“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Starling said more loudly, at the same moment, then sent me a firm look.
Athena burst out laughing and pointed her dagger at me. “You are so in for it, Gwynn. Can I be the flower girl?”
“Absolutely. If I can dress you in cotton-candy-pink ruffles.”
She snorted at that, very much the same sound of derision I made when amused. “You’ll note that I did not ask if I could stay, because I plan to stick around. Plus I’ve never seen the famous Castle of the Dark Gods. Darling Hercules, care to give me the tour?”
The cat, with a fondness for the fairy girl he showed few others, waved his tail and they wandered off.
“She’s gotten an enormous attitude,” Starling complained. “You really need to take her in hand.”
“Athena is fine.” In truth, I felt more than a little guilt for the spell I’d worked on her. She was like the small-town girl who’d gone off for an Ivy League education and now had no one to talk to at home. I couldn’t imagine where she’d go, if she didn’t stay with us. Besides, I liked her. “She’s just figuring out who she is. Come on, I’ll show you our bedchamber.” At least, I thought I could find it again.
Maybe I should have gone on the tour with Athena and Darling Hercules.
“That’s not appropriate. It’s her place to be told who she is—and yours to tell her.”
I looked sidelong at Starling. “Are you just cranky from the journey or is something else eating you?”
She tipped up her pert nose. “It’s part of my job to be aware of your social status and manage your staff accordingly.”
“First of all, I don’t have a staff, and second, Athena wouldn’t be part of it anyway.”
“Are you sure this is the correct direction?”
I frowned at the great winding staircase. It looked just like the one on the opposite side of the elephant-sized hall. And like the one at the shadowed end. All no doubt led to different towers. The whole complex was like a giant puzzle-box. “Well...I’m not sure,” I confessed. “I haven’t been wandering around all that much.”
“No?” She drew out the word with impish delight, seeming much more her familiar playful self. “What have you been doing, hmmm?”
“None of your business,” I muttered, more than a little chagrined.
“Here, you.” Starling snapped her fingers, startling me and grabbing the attention of a passing purple sprite. “Show us to the Lady Gwynn’s chambers and be quick about it.”
The sprite bowed, literally scraping its bulbous head on the stone floor, then scampered toward a fourth staircase entirely.
“One of your staff,” Starling said, with a little simper.
“Gee, it’s so nice to have you back, Starling.”
“I know.” She giggled at herself. “It’s lovely to see that you need me. Tell me I get to plan the wedding.”
What had seemed like a fine idea when I flippantly suggested it to Rogue kind of scared me now.
“No trains.”
“You have to have one. It’s expected. You wouldn’t want to bring shame on Lord Rogue, would you?”
“No, no—heaven forbid I should do that.”
“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 Eleven
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 disease itself.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “The Black Dog/White Cat”
Okay, maybe a little 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 very you, 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 ca
rrying 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.
Judging by the dirt that washed off my skin and knotted hair, I’d done more than a bit of rolling around on the arena floor. Also, I’d been apparently absorbed enough in the question of Titania’s previous visits and on dealing with the hampering claws that I’d never combed out my hair after Rogue washed it for me. Something Starling went on about at some length as she did the washing this time—which I let her do because it made her so happy.
All this time I’d avoided looking in the mirror, frankly afraid of what I’d see. The time had come for it, however, and I sat in the vanity chair as instructed. Starling dove into detangling my locks with such great enthusiasm that I bore the painful tugging and didn’t add any magical unsnarling assistance. Plus the distraction helped me avoid looking too closely at my face.
Finally she finished and I looked, seeing my eyes go wide in my paling face.
The pattern had grown exponentially. What had been a small tendril of silver at my temple now spiraled with metallic brilliance around my left eye, over my forehead and cheekbone, then down to my mouth, jaw and trailed off into fine points on my throat. Spiking out from the lines, which were unmistakably more sinuous and feline than the ones on Rogue’s body, like thorns on a climbing rose vine, were finely honed claws.
The similarity to the blood-poisoning streaks didn’t escape me. A contamination of another sort, the cat spirit’s magic infecting me, affecting the composition of my skin and very likely more. Only this toxicity wouldn’t kill me when it reached my heart.
I hoped.
Interesting—and perhaps salient—that the corruption originated at my temple, like a brain tumor that eventually revealed its presence through changes in the surrounding bone and surface tissues. Something to consider. Would I have time to make notes on this before the feast?
Following on that thought came the realization that I’d be able to handle this too. Inside, I remained myself, with my same thoughts. The external didn’t matter. The cat chuckled, somewhere in the vicinity of my heart, and I ignored her.
By way of settling myself and fixing up for the party, I “did” my makeup, magically adding the colors and shadings I would have used in my old life. Might as well make an effort to look nice tonight. Though it warmed me that Rogue hadn’t apparently cared about my rat’s nest snarls and smudged appearance. It certainly hadn’t dampened his ardor any, which spoke well of him and argued well for our long-term chances, since I was unlikely to improve on that front.
The clawed vines around my left eye gave me a bit of trouble. I couldn’t change the color of that skin, which didn’t really surprise me. More troubling, when I wished up eye shadow and a brush—mostly for experiment’s sake—I couldn’t cover over the pattern either. The powder fell away, much as water parts and beads off on an oily surface.
No hiding who you are.
Starling, with her innate talent for knowing what I most needed, had left me alone for this confrontation with my new face. Now she bustled back in with the dress she’d chosen.
“All right then?” Her tentative smile told me she’d understood far more of how I was feeling than I thought. Come to think of it, she hadn’t said as much while I bathed as she usually did. Tremendous restraint on her part.
So I resolved to play nice and put on the dress she liked—even though it reminded me of Scarlett O’Hara’s mourning ball gown, with easily twice the flounces and entirely covered in glittering black jewels. The thing had to weigh fifteen pounds. All in the skirt because the long, glove-tight sleeves ended at my upper arms, leaving my shoulders—and, more notably, most of my cleavage—totally bare. To exacerbate the situation, the bodice fit more like a corset, complete with laces up the back, which worked to raise my breasts into alarming mounds.
Sue me if I tried to tug up the neckline a little. Though that was a misnomer—more like nipple line.
Starling smacked my hand away. “Stop that. And no magical additions, either.”
“It’s a little much for an evening home with friends, isn’t it?”
“This is the welcome feast. Weren’t you listening?”
“Apparently not closely enough. Aren’t we just welcoming you guys?”
She sighed, shaking her head so her golden hair swept her shoulders with its paintbrush-thick ends, and tightened the bodice laces more. “No, Gwynn. This is to welcome you. As the new Lady of the Castle of the Dark Gods. Everyone who can manage to be here will be, to look you over, if nothing else. And to make sure to wrangle an invitation to the wedding—which, as I’ve mentioned, will be the event to attend. They’ll be looking to curry favor with you too.”
I groaned, summoned my glass of wine and took a hearty—no, a tiny—sip. “Kill me now.”
“Sit.” She gave me a little shove back to the vanity chair, then took up various implements of destruction to put my hair up in some elaborate, formal do.
“Yes, yes.” I glowered at her in the mirror. “Sit. Stay. Roll over. Get married.”
“You didn’t look unhappy about it when Lord Rogue kissed you in the hallway. In fact, you absolutely glowed.”
“Well,” I conceded, hating that I actually blushed, “I like that part quite a lot.”
“Do tell.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh, come on, Gwynn.” Starling pouted, but her brown eyes sparkled. “Just tell me if he’s amazing in bed.”
“No.”
“Let this old spinster live vicariously through you.”
“I don’t want to discuss this and you’re hardly a spinster.”
“I only want to know if the stories are true.”
“What stories?” I bit on her bait without thinking.
“Ha!” She pointed a jeweled hairpin at my reflection. “Now she wants to discuss it.”
“That was a cheap trick and I’ve changed my mind. Don’t tell me. You know what they say—comparisons are invidious.”
“Who says that?”
“Very wise people.”
She sniffed at that and fell silent for a few moments. “Have you heard from Walter?” she asked, in a much too casual tone.
“No one is going to hear from that idiot in a very long time.”
“Don’t call him that.”
I studied her face in the mirror and mentally reviewed some of her interactions with Walt. Another human immigrant, but far more contemporary to me, though he’d been in Faerie much longer—yet another time-flow conundrum—Walter was also able to work magic. He’d also tried to kill me in a duel. I’d happily won but had been unhappily tasked with sentencing him.
When he insisted on getting the kind of training I’d received...well, I hadn’t wanted to but I had finally agreed. I’d been a little freaked out about seeing my torturers again—and by Walter’s suicidal impulse to be trained by them—so I hadn’t really paid much attention to Starling as an “and Walter” scenario. But they had been talking up a storm on the way to Marquise and Scourge’s domicile of pain and humiliation.
“You’re not sweet on that little shit, are you?”
She thumped my shoulder with the hairbrush.
“Ow!”
“Oh, that didn’t hurt,” she snapped back. “And that was mean. Don’t call him excrement.”
“Walter is in terrible physical condition, smells bad, lacks all social skills and doesn’t even have very much intelligence. Plus he’s a
humbug and will be lucky to come out of that training with his sanity, if he makes it out at all. He’s not for you.”
Starling put her fists on her hips. “You’re not usually cruel. What is your problem?”
“That’s not cruel—or mean. I just don’t want you getting starry-eyed and pining away for this guy who looks much more enticing for being physically and emotionally unavailable.”
She finished my hair in silence, hurt wafting off her. Maybe I had been harsh. What I’d said was the truth, but had I really needed to vocalize all that? There might be more balancing with this cat spirit than I’d considered. Her predator’s perspective left little room for delicacy and consideration.
“I’m sorry,” I offered, as she completed the final touches. “Walt hoped that the training would make him a better person as well as a more effective wizard—he said as much to me. Maybe he’ll emerge as a guy good enough for you.”
She didn’t respond immediately—and didn’t meet my gaze in the mirror, either. Then she wiped her nose with the back of her hand and I felt worse.
“Look,” I added, “if you want me to, I’ll use the crystal scepter to spy on what’s going on over there, see how he’s doing.”
Now she looked up. “Really? You would do that?”
“Yes, I will.” I said it firmly, to make the promise to myself not to back out of it. Never mind that it was a good excuse to get my hands on the scepter again. I felt much better now and I kind of itched to experiment with it.
“That means a lot to me. But I know how you feel about that place and...revisiting anything that happened there. Don’t look. It won’t change anything anyway. Besides, I doubt he’s interested in someone like me.”
The self-deprecation in her voice just about killed me. “That’s ridiculous, Starling.” I stood and took her hands. “This is exactly what concerns me. You are lovely and smart, so talented in so many ways, plus you’re a plain wonderful, caring person. This thing where you worry that no guy will ever want you is destructive. Don’t settle. Hold out for the best.”
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