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CHAPTER 5
In the morning, I wokeup ready to demand that Draven tell me why he had murdered his own brother, but when I sat up in the bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I realized I wouldn’t be getting answers to my questions anytime soon.
Draven was already gone.
It felt as though we had passed some bizarre sort of test.
We had slept in the same bed and... I hadn’t killed him. Yet.
And thank the Three, we hadn’t touched. I had stayed far over on my side and he on his.
That was a good thing. Wasn’t it? So why did I feel strangely bereft by his absence?
Probably because he was the only person I knew in this foreign land, I reminded myself. One could grow used to anything. Even one’s own abductor. Stranger things had happened.
Yet now all my former fury was returning. He had left me again. Gone out to do important things and left me to stew here with books and...
And a bathtub.
A very large bathtub.
I hopped out of the bed and practically ran to the bathing chamber where I turned on the taps. Lifting some of the small bottles on the table to my nose, I selected a perfumed oil that smelled of rose, sandalwood, and pine and dumped it in, trying not to think about why I had chosen that particular fragrance.
The air filled with steam and soon I was stepping naked into the deep marble tub. My eyes almost rolled back in my head with pleasure as the hot water covered my skin and relaxed my sore muscles.
After scrubbing myself and washing my hair with a slippery herbal substance that left it smelling wonderful and relatively tangle-free, I emerged from the tub and wrapped myself in a large fluffy towel then walked back to my room.
As I entered, I stopped cold.
Someone was already in there. A woman was bent over the bed, making it up. I wondered if she had already sniffed it while I’d been in the bathing chamber.
She must have been one of the servants Draven had mentioned.
“Good morning.” There was a coolness to my voice. After all, she had not even asked my permission to enter. “May I help you?”
“Name is Breena. Been attending the prince and his household since he was a boy,” the woman announced, without turning her back. “I’ve taken care of ladies, too. The finest in the court. Nothing you have that I haven’t seen already. Laid out some clothes for you on the bench over there.”
I opened my mouth to say I had already found clothes in the wardrobe, then glanced over at the bench she had indicated.
A row of new outfits lay spread out. Each one was prettier than the next.
I closed my mouth. “Thank you. They look very nice.”
I watched her finish tidying the bed and was about to ask how long she planned to be in the bedroom.
“You can take an outfit into the sitting room and wait for me there. I won’t be long.”
“Wait for you?” I asked, perplexed.
“I’ll do your hair, of course.” Only then did she glance back at me. Breena was a petite, plump woman with rosy cheeks and delicate, furry ears. Over a dress that reminded me of the uniforms that servants wore back in the Rose Court, she wore a crisp white apron adorned with green and gold embroidery. She reminded me of an industrious mouse.
A clever, nimble mouse who may or may not be “trustworthy,” I reminded myself.
Breena bit her lip. “So it’s true. A Valtain fae girl.” She shook her head. “Well, at least you’re a girl.”
I frowned. “I’m half-human, actually. Would you have minded a boy? Is there a rule against that sort of thing here?” I thought of Galahad and then I couldn’t help but think of Lancelet.
