by AC Washer
Beehive nodded sharply. “You’re right. It still manages to have its own…”
“Flare,” Cornrows finished.
They smiled at each other.
I sighed, relieved to still have my hair firmly attached to my head. When I reached up to feel the updo, Cornrows slapped my hand down. “Don’t, you’ll mess it up!”
Meanwhile, Beehive dug out a large pink and purple tool chest, set it on the counter, and sprung it open to reveal a manicure and pedicure setup complete with at least sixty different shades of nail polishes.
She shoved my feet into a large bucket of warm water as Cornrows lugged over a lime green and pink tool box. Once opened, the toolbox revealed a gazillion shades of eye shadow, numerous flesh tones for foundation, and an entire compartment devoted to lipstick.
Cornrows advanced toward me with a towelette in hand and mercilessly scrubbed my face raw.
She stepped back, tsking at my bruises, and tapped her chin while Beehive grunted at my feet, attacking the calluses on my heels.
I lost track of time as they plucked my brows, ripped off the remainder of my skin with a face mask, and scrubbed my lips until I couldn’t take anymore and tucked them under my teeth. For a while there, the only thing I could see was Cornrow’s face, scrunched up in concentration, as Beehive shaped my nails and attacked my cuticles.
“There,” Cornrows said at last. “That should do it.”
Beehive looked up from clear coating my nails. “Oh, my. You’ve done it! You know you are absolutely brilliant with cosmetics!”
Cornrows beamed and turned toward Beehive, running her gaze across my fingers.
“And you are absolutely…” She faltered, her eyes widening.
“Moira, we talked about this.”
Beehive—Moira—shrugged dismissively looking up at the ceiling, a stubborn tilt to her jaw.
“We don’t have time to fix this now,” Cornrows wailed.
I looked down to see what the fuss was about.
Moira had painted my fingernails a shimmering mother-of-pearl, accenting them with tiny leaves made from flecks of crystals that budded from silver vines.
“But it has silver, see, Tibby?” Moira pointed out the vines.
“No, the base coat has to be silver, remember? She always wants silver,” Tibby said, tugging at her hair in agitation. “She’s going to kill us.”
“Now, now, that’s not true. There’s enough silver in the vines, I’m sure! She’ll love those!”
“Well, I think they’re beautiful,” I said, getting a bit tired of the dramas.
Tibby sniffed. “You think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you think she’ll think so?”
Moira and Tibby looked at me with identical expressions of hopefulness.
“Um…who?”
“The queen, of course,” Moira said with a huff. “Not that you’ve met her, but perhaps since you will be her vessel…” She gestured to me with a careless wave of her hand.
Tibby nodded. “The vessel can sometimes alter the queen’s sense of aesthetic. Figgy said right after the last coronation, the queen rid her entire wardrobe of light blues. She’d adored the color before.”
I coughed. “I, um, I love the nails.” I wiggled my fingers for emphasis. “I’m sure that the queen…that I will be able to, ah, influence the queen to…agree with me.”
Moira nodded like a bobble head and elbowed Moira in the ribs. “See, see? It’ll be fine.”
Tibby seemed torn between continuing her fit of despair and giving into hope. Hope won out, and she giggled. “It’ll be all the rage!”
“I know!” said Moira.
“It’s a pity she wouldn’t let us use Big Bethy.” Tibby shot me a disapproving glance.
I shrugged, deducing that Big Bethy was the ginormous tiara.
Moira patted her shoulder. “You can only lead a traveler to the bridge, dear.”
She sighed. “You can’t make them pay the toll.”
“Pixies,” Louie said, glancing at his watch. “Get out. Your time’s up.”
The pixies opened their mouths but before they could say a word, Louie jerked his head toward Stuart, standing in the entrance.
They quickly packed their supplies and flounced out the door, their tulle skirts clinging to Stuart as they brushed past him.
“Hey, Kella.” Stuart beamed, holding a garment bag in his arms. “We’ve got a fitting to do.”
I scrunched my brows. “But you already have my measurements. Everything I have fits perfectly.”
“Eh, but who knows what ye’ve been eating over the past week? And anyway, I like to do me fittings a wee bit closer to the final hour. As is, Louie says two hours will have to do.”
“Two hours?” I gasped. “I thought it was going to be later this evening.”
“Nope. So as I was saying,” he said, unzipping the bag slowly. The skirt of a navy blue dress overlaid with spider threads of silver spilled out of its confines. “I don’t want ye to be eating anything more than a few crackers and some water after the fitting be done.”
“What? But—”
“Nothing.” Stuart’s piercing stare brooked no argument.
“Um, o-okay,” I stammered.
Stuart’s serene, happy-go-lucky countenance immediately returned. “It be important ye be having the right fit. I’ll no be having anyone saying that I’ve gone and lost me touch.”
In short order, I found myself in my underwear. I didn’t have time to process any sort of embarrassment before Stuart slipped the silky gown over my head. I reflexively held up my hands for the armholes. My gaze trailed the threads of silver skittering down from my waist. It was breathtaking, but had I only been looking at Stuart’s face, I would have sworn it was a hot mess.
“Humph,” was all he said as he fastened up the back of my gown. “Humph.” Stuart stalked around me like a wolf hunting his prey. He waved a hand over a shoulder seam, and I watched in fascination as it shrunk a couple of millimeters. He kept at it, each place he waved over tightening or smoothing as he desired.
“Ye’ve not had a proper meal this whole week, I’d wager.” Stuart’s voice dripped disapproval as the waist shrank a smidge.
I shrugged.
“Don’t move,” he ordered. I stayed there for a good forty-five minutes as Stuart fussed with my dress, fluffing it out in some places, making miniscule adjustments in others. The differences seemed so slight as to be inconsequential, but one glance at Stuart—tongue sticking out to the side as he bent low to inspect a seam—and I knew better than to say anything.
Stuart finally stopped scrutinizing the dress and pulled his gaze up to mine. “Ready!” he said proudly, holding his hands out to me. I took one of them as I stepped down from the box he had brought for a makeshift pillar. The cloth seemed so delicate that I tried to make my movements as small as possible so I wouldn’t rip it.
He grinned at me before abruptly turning stern again. “And remember—”
“Nothing but a few crackers and some water,” I repeated verbatim.
He beamed, patting my head like a star pupil.
I turned my back toward him so he could unfasten the gown.
“Nay, lass, you be wearing that from now until the investiture.”
“But that’s over an hour away! I’m gonna spill something, or…” I faltered under Stuart’s glare.
“Water and crackers,” I mumbled.
His expression immediately cleared, and he hummed to himself as he packed up his things.
“I’ll be seeing ye at the investiture!” he called from the front door, waving his fingers at me in goodbye. I lifted my hand and found myself waving my fingers right back at him as he shut the door.
Deena walked over and circled me. “Mm, mm, mm…Now that’s a dress.”
She looked over at Louie, who’d pocketed his earplugs as soon as the pixies left.
“Can I get me one of these?”
“You the heir?”
<
br /> “I’m the heir’s caseworker.”
“No.”
“Well, I need something to wear. It’s not like I dressed for a coronation when I hightailed it down here thinking Kella was going all crazy."
“You’re not going.”
“What do you mean I’m not going? What am I supposed to do? Sit here on my hands?”
“If you could sit on your mouth, that’d be better.”
“You ain’t making sense. Sit on my mouth. Huh.” Deena folded her arms and glared.
Louie remained unfazed.
“So what am I supposed to be doing then?”
“Going home,” he said.
“Well, that’s not happening anytime soon.”
Louie gave her a long look. “It will.” He said it so matter-of-factly it gave me chills.
Another doorbell ring.
“About time,” Louie grumbled, pushing up from the sofa again.
When he opened the door, a lady with a large basket-woven purse peered through.
“This her?” she said, looking at me.
“No,” Louie said. “The other one.”
The lady redirected her gaze to Deena. “Ah. Well, that makes more sense.” She stepped closer to Deena, examining her. “Hmm. So resistant to Maeve’s magic, is she?”
“Maeve doesn’t have much left, so it’s not a big surprise.”
“No, I suppose not,” she said, peering into Deena’s eyes. Deena shifted from one foot to the other, but she stood her ground.
“Come, human, sit on the sofa. That’ll feel better.”
Deena glanced at Louie, who was shooting her his most intimidating do-it-now-or-I’m-gonna-make-you look.
Deena exhaled loudly. “Fine. But exactly what are you going to do?”
“Adjust your memories.”
“Adjust my…oh heck no. You’re not getting anywhere close to my memories. You better—”
But then Deena’s mouth snapped shut—like it didn’t have a choice.
The lady had swung a golden pendant in front of Deena, and Deena was staring at it as if it was the most interesting thing she had ever seen.
“Are you hypnotizing her?” I asked. For some reason, I didn’t expect fae to use anything so mundane—so human—as hypnotizing.
“Of course not,” the lady snapped. “Although,” she said after a second, “I suppose that is what it appears to be. This here” —she jutted her chin toward the swinging pendant— “is a magicked item. I do not currently enjoy the full range of my power, so I am limited in scope and need to rely on items such as these during the interregnum.”
“Interregnum?”
“The time between queens,” she snapped again. Obviously, she didn’t like explaining herself.
“So,” I said, apprehension pressing down on my chest. “What does it do?”
“It allows my mind to connect to hers, extract memories that are…unnecessary… and plant suggestions that will reconnect her memories into a cohesive whole.”
“But she’ll remember me, right? I mean, you’ll take away the bits about the fae, but she’ll know that I’m her foster kid…right?”
“Quiet,” she hissed. “This is a delicate process and you are becoming a distraction.”
“Okay,” I said. After a few minutes, I couldn’t resist adding, “But you’ll let her remember me, right?”
Only the twitch of her jaw let me know that she heard me—and that she wasn’t happy about it. Every other muscle in her face was taut, zeroed in on Deena. She sat there in the same rigid position, pendant hanging from her hand, for what couldn’t have been longer than twenty minutes. The entire time, I wanted to ask her more about what she was doing, but whenever I opened my mouth, Louie would shake his head.
“That should do it,” she said, her arm dropping to her lap. “Now,” she said, turning to Louie. “The human is highly susceptible to suggestion right now, so I recommend you confine her to a room alone for the next twenty-four hours.”
Louie gave a cursory nod.
Deena’s torso weaved back and forth, her eyes distant. I stepped forward to steady her before she toppled over, but Officer Louie scooped her up into his arms instead, heading through the kitchen and up the stairs that led to the second floor.
“She won’t forget me, will she?” My voice held a trace of panic I couldn’t quite hide.
The lady peered at me. “If she doesn’t, it will be because she remembers you as merely a case that reached a satisfactory end. Nothing more. Nothing for her to investigate.”
“But—but—”
“It is best,” she continued, “that you separate yourself from her. She would never understand the fae until it was too late. And besides” —the lady’s eyes shone with a tinge of regret— “from what I’ve seen of her memories, she has too much compassion—empathy—to let go of a hopeless case. What I’ve done will spare her from trying to help someone she can’t, in a world she will never understand, from a fate she will never accept as permanent. I’ve done her a favor.”
Goosebumps ran down my arms. “But…”
“It’s for the best,” she said, her hand resting on my arm. “Really.”
Then, as if someone pressed a button, she straightened up, grabbed her basket case, and said goodbye, leaving without a second glance.
Chapter 21
I was staring at the door the lady had left through when I heard the soft thud of feet coming down the stairs.
Without looking at Louie, I said, “It’s not right. She needs to remember me.”
“Few things care whether or not you think they’re right.”
I spun around as Edon continued to descend the staircase.
“For instance, I didn’t think you blasting me into unconsciousness was right, but here we are,” he said as he stopped at the landing and grinned at me. A grin that melted off his face.
“What?” I said, looking at my gown and then back at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Just another thing that doesn’t care about what we think is right.”
“And what’s that?”
He smiled, leaning on the edge of the banister—but it was a bitter smile. “Look at you. A pretty fae heir dressed in a gown meant to awe her chosen consort. Instead, you get me—an un-awe-able rebel who doesn’t care how beautiful you are or aren’t. I’m using you, but I don’t actually want”—he waved his hand from my shoulders to my shoes— “you.”
He didn’t care. I knew that—I really did. And it wasn’t like I even liked the guy. But his words still managed to smart.
“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing we can always have it annulled or something.”
Edon chuckled, his eyes darkening. “Only if both parties agree. I doubt I ever will, considering the extra security that comes from the position.”
The enormity of what he was saying drove through my gut like a fist. When I’d agreed for him to be my consort in exchange for my life, I didn’t realize I’d be signing up for a lifetime sentence—a loveless future.
No, I reminded myself. Not loveless. I’m doing this for Caleb. I’ll still have Caleb.
But a lifetime with a consort who wouldn’t ever love me…
“But if I promise to protect you—”
He shook his head as he sauntered toward me. “If the queen takes over your mind, my position as consort is not only my lifeline, but the lifeline of every fae who follows me. It becomes a treaty between me and the queen, one she would never make if already in command of your body. I need something more formal, more binding than the promise of an heir that is only good for as long as she can control a queen trying to invade her mind.”
“But then why—”
“But,” he said, moving a half-step closer, making my cheeks flush. “If our hopes are realized and you overcome the parasite, we have the best of both worlds. We get our powers back and are ruled by someone who isn’t a psychopath—at present.”
“Then we can go our separate ways,” I said.
<
br /> Edon chuckled, stepping back. “And who would you replace as consort? Keep in mind that your consort is your second-in-command and your closest adviser.”
“I’m sure I could find someone I liked.”
“Maybe. Let’s, for the sake of argument, say you fall in love with some poor fae. Would you really want him as your consort with what you’ll be fighting day in and day out?
“What do you mean?” My heart thumped as Edon looked at me, pity in his eyes.
“Should you defeat the queen at the investiture, she will always be there, in the back of your mind, lurking—waiting for that moment of weakness when she can take over. What could she destroy? How many lives could she end if you have a day—even an hour—of weakness?”
My heart felt like it was drumming its way out of my chest.
“She’d still be there? In my mind?”
Edon nodded. “Like a virus hiding out, biding its time. Given that likelihood, I’d be a fool to release you so long as you pose a threat to me and to those who follow me.”
“But if the investiture doesn’t work, then there wouldn’t be a problem.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Why wouldn’t it work? You’re the heir.”
“Well, let’s just say, for the sake of argument,” I said, parroting him, “that the investiture doesn’t go quite as planned. That there is no transfer of power and that everyone gets stuck in their glamours forever. The fae won’t want me as queen, so I wouldn’t need a consort.”
Edon shook his head. “Should the impossible happen, I’d happily agree to an end of our arrangement. As I would if the queen disappeared forever or—better yet—shriveled up and died while in your mind because your amazing powers are such that she cannot abide your greatness.”
I looked away from Edon’s mocking smile, my hands clenched at my sides. “Well, at least I know that when I’m no longer a threat to you, you have no reason to stay with me.”
He shook his head. “I wish, for both our sakes, for that to be the case. But you can understand my…confidence…that such a scenario is unlikely.”
I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “Well, we’ll see what happens, I guess.”
“We will.”
“We need to go,” Louie said, lumbering down the stairs.