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Ciara shot a glare at Fiona. “We’re Lach’s sisters.”
That confirmation transformed her before my very eyes. The dress she wore, while simple, was elegant…expensive. The bracelet that hadn’t been noticeable before now glittered in the light, showcasing its large diamonds. And Fiona herself, still lovely and cold, now radiated a regal beauty. Something clicked into place. “You wore a glamour.”
“At least she’s a quick learner,” she said not to me but to her sister. “Maybe she’ll live longer than usual.”
I didn’t dare ask what she meant by that. Not when I was smart enough to deduce the truth: I wasn’t the first woman to find herself trapped in the Otherworld. I added the info to my list of reasons I needed to kill Gage.
But now I’d met both of his sisters. That complicated my escape plan.
I couldn’t dwell on it. There were fates worse than death, and what Fiona had said about the prince from the other court… Even if I didn’t escape, I would rather die than endure that.
“You should go,” Ciara said, causing Fiona’s eyes to roll.
Fiona glided toward the door, tossing out a sarcastic “you’re welcome” at me.
“I hope she didn’t scare you,” Ciara said, looping her arm through mine. “She can be a bit of a bitch, but she’s all bark and no bite.”
As if there was a need to scare me. As if Fiona hadn’t made me into a beautiful butterfly just to prove how trapped I was.
I focused on the annoyance I felt to keep my fear from showing. “It was fine. Informative.” I gawked at where Ciara was clutching my arm, unsure what to make of her. At least she was friendlier than her sister. The two were like opposite ends of the spectrum. “Your brother couldn’t be bothered to drag me to this himself?”
I looked around the corridor for signs of a guard but found only shadows. A moan so soft I might have imagined it drifted through the air, and I stepped closer to her.
“He’s taking care of something,” she said brightly as we started down the hall.
“Something or someone?” Ciara might act like a ray of sunshine, but she was still a Gage.
“Our reputation precedes us.” She sighed heavily but didn’t release her grip on me. “Let me guess—you’ve been warned about the Gages your whole life.”
I nodded. Even the crowd I’d run with as a teen had steered clear of them.
“And that kept you away, right? You didn’t come to Waverly Avenue? You didn’t publicly criticize our family for fear of us retaliating or—even more terrifying—of one day needing a favor from us?”
Another nod, even if admitting to the last bit stung.
“That’s the point.” Another big smile. “It’s part of the whole glamour, so no one looks too closely.”
But I had seen the truth firsthand. Maybe Ciara Gage stayed in her own perfect bubble, maybe she could avoid the reality of who and what they were, but I couldn’t. “So you don’t run the city and kill anyone who gets out of line?”
She glanced over at me, her mouth sliding into a frown. “I didn’t say that.”
“Why bother with New Orleans when you have this place?”
“Fae are territorial,” she explained. “We don’t like other creatures.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “What creatures are there besides fae?”
“Vampires—”
“Vampires?” I gaped at her. “Vampires are real?”
“Yes, and werewolves, gods, nymphs, witches, sirens. Basically, anything you believed was from a storybook is actually real.”
My head spun. If fae were real, why couldn’t there be other magical creatures? Something about the realization made me feel very small, as though my place in the world had shrunk from its already negligible space.
“But why not just stay in your world?”
Why bother ruining mine?