneels to unroll a thin mattress resting against the wall. A cloud of dust lifts from the ancient material as he beats his hand against it.
“Nonsense.” Bastian throws his cloak onto the chair, setting it rocking. “You and Mari are used to sharing a room. Just think of it as scooting your mattresses together.”
In his drunken stupor a few nights before, he’d proclaimed his feelings for me to the others, but now he’s acting like it’s a big secret. I’ll never understand the male species.
“If we hang around here too long, I’ll fall into a serious depression.” Grayson unfolds a piece of paper from his pocket. “I snatched this on the way in.”
It’s too dark in the room for me to read what he’s holding up.
“You’re not seriously thinking about going to a dance?” Evie wrinkles her nose, falls onto her bed, and spreads out her arms. “We’ve got to stay here and talk strategy.”
“That’s what tomorrow’s for.” Grayson walks over to a broken mirror on the wall and combs his fingers through his hair. “Tonight, we have fun.”
As a teenager in Avren, I’d attend Council-sponsored dances. Chaperones measured the distance between dancers with a bejeweled stick. Rumors flew about how Lady Raven spied on us to determine matches. I always saw it as a chance to show off my latest creation. At the last dance I attended, I wore a deep-blue satin dress, cinched at the waist with a skirt that flowed to the floor. Black lace accented the skirt and the top of the bodice. My dance card was full, mostly with Flynn. There was no doubt in my mind that the Council would match such a handsome couple.
Until one became an orphan before her eighteenth birthday.
“It might give us a chance to blow off some steam.” Bastian lounges on the rolled-out mattress, propped up on his elbows with his ankles crossed.
From her place on the mattress, Evie raises a hand, then drops it to her thigh as she considers Bastian through narrowed eyes. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Levi sits down on our bed, drawing his lip between his teeth before signing, “The people of Tenny Rocks always throw the best parties.”
Evie scowls, sits up, and goes to the door. “And the three of you always gang up on me. Come on, Mari.”
Without a word, I look at the men, each nodding their approval as I follow Evie out the door.
She’s already at the bottom of the stairs, removing a small pouch from her cloak. It’s beaded with the image of a single red rose. “I should have enough credits saved up from my job to do this whole dance thing properly.”
I look up the stairs and back at Evie. “But I thought…”
“That we were going to take a walk and talk shit about the boys?” She shoves her pouch back into her pocket and tosses her hair over her shoulder. “We can still do that, but you’re also going to need a dress for tonight.”
The relationship between Evie and Grayson is stranger than mine with Bastian. I follow her out the front door of the inn, taking two steps to each of her long strides. She’s a woman on a mission.
There’s an excitement in the air that’s palpable as we walk to the dress shop. The River Walk must be a big deal around here. Men and women intermingle in the streets, talking and flirting. Joyful music weaves throughout the square as workers hang brightly colored decorations above. It is nothing like the stiff-backed, high-collared, classical dances in Avren.
We enter a shop bursting at the seams with women. Colorful dresses line the aisles, where patrons of every shape and size hold them up for their friends to appraise. The claustrophobic atmosphere, along with the vast array of merchandise, makes me dizzy. It’s so different from spending months selecting material, designing, and creating my own dress.
Evie rifles through a rack of dresses, occasionally pulling one out and scrunching her nose at it. When she holds a shorter cream-colored dress with no sleeves up, a slow smile crosses her lips. “Bastian will love it.” She fingers the loose brown belt and turns the dress around. The material hangs so low, there might as well be no back to it at all. “It has the whole ‘elven warrior’ vibe.”
My eyes widen. “That’s for me?”
“Who else is dressing to impress Bastian?” She rolls her eyes in typical Evie fashion. “If we can find boots to match…” Her eyes dart to the shoe portion of the shop.
“What are you going to wear?” I push the dresses to the side to look at a lovely deep-green, full-length velvet dress, perfect for her. “What do you think of this one?”
“Really, Mari?” She checks the price tag on the cream dress. “We’ll have to go to another store to find the boots.”
“Aren’t you going to get a dress?” I tug on her sleeve, slightly put out that our bonding time has turned into a setup. “There’s a lot of dresses here that will look great on you.”
Giving a curt smile to the woman at the counter, Evie lays my dress down. “I don’t do dresses. Gray knows this.”
My skin flushes with a rush of heat. At the dance, I won’t be the only woman in a dress, but I will be the only one among the Kindred Few—a dress that reveals almost my entire back down to my bottom. The thought of being the center of attention for Bastian, Levi, and even Grayson is mortifying.
I remain silent as we walk through the streets of Tenny Rocks, looking for a shoe shop. Evie stops to ask for directions from the owner of a bookstore. Then we’re on our way again, taking a stone staircase down to the riverfront.
A wooden platform spans the water. Workers hang similar decorations to the ones in the square above the dance floor, attaching them to trees on either side of the river. Unlit torches line the banks, ready to add a romantic ambience to the festive event.
“She said the shoe store is to the right about a block.” Evie doesn’t look twice at the River Walk setup, but I can’t look away. It’s so different from Avren’s stuffy events and stirs something deep inside of me.
Not wanting to be left behind, I jog to catch up to Evie but chance an occasional glance behind me. “Do you think Bastian really wants to go to a dance with me?”
Evie continues to read the swinging wooden signs as we pass them. “I think Bastian would go to high tea with the wood nymphs if he knew you’d be there.”
My stomach twists in knots, knowing the others see his fascination with me. But it’s not real. Once we break the magnetic attraction, we’ll have nothing left.
Inside the shoe shop, Evie finds a pair of thigh-high brown leather boots and makes me try them on. They’re like nothing I’ve ever worn before. In the city, I wore comfortable flats and, in the wilderness, combat-style boots. The material hugs my legs dangerously, and suddenly I’m determined to make Bastian feel things beyond our unnatural connection.
After Evie purchases the boots, she places them in the bag with my dress.
“You’re really going to wear that to the dance?” I rake my eyes down Evie’s fighting gear. “From the way women were snatching up dresses in the shop, you’re going to stand out.”
“Precisely.” She taps the end of my nose with her finger. “Why dress like everyone else?”
“To impress Grayson?” Even I can see how other women look at Evie’s boyfriend.
She gathers the bag under her arm, turning up her nose. “I don’t need a dress to impress Gray. He loves me this way.” She exits the shop, looking both ways down the river. “He has to, or I’m walking.”
“Then why are you making me wear a dress?” I follow her to the right along the river, where people in boats use long sticks to hang strings of decorations in the trees.
“Because you’re a woman from the city. You live for this type of thing. Bastian knows this. He’d rather storm the First City than go to a dance, so enjoy him while he’s soft.” She twists her lips. “Never seen him this way before.”
“But shouldn’t we strategize for tomorrow?” The thought of facing King Cirrus sets my heart racing almost as much as the thought of standing in front of Bastian in the dress Evie bought.
“The less you know, the better. That way, he can’t torture it out of you.” She adjusts the bag under her arm as we turn a corner to climb the stone stairs. “Besides, the more relaxed you are, the more likely he is to believe your story.”
“And what is my story?” Why would I walk up to the Unseelie Court’s front door and request an audience with the person who tried to kidnap me? I scratch my head. Cirrus will see it for what it is—a distraction.
“Levi wants to mend things with the fae. Although a product of the sin, he had nothing to do with his mother’s betrayal of her kind with his father. As a token of goodwill, he’s offering you, the savior, on a silver platter.” She rounds a corner into the busy town square.
“And if he doesn’t buy it?” I watch a man on a ladder hang flowering vines from the ropes crisscrossing the square.
“He will.” Her confidence is infectious but still bewildering to me. “Levi’s a very good actor.”
We enter the inn, and Evie hands me the bag. “Go get dressed. I’ll be up in a bit to help you with your hair.” She walks away and joins a man at the bar drinking a beer.