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“Exactly,” she replied, apparently oblivious to my sarcasm. “People will already be expecting the worst. You leave everything to me and it will be a brilliant affair. It will be the richest, fanciest, most glamorous wedding Faerie has ever seen! This is an awful lot of stairs. Don’t tell me your chambers are at the very top.”
“Of the tallest tower,” I couldn’t resist capping the question. “You don’t seem to be lacking for breath, however.”
“Ha-ha. You deserve better than this, Gwynn. Really. It’s not done. Prisoners are kept at the tops of the tallest towers, not—oh great Titania!?”
We’d emerged into the crystal dome, ablaze with the lowering sun, so ripples of gold fire and rosy pink shimmered through the transparent walls. Down below, a pair of moat monsters played, their scales glittering as they arced up out of the river and splashed down again. A vase of virulently blue Stargazer lilies sat on my workbench, along with a pitcher of wine and a tray of cheese and bread. The man never missed a beat. I gazed at the wine with longing, realizing that I shouldn’t be drinking it. Though I had been, not thinking I could be pregnant before recently. Recalling the fetal alcohol syndrome studies, I knew a glass or so a day would be well below the titres. I’d just have to limit it. Alas.
“What in the world is this?” Starling spun in a slow circle and breathed the question in a tone of reverent awe.
“This, my friend—” I grabbed a chunk of cheese and poured us both wine, half a glass for me. “—is true love.”
Chapter 11
The Pattern, the Bath and the Wardrobe
‡
I’ve noted before that the facial patterns on some fae seem to be a barometer of the animal within. Further observations indicate the phenomenon goes deeper than that. Rather than a symptom or side effect, the pattern might be the diseaseitself.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “The Black Dog/WhiteCat”
Okay, maybe alittle overly dramatic, but one good thing about Faerie was that I could get away with the occasional grandiose statement.
Besides, no one had ever gone to this much trouble to see me happy. Rogue deserved at least that much credit. Starling surveyed the room more critically. “I see. Well, it’s certainly unusual—we can play up that angle for the glamour. And it’s veryyou, isn’t it?”
Yes. It really was.
“I don’t see a tub. Where have you been bathing?”
I swallowed an overly large bite of cheese—it felt like I’d never be full again—and contemplated how to answer that. Probably the bathing chamber was secret, what with the hidden magic elevator and “Don’t speak it outside these walls” thing. Also we needed a mirror, particularly if I was going to supervise whatever diabolical hairstyle Starling had planned for me.
“Oh! I see, through here,” Starling called out, saving me the trouble. She’d found another recessed door and I dutifully followed her down a flight of stairs. The bathing and dressing chamber filled the entire floor beneath the bedchamber, with floor-to-ceiling windows all around. Nice that I wouldn’t miss the spectacular sunset underway. A large mirrored central pillar boasted an elaborate vanity table on one side and a walk-in closet on the other.
Starling had already disappeared inside the closet, making all sorts of happy sounds. “This, at least, is as it should be,” her muffled voice pronounced.
“Good God.” I halted in my tracks. It looked like the interior of a high-end boutique. Racks of clothes in every color imaginable lined the walls, and several black-velvet benches perched in strategic locations, in case I wanted to sit and contemplate my wardrobe. “Isn’t part of the point of being able to magic things up that we don’t need to have all kinds of stuff lying about?”
“No,” Starling answered in prim disapproval. “You have rank to uphold. It’s expected.”
That word again. “I’ve never been all that comfortable with people having expectations of me.”
“Then get used to it,” she advised. “General Falcon has nothing on some of these society dames, believe me. They’ll spot one of your magicked-up gowns in a second and gossip about it no end. There are reasons I’ve tried to get you to be more careful of your real clothes.”
“They might not be able to.” I regretted leaving the cheese tray upstairs. “I bet I could spell a gown to be indistinguishable from any of these.”
“Sure and you could. If you actually paid attention to them and made the effort. But you don’t care enough.”
She had a point. And smiled when I didn’t argue it.
“All right then, I’ll call to have the tub filled and—”
“I’ll do it.” I stopped her. “My magic may be too blue-collar for high society, but I can do hot water.” More, I didn’t care to encounter those weird drudgelike creatures who had performed manual labor such as carrying buckets of water on my last visit. More of Rogue’s mind-control, enslavement techniques that gave me the heebie-jeebies.
“Which gown do you—”
“You choose.” I started to get the wine and cheese, then remembered my new trick and summoned them to a little table next to the tub. Made of a pearly substance reminiscent of the deep interior of a conch shell, the tub looked big enough for two. A man for detail, my Rogue. Speaking of details—“But nothing too froufrou!” I called to Starling, then smiled to myself at her irritated reply.
I had missed her and definitely needed her for the apparent minefield to come.
