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Inside, the palace is as uninspiring as it was at first glance. Grandiose chandelier, beautiful sculptures, and ancient tapestries litter the walls and the painted ceiling. The entry hall looks like the chapel of the Pillar in Five.
“You realize that’s nonsense, right?” I challenge, just to see where he stands on the matter.
Selia Aevar could take any man in single combat and win, without using any form of magik.Meanwhile, my cousin, Callan, is completely useless without his spells. A twelve-year-old could beat him.
“Yes,” he says, without hesitation, just as a handful of squalling girls dressed in silly, puffy dresses appear, bursting out of a waiting room on the right.
They descend upon Reiks like hounds of the underworld smelling blood. They squeal. They pout. They bat their extended lashes and touch him like he belongs to them.
I’m all but thrown out, pushed by the mob until I stand yards away from them, and they somehow manage to simultaneously glare at me and smother him with heated glances.
Then I understand something fundamental about Natheran Reiks.
He does understand how this world works, somehow. Maybe he learned it at Five. Maybe his traveling helped. But this place, this incredibly dull and old-fashioned castle? It attempted to make him believe that our world is stuck five, ten centuries in the past.
I’ve entered hell on Xhera.
Somehow, at a crossroad, Reiks manages to get away from the horde of petticoats. He takes my hand in his and all but flies through the corridors, glancing behind as though he expects another attack from a frantic female mob.
“What in the world wasthat?” I’m appalled.
Reiks graces me with a look. “Blythe is dead,” he reminds me. “And you haven’t been presented here yet. They might have heard rumors, which will only have made them more eager. They believe they can take her place.”
I’m speechless. How in the world could they think attacking him might convince him to make them his next fiancée? Haven’t they heard of seduction? What's wrong with candlelight, underwear, and chamber music?“That’s their plan?”
He wraps his arm around my middle and speeds up. “I never said they were smart.”
We rush to a large red door guarded by two men.At his approach, they open it. Beyond, we enter a gold and white sun-bathed hall where dozens of comely ladies and their gentlemen await, teacups in hand. They smile and nod at him.
He breathes out as the door closes behind us.And I finally start to understand why he might have been desperate for a fake lover, even one he had to coerce into being here.
Even me.
“Are we safe?” I whisper.
He nods at me, bending down so I can hear him.It’s so strange to feel short. I’ve always been the giant in the room.“For now. The women here are the mothers of those girls you saw in the hallway, or their married sisters. The flock of hens won’t dare act too brazenly in front of their respectable relations.”
I hide a chuckle with a cough.
Reiks proceeds to laying on his charm. He has a kind word for all of the ladies here, and I understand why: they’re his protectors.
“How’s your youngest, Lady Devraux?”
“Shall I call for another pot of tea, Mrs. Herst?”
“Serena, it’s been so long. I do hope your husband is well?”
I’m introduced as his friend Alis, and I can feel the curiosity choking those ladies, but they don’t dare interrogate Reiks about me.
We’re slow to make our way toward the windows, but finally, we reach an empty table surrounded by three armchairs. Reiks pulls out my seat.
“You’re not half bad at playing the crowd,” I admit.
He takes the armchair opposite mine, practically collapsing on it. “Practice,” he says. “Lots and lots of practice. The younger generation is trying to get me, and the married young ladies would stop at nothing to prevent that. If they couldn’t bag a Reiks, then no one should.”
I’m appalled and flabbergasted. “We did walk into a place somehow running several centuries out of time, yes?”
A servant appears with a tray filled with tea and biscuits so bland I could weep. Have those people never heard of butter? I feel like this poor, sad, cookie has never seen any in its existence.
