“Oh, Em, this is Lemon, by the way,” Aurora adds, gesturing to the woman who entered with the handmaids. “Our head clothes caster. She probably made most of the clothes you found in your wardrobe.”
“Oh. Thank you, Lemon.” I try not to snicker at the strange name. “You did a good job.”
She nods to me. “Thank you, my lady. And yes, I sent Jefford to fetch the dresses this morning, and I made sure to impress upon him the importance of discreetness. Told him we don’t want the embarrassment of anyone knowing we’ve associated with someone who’s worked with Seelies before, even if her work is good.”
“So silly,” Aurora grumbles. “People are going to find out anyway. We’re royalty, for goodness’ sake. It’s an honor to design for us, so I’m sure Raven Rosewood will tell people.”
“Will she?” the queen asks. “I doubt she’d want to risk her reputation with the Seelies.”
“She won’t say anything,” Lemon tells us. “Jefford left the dresses in my room with a note to say the pickup went smoothly. The designer accepted her payment and happily agreed to keep quiet about her involvement.”
“And when people ask tonight?” Aurora says. “Because you know some of those women are going to want to know who dressed their new princess. All they care about is the latest fashion and trends, and once they see Em in, say, champagne bubble gloves, they’ll all be adding the same thing to their new outfits.”
“Really?” I ask. “That’s so silly.”
“That’s the kind of influence you have as a princess,” Aurora says with a self-satisfied smile as she leans against the vanity. “I once wore live sprites dangling from my ears, and at the next party, I saw at least five other girls wearing the same thing.”
“Poor sprites,” I murmur, imagining the creatures that look like tiny winged people tied to Aurora’s earlobes.
“If anyone asks for the designer’s name, tell them it’s a secret,” the queen says. “Tell them our head clothes caster has an especially inventive new apprentice, and we wish to keep him to ourselves.”
Aurora sighs. “Fine. Anyway, we need to decide which one Em will wear so we can all start getting ready.”
“Uh, shall I go and ask Roarke what he’s decided to wear?” I suggest.
“Yes,” the queen answers. “Aurora and I will check that all the adjustments for her new dress have been done correctly, and then she’ll meet you in Roarke’s suite.”
With a glint in her eye, Aurora adds, “Mother doesn’t trust you to accurately report what Roarke’s outfit looks like without my help.”
“Aurora,” the queen scolds. Then her expression shifts into an apologetic smile. “Well, I suppose that’s true. Sorry, Emerson.”
I shrug, then freeze with my shoulders pulled up, remembering the queen doesn’t like shrugging. “It’s fine. See you there, Rora.” I hurry out of the bedroom, waiting until I’m outside the suite before relaxing my shoulders.
The glossy marble floor passes quickly beneath my feet as I head for Roarke’s suite. I knock on his door, but after waiting several moments, neither he nor one of his servants has called for me to come in. I knock again and wait, but still nothing. The absence of guards outside his suite makes me doubt Roarke is inside, but he has mentioned that sometimes his guards patrol further along the hallways just outside this wing of the palace. I crack the door open just enough to stick my head inside. “Roarke?”
No response. Knowing Aurora will be here in a few minutes, I decide to wait in Roarke’s sitting room until she joins me. I shut the door and wander slowly around the couches, comparing the suite to Aurora’s. Similar furniture fills the space, though in a less delicate style with dark wood and glossy black finishes. I walk to the window and find that I have an excellent view of a sculpture I’ve never been able to see properly from the ground: a giant snake rearing toward the sky, surrounded by black rose bushes. Creepy, I think to myself as I turn away from the window.
From the corner of my eye, I notice movement near the bedroom door. Something dark, like a shadow sliding across the wall. I turn quickly, expecting to see someone there—Roarke or one of his servants—but no one is behind me. I turn on the spot, my eyes traveling over every inch of the room. I look at the wall again, but the shadows created by the furniture and decor are motionless. It must have been something outside. A bird flying past the window, perhaps. Still, this is a palace filled with magic and enchantment, so it’s possible I saw the shadow of something that is now hiding in this room with me.
The idea sends a shiver up my neck and into my hair. Be brave, I remind myself. This is your home now. You can’t be afraid in your own home. Forcing my legs to move, I walk around the room again. I bend and look under the furniture. I pull the curtains away from the wall and look behind them. As far as I can tell, I’m alone in this room.
But this isn’t the only room in the suite. My eyes slide to the doorway leading to the bedroom. That is, after all, where I saw the movement just now. I cross the room and peek around the half-open door. I see another window and part of a four-poster bed. No movement or sound, though, so after a moment I push the door open enough to walk into the bedroom. The bedroom that will soon be mine too. The bed that will soon be mine.
An image of Roarke and me together in that bed flashes across my mind before I can stop it. I swallow in discomfort and try to push the image away. I’ve been avoiding thinking about that particular part of our union, but now that I’m staring at the bed that will soon belong to both of us, it’s impossible not to think of what will have to happen in it.
I turn away as a shiver whispers across my skin. I still have time, I remind myself. Time to find a way out of this whole arrangement. The engagement announcement will happen tonight, but the actual union ceremony won’t take place for another few weeks.
A voice out in the sitting room startles me, but it’s only Roarke. “Yes, please close the door, Marvyn,” he says. “I’ll only be a few minutes.” Breathing out and almost laughing at myself for my silly fears, I turn back toward the door. Hopefully Roarke won’t be too annoyed after I explain why I’m in his room.
But I stop when I hear a second voice. A female voice.
“Is it still safe to speak in here?” she asks.
“Yes,” Roarke answers. “We won’t be overheard.”
Nine
Crap. I cover my mouth with my hand and freeze.
“You’re certain?” the woman asks.
“Yes. My father has no control over this suite. My men scour it daily for enchantments and bugs, and they haven’t found anything in years.”
“Still,” the woman says as her footsteps cross the room. “Someone might see us through the window.” Her voice sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. I’ve overheard so many ladies of the court since I arrived here. It could be any one of them.
“I doubt it. We’re very high up. And if someone does see us, so what? I’m the prince, and I have the right to speak to whomever I please.”
My imagination jumps immediately to the worst conclusion. Anger heats my veins at the thought of Roarke cheating on me. Why else would he be meeting a woman privately in his suite? A woman who doesn’t want anyone seeing the two of them together? And it’s not as though I’m jealous, but he’s supposed to be marrying me in a few weeks! I reach for the door, about to pull it open fully and demand whether I can expect this kind of thing to continue after our union takes place.
“Okay then,” the woman says. “So what are you doing about the ink-shades?”
I stop with my hand raised. Ink-shades? I wasn’t expecting that.
“You have to get them under control, Roarke. We can’t have them terrorizing this world. Or the other world. We can’t live there until they’ve been eradicated completely.”
“It’s fine. My men are taking care of it.”
“Like the guard who showed up dead? Wrinkled and aged?”
Roarke sighs. “You told me you weren’t going to get upset about that
.”
“I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve decided I have every right to get upset about something like that. The same thing could happen to us.”
I tilt my head toward to the doorway, wishing I could see their body language. Wishing I could figure out the nature of Roarke’s relationship to this woman.
“The same thing most certainly will not happen to us,” he assures her. “It only happened to that guard because he was stupid enough to let an ink-shade catch him when he wasn’t wearing his amulet. And he should have known the right spell to fight back with, but clearly he was too slow. The rest of my men know what they’re doing.”
“Well they’re certainly taking a while to get the job done. All this time wasted. Building has halted. The castle and grounds are just standing there half-formed, and—”
“Relax. It takes time to fill a world.”
“Time in which someone else could discover it and claim it as their territory.”
“Who’s going to claim it? No one else knows about it.”
“That isn’t true now that you’ve let other people see it.”
“I’ve told you already,” Roarke says. “Neither my father nor Aurora have any interest in claiming that world as their own. He still has the same misbeliefs he had in the beginning, and you know Aurora’s far more interested in—”
“I don’t mean them.” There’s a pause in which I lean closer to make sure I don’t miss her next words. “What about your future wife? And the guardian who happened to be with her?” A chill passes through me. I take a silent step backward, as if they might somehow sense my presence if I stand too close to the door.
“Emerson doesn’t know what she saw,” Roarke says, “and I doubt she even cares. She probably assumed it was part of the fae world. She doesn’t know enough about this realm to assume it would be anything else. As for the guardian … well, I doubt he has any clue what he saw either. Guardians are trained to fight, not to think.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate him,” she says darkly.
“And you shouldn’t be worrying.”
“Okay. Fine. So we’re not in a rush. But I’m still worried about the ink-shades. How are they getting through? And is it only here at the palace, or do you think they’re able to get through to any part of this world? Or …” She pauses for a moment. “I wonder if they’re able to get through to the human world.”
“If they can, it’ll be the Guild’s problem, not ours.”
“True.”
“And that probably won’t happen, because my men are making sure that all the ink-shades will soon be dead.”
“Good. Well then, can I get the cloak I came in here for? Marvyn might get suspicious if I walk out without it.”
“Marvyn is suspicious already,” Roarke says with a chuckle, “but I’ll get you the cloak anyway.” His footsteps move toward the bedroom. I curse beneath my breath—which sends an image of Dash rushing through my mind for just a second; he wouldn’t be impressed with my choice of language. I duck through the only other door and into Roarke’s en-suite bathroom. Slipping behind the half-open door, I hold my breath.
And that’s when I see what’s on the wall to my left.
I clap my hand over my mouth to suppress my startled gasp. A large circle of swirling, sparkling magic takes up most of the wall. Electric blue in color, with dark wispy bits rising from the edges and disappearing, the magic spins lazily in a spiral shape that seems to be sucked inwards at the center.
A portal?
A tiny part of me is curious to know where it leads—if it is indeed a portal—but mostly I’m terrified of what may come charging through from the other side. I lean as far away from it as I can while still remaining hidden behind the bathroom door. Fortunately, Roarke only takes a few moments in his bedroom. The moment I hear him walk out, I tiptoe hurriedly out of the bathroom and hover near the open bedroom doorway.
“… concerned about Marvyn and these suspicions of his?” the mystery woman asks.
“No, don’t worry. He’s paid well enough to keep his suspicions to himself.”
“Good. Well, I’ll leave you to prepare your announcement for tonight. I’m excited that this union will finally be official. Hopefully the ceremony will happen soon.”
“It will,” Roarke says.
Several moments of quiet follow, in which I begin to feel even more confused than before. This woman wants to hide her meetings with Roarke the way a secret lover would, but she’s happy that he’ll be marrying me?
I hear the main door to the suite open and close. I wonder if they’re both gone, but then I hear Roarke’s footfalls—heavier than the woman’s—move across the sitting room. Terrified that he might return to his bedroom, I start tiptoeing back toward the bathroom. But the scrape of a chair tells me he’s probably sitting now. I crouch down near the bed anyway, just in case I have to slide beneath it quickly for cover.
After several minutes that feel like hours, I hear a knock on the door. Then Aurora’s voice once the door is open: “Oh, where’s Em?”
Dammit.
“How should I know?” Roarke asks. “I thought she was with you.”
Crap, crap, crap.
I do the only thing I can think of: I rush to the nearest window, swing my legs over, and lower myself down on the other side. The tips of my satin ballet-type shoes search out the footholds between the marble bricks. The shoes will be scuffed by the time I make it back inside, but hopefully no one will notice. I descend carefully, pausing as my foot feels the gap of the next window down. I move to the side, climb down another few bricks, and peek in through the side of the window. It looks like a private sitting room. Comfortable chairs, a cabinet full of drinks, a disgustingly ornate gold-framed mirror on one wall, and paintings of half-naked women on the others. But most importantly, there’s no one in it.
I step onto the windowsill and hop inside. Seconds later, I’m out in the hallway, walking as quickly as I can without risking attention if I happen to pass someone. I swiftly navigate a few turns until I arrive at the stairway leading up to the royal family’s wing. I run up—and almost crash into Aurora at the top.
“Oh, there you are,” she says, relief appearing on her face. “What happened? I thought you were going to Roarke’s suite.” I search her features for any sign of suspicion, but all I see is confusion.
“He isn’t there,” I tell her. “One of the maids said she saw him near the library, so I went looking for him. Waste of time, though, since he wasn’t there either. Are you sure he’s finished with whatever important business he was dealing with this morning?”
“Yes, I just saw him in his chambers.”
I roll my eyes and laugh. “This is what happens when you live in a home the size of a small city. We could run around all day looking for each other and never pass.”
“And that,” Aurora says as she takes my arm and turns us back toward her suite, “is why we have servants to do the running around for us. Anyway, I saw Roarke’s outfit. I think it will go splendidly with the rose gold dress. Are you happy with that?”
I’m happy with anything that diverts Aurora’s attention from the fact that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Hopefully, if Roarke questions my whereabouts later, he’ll believe my story just as easily. “That sounds perfect,” I tell her. “The rose gold one is my favorite.”
I follow her back into her suite where a flurry of activity has already begun. Hair stylists and makeup artists arrange their tools and spells. Lemon the clothes caster fusses about tiny imperfections in our dresses. The queen’s handmaids flit in and out with messages from Aurora’s mother about jewelry, hair ornaments, snacks and other trivial matters. And all the while, my mind is full of the conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear and the magic I wasn’t supposed to see.
Ten
Night has fallen, winter has settled, and the ballroom is alive with activity. Women in gorgeous gowns and men in traditional faerie attire—suit pants and high-necked jac
kets with sharp angled shoulders—mingle on the dance floor at the center of the ballroom. Dozens of round tables encircle the room, each with a dragon ice sculpture forming the heart of the centerpieces. From the glass chandelier at the center of the ceiling, strings of tiny sparkling lights radiate outward. And from the ceiling itself, glittering snowflakes tumble downward, vanishing into nothing before reaching anyone’s head.
I stand toward one side of the room with Aurora and two of her ladies-in-waiting who, it seems, have been allowed to return from the holiday Aurora sent them on. They chatter on and on, occasionally sending curious glances my way, while I try to pretend I’m interested in whatever they’re talking about. The truth is, my mind couldn’t be further away from this party. I can’t get the thought of ink-shades out of my head. Roarke and that woman were obviously speaking about the place he and Aurora whisked me away to the day they found me in my old bedroom at Chelsea’s house. The place where Dash and I ran from a shapeless shadowy creature—an ink-shade?—and ended up back in the faerie world near the tear in the veil. With everything else occupying my mind, I’d barely thought of that incident until this afternoon.
My gaze travels across the crowd as I wonder which of these ladies was in Roarke’s room earlier. It could be any—
“And what brings you to the Unseelie Court, Em?” The question comes from one of Aurora’s ladies. Mizza? Some strange name like that.
I take a moment to get my smile in place, but Mizza doesn’t seem to notice. “The Guild wanted to imprison me, but some of the Unseelies—personal guards of Prince Roarke’s, actually—rescued me.”
She lets out a ladylike gasp and places one hand against her chest. “Oh, how thrilling. Was the prince with them at the time? He is so handsome, don’t you think?”
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