He grunted. “Lily is a traitor. Even if she hadn’t broken her engagement, I would’ve found a way to banish her. We don’t allow traitors in our midst.”
“Well then, I can’t help.”
He squeezed one of his eyes shut a little. “Stella said you were—”
“How wonderful. You met our dear wariff.” Ace wrapped an arm around my shoulder. If Gregor weren’t standing in front of me, if thousands of faeries weren’t swanning around us, I might’ve rested my head against his shoulder and let out a little sigh.
“What did Stella say about me?” I asked, her dust roiling in my throat.
“Yes, what did charming Stella Sakar have to say about the draca’s future daughter-in-law?” Fire and spice lifted off Ace’s skin and scented the air. Like a nicotine addict, I pulled in long drags of him.
Gregor narrowed his eyes. “She said Catori was a wonderful girl, and one of her daughter’s closest friends.”
I snorted, before casting my own barb. “Her daughter?”
Gregor frowned. “Isn’t Faith her daughter?”
Did he not know, or was he playing dumb? When had he left Rowan?
“To tell you the truth,” Gregor continued, “I’m surprised she didn’t make it to your engagement. Hopefully she’ll make it to the duobosi, though.”
Ace’s arms tightened around my back, his fingers digging into the flesh of my arm. Unlike Cruz’s unyielding grip, I didn’t mind Ace’s hold. It felt possessive, protective. I supposed he wouldn’t wish a public mating ceremony on his worst enemy.
“Tickets are already selling out, I hear,” Gregor said.
I flinched. Ace slid his hand off my arm, but kept it on my body as though afraid I might keel over from dread if he didn’t hold me up. He splayed his hand on my lower back, just underneath the ribbon Veroli had tied firmly.
“You know, Ace, I take it back. Cruz and you were terrific diplomatic envoys. Especially Cruz. Not only does he return with a huntress, but he’s apparently got Gwenelda in his pocket.”
“Gwenelda would never trust him,” I said.
“With all the excitement, you two probably haven’t had much time to talk about much else than your undying love for each other.” Gregor smiled, his teeth a slash of cruel white. Faith had that same wide, blinding smile, except on her, it was attractive. On him, it was borderline grotesque. “Now that you can no longer interfere, she will awaken the hunters.”
My fingers rolled into fists. “She will not.”
Ace had become one solid block of man next to me. His breathing had turned shallow, and pulsed from his barely parted lips. He looked over at Cruz, deep in conversation with Linus Wood. “Excuse me,” he murmured. He pulled his hand away from me and walked toward his father and Cruz.
The spot he’d touched turned icy cold, and I shivered. Or perhaps it was the idea that Gwenelda was going to wake the hunters in my backyard that made me shiver.
So Cruz made me move to Neverra to get me out of the way.
Bastard.
I would kill Cruz if anything happened to my father.
“You seem agitated, Catori,” Gregor said.
“And you seem calm. Aren’t you concerned about waking the hunters?”
“We’ve waited two centuries for Negongwa to cancel his regulation on our dust. In a matter of days, we’ll be able to return to Earth with a limitless amount of dust.”
“But many more hunters will be waiting for you there. Don’t you fear them?”
“You speak as though we’re planning on letting them live after the regulation is canceled.”
“You’re going to kill them?” I hissed.
He leered at me. “If they get in our way…”
I glared hard at Gregor before heading toward Cruz. “I would like to leave.”
He observed my furious expression with disconcerting calmness. “Linus, my fiancée is in a hurry to celebrate. Will you excuse us?”
I was certain my cheeks were as crimson as Ace’s were pale.
“I was so looking forward to getting to know you, my dear,” Linus said, his voice as oily as his slicked-back, orangey hair. “Let me at least get you a glass of sparkling faerie wine.” He clicked his fingers, and a faerie in a dress as green as the moss on the turrets extended a twinkling gold sphere toward Linus.
He plucked it from her, shooed her away, and squeezed the ball between his fingers. The glittery exterior popped, leaving behind a clear goblet filled with a deep amber liquid. Linus extended it to me, but I shook my head.
“Thank you, but I don’t drink.” Especially drinks that could be mallow-spiked. My stomach rumbled though, and I realized it had been hours since I’d eaten. Dozens of hours. But what could I eat in this world that wouldn’t screw with my mind or poison me?
“You are missing out, my dear.” Linus tipped the glass to his mouth and gulped down the contents before tossing the goblet in the air, where it burst like a soap bubble.
I stared at the empty spot for long seconds.
“Catori, tomorrow the calidum are celebrating Middle Month.” Linus burped. Twice. “The marketplace will be decorated for the festivities, and everyone will be selling their best wares. I’d appreciate it if you would accompany me. Especially since Cruz will be leaving on a diplomatic mission first thing in the morning.”
Diplomatic mission, my ass. I still couldn’t believe he and Gwenelda could be working together, but their desires were aligned. Gwen wanted to awaken her tribe the same way the faeries did. But where Gwen wanted to be reunited with her family, faeries wanted their dust regulation annulled so they could swarm our Earth. They’d kill Negongwa and his people the second he lifted his ban.
“I’ll send a lucionaga to pick you up at sunup,” Linus said, even though I hadn’t accepted his invitation. I’d hoped my lack of answer would be understood as a refusal.
“I can pick her up,” Ace grumbled. “I’m going anyway.”
One of Linus’s thick, honey-red eyebrows lifted while my cheeks colored. Everything I’d done to protect Ace would be for nothing if he didn’t stop acting so concerned about me.
“Doesn’t a prince have better things to do than carry around someone else’s fiancée?” I asked.
A smile squeezed onto Linus’s tanned, barely lined face.
Ace stepped back, surprise and hurt warring over his features. “Right. What was I thinking being chivalrous?” His tone cut deeply. “Perhaps I should go with Cruz to control the awakening of the hunters.”
I tried to move my gaze off from Ace’s face, but the masochist in me couldn’t look away.
“I would rather you keep an eye on my fiancée,” Cruz said. “No one understands hunters the way you do.”
Ace snorted.
I whipped my gaze toward Cruz. Was he trying to trap Ace, or did he honestly believe I was going to wage a one-woman attack on faeries to chastise him for awakening the hunters?
Actually… Could I threaten him in some way to make him stop? Lily had mentioned a place called the glades—one of the Daneelies’ homes. “I’d love to see more of your kingdom, Mr. Wood. Do you think I could get a tour tomorrow after the Middle Month celebration?”
“Massin Wood.” Linus wrinkled his nose. “Mr. Wood sounds so very human.”
“Excuse my unfamiliarity with your language and customs.”
“You are excused, my dear.”
Cruz’s hand snaked over the spot where Ace’s hand had been minutes ago. Unlike Ace’s hand, the warmth that leaked through his palm felt intrusive, scalding. “I think that’s a wonderful initiative. Will you provide my fiancée with a tour, Ace?”
“I’m sure Catori will be more comfortable visiting Neverra with a lucionaga.” Ace didn’t look at me as he said this, but the horrified shiver coursing through my body ignited my brand, which ignited his palm.
He curled his fingers, then nodded. “I have another party to attend. Enjoy your evening, Catori. I hope Cruz will be gentler with you than he was with Lily
.”
I gasped while Linus laughed. Cruz, at least, had the decency not to react.
After taking his leave, Cruz airlifted me back to his apartment. As soon as the door closed, I yelled, “Is that why I’m here?”
His thick brows slanted underneath the black waves of hair strafing his forehead. “Is what why you’re here?”
“So you could get me out of the way to wake the hunters?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I’ve already explained my reasons why.”
I folded my arms. “If those were your reasons, then I don’t understand why you want Ace to spend the entire day with me tomorrow.”
He tilted his face to the side.
“Are you trying to annoy him?”
He smirked. “I doubt forcing him to spend the day with you is an annoyance.”
“He doesn’t like me anymore, so yeah, it is.”
“Doesn’t he?”
My arms fell out of their tight knot and knocked against my sides. “I don’t understand you!”
“Don’t waste your time trying to.”
I scraped my hands down my face and exhaled a violent breath.
“Spend your time trying to understand yourself, Catori.”
What was that supposed to mean? “I understand myself just fine.”
“Do you?”
I frowned.
“Veroli will be here in the morning to dress you.” He started to turn. “Oh. And I had a meal delivered for you.” He pointed to the fireplace where a silver platter had been deposited on the stones surrounding it. “There is no mallow in the food, or poison for that matter. Have a lovely night, Catori.”
When he started toward the door, my heart banged against my ribcage. “Cruz, if you awaken the hunters using anyone I know, I will make your life hell.”
A brazen smile stirred on his lips. “I’m betting on it.”
He winked and then was gone, leaving me so frustrated I paced and prowled until the sky was deep violet and the fire had almost burned out. I added more logs, pinched a bite of food from the plate, and waited for my head to feel lighter. When nothing happened, I wolfed down the food. And then, thanks to a surplus of adrenaline, I went to the bookcase, selected a book, and forced myself to read it.
While I was stuck in this god-forsaken land, I would learn as much Faeli as I could.
37
Air Ships
The air smelled spicy and rich. Mom must’ve made cinnamon rolls. She always added cinnamon to her baking, be it savory or sweet. My stomach growled, and its growl made me stir.
I squinted at my bright surroundings.
I wasn’t home.
I wasn’t even close to home. And my mother couldn’t be baking, because my mother was no longer alive. The realizations drenched me like buckets of icy water.
I lay still for a moment, listening and looking. There was no noise, but someone had come because a heavy fur cover was tucked around me, and I hadn’t put it there. The hearth no longer danced with flames, the bay window framed a pale periwinkle sky, and the platter with my dinner had been replaced with a silver bowl full of small golden puffs.
I stretched, then cracked my stiff neck. The fur slipped off my legs and pooled onto the floor, revealing the purple fabric of last night’s dress. At least no one had taken it off me, which was reassuring. I tugged on the ends of the ribbon, and the bodice fell away from my constricted chest. How I’d managed to fall asleep in that straitjacket was beyond me. I worked on my hair next, removing all the pins that had surely left indents in my scalp. I shook out the braid and massaged my head, which felt hazy from too much sleep. Or maybe it was from all the Faeli books I’d attempted to decipher.
Cool air whooshed against my back. I spun toward the front door as Veroli bustled in. “Blessed morning, deary.”
“Good morning.” The answer was robotic because in no way was it a good morning if I was still here.
“I didn’t want to wake you, but I was told to have you ready by midmorning.”
She placed a bulging fabric bag on the floor and bent at the waist to retrieve scraps of sheer turquoise fabric. The outfit I was to wear.
I yawned. How long had I slept if nights were longer in Neverra? Twenty hours?
“I made you cannelati.”
I frowned.
Veroli pointed to the silver bowl. “It’s traditional calidum fare. We make it at Middle Month.” She sighed happily. “Soon the sunlight will reach us.”
I picked up one of the golden puffs and sniffed it before placing it on my tongue, where it melted into a delightful puddle of cinnamony sweetness. “What do you mean?” I filched another puff.
“The mist will soon be flush with the ground. For two days, we marsh-dwellers will get sunlight.”
The puff fell from my fingers. “You only get two days of sunlight a month?”
“Yes. It’s especially hard on the land-growers. They get in so much trouble if their produce isn’t succulent enough, but most vegetables and fruit need sunlight, a small fact that seems to escape the caligosupra.”
A piece of a long-ago conversation returned to me. Back at Bee’s, Borgo had touched upon some of Neverra’s politics. He’d said mist-dwellers paid marsh-dwellers with sunshine and mallow. I now understood why anyone would accept payment in the form of light.
Veroli bustled over to me, turquoise fabric streaming behind her. She removed the ribbon I’d untied, then helped me wriggle out of my dress. Still reeling from the fact that the lower castes had restricted access to sunlight, I didn’t put up a fight about having someone else dress me. I let Veroli loop the new fabric around me and tie it snugly over my ribcage. She layered a bra made of leather over the fabric and tightened it until my breasts were sandwiched together.
I self-consciously tried to loosen the strip of brown leather binding my breasts. “Um. Do I have to wear that?”
“You could go without, but the fabric is transparent.”
My cheeks smoldered. Definitely not an option then. “Why can’t I wear clothes like yours?”
Veroli tutted. “Because you’re a caligosupra. If you were to wear a green tunic, you might be mistaken for a worker and I’d lose my job.” Her small fingers worked through my hair. “Cruz didn’t sleep here last night?” She shook out my tresses that settled in crimped waves over my shoulders.
“He had to return to Rowan,” I mumbled.
“I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
Did she think I was sad he’d left me? Not wanting to remind her of my strong dislike for her “child,” I asked, “Have you told anyone about what you saw last night?”
Silence.
Then, she said, “No.”
Relief warmed my core.
“Catori, can all hunters manipulate wita?”
“No.”
Veroli made me sit down, then proceeded to swipe her palms over my face. My skin warmed and tingled.
I snapped away from her. “What are you doing?”
“Removing your makeup to apply it fresh.”
“You’re burning it away?”
She nodded. “Quicker than water and oil.”
It might’ve been quicker, but it had to be more dangerous. What if she singed off my eyebrows and lashes?
She rested her palm on my shoulder. “I’m not looking to hurt you.”
“O-Okay.”
She went back to getting my face ready, and I let her. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t concerned, but I forced myself to sit still. When she declared me ready, I rose from the armchair.
I inspected my legs swathed in the billowy turquoise fabric tied with wide strips of leather around my thighs and calves. “The celebration is on the ground, right?”
“Right.”
“Don’t I need shoes then?”
“Caligosupra feet never touch the ground.”
“You forget I can’t fly.”
“I don’t forget anything.”
“Then—”
“Don’t you worry, you will be carried through the marketplace.”
“I don’t want to be carried.”
She gave me a strange, almost distressed look. “You won’t have a choice.”
I set my jaw and dropped that conversation. There was nothing Veroli could do about my way of transportation. “How long would it take me to walk down the spirals?”
“All the way down?”
I nodded.
“Half of an hour.”
I blinked. “That’s it?”
“That’s it? Oh. You’re thinking in human hours. I’m speaking in Neverrian hours.”
Right…
Her short forehead furrowed. “Close to three human hours, I would think.”
“Three hours?” I yelped.
She nodded. “Ace is working with some of our smarter brethren on building an elevator.” She enunciated each letter in the word. “Is that how your people say it?”
I nodded. Ace had touched upon that once. It had seemed odd to me that a world full of magic would need such a human contraption, but now I understood. “Do you walk up here every morning?”
“Oh, skies, no. My cousin drops me off on his way to work.”
“Your cousin?”
“He has a lot of faerie blood, so he landed the job of transporting those who can’t fly up to their places of work. He doesn’t deduct anything from my wages, though.” She beamed. “Dawson’s going to start training with him soon. He needs to get his license to wield runas first.”
“Runas?”
“They’re big baskets made of volitor fronds.”
I’d read about volitors last night. They were like palm trees, but unlike palms, they floated. “Do runas float?”
“Yes.”
“Has anyone ever thought of adding a motor to them to make them into air boats?”
Her brow creased further. “Boat?”
“You know, like the Titanic?”
Her gaze darted to my red fingernails. Then she cleared her throat and shook her head. “You should tell Ace. He’d like that idea.”
I didn’t think he’d like any of my ideas. Not after how rude I was to him last night.
Rising Silver Mist Page 21