As for one of us ending up here?
The Seelie have made it clear how they feel about the monsters across the canyon.
Still, I find my feet carrying me toward that alley, telling myself that I only want to ensure their safety. After all, if either of them meets a terrible fate between here and where they are living, we will be to blame.
“You are in charge,” I tell Maddox.
Gryff casts a wary glance over his shoulder. “Ever?”
I will take shit for this later, but I am too far gone to respond, jogging into the alley where the most enticing scent lingers. I have never been one for sweets, but the perfume clinging to the air makes my tongue tingle and nostrils flare. I track the scent to a row of modest cottages southwest of the city, across from a stretch of farmland overflowing with grazing cattle.
For some reason, knowing the female does not live in one of the monstrosities up the hill makes me impossibly happy.
Keeping to the shadows, I catch a flash of lilac from a circular window on the second floor.
Kerris Dawn stands in the center, like a portrait in a frame, the sun playing on hair so long, it appears endless.
Unseelie females keep their hair short so that it cannot catch if they need to flee for their lives. Not that this female has such worries, living in a place where sheep and cattle laze in swaying grass, not so much as a thought spared for wolves or other predators.
She turns her head and says something I cannot hear before walking out of view.
Somehow, I manage to leave that gate, but whatever spell she has cast over me lingers all the way back to the well where Maddox and Griffin are loading the last of the jugs. Although they do not speak, the curious looks in their eyes say it all.
They are searching for an explanation.
If only I had one.
9
“A good shoulder should never be covered.”
Nia Quill, An Observation
My reflection blinks back at me as I stare at myself in the mirror. The bedroom I’ve been given is like its own greenhouse, with ferns and ivy flowing like waterfalls from their pots affixed to the white-washed stones. Behind me, Nia hums off-key and without any recognizable tune as she finishes my hair.
She plaited the heavy strands into an intricate braid, weaving in a few of the ribbons she’s so fond of. With her help, it didn’t take hours to comb.
Nia sticks in another pin to keep the braid in place, scraping my scalp and earning yet another hiss from me. She might be a sorceress with my hair, but she’s also a bit of a sadist with the bloomin’ pins.
“Are you sure you want to cut it?” she asks. “I would kill for this length.”
“It’s impossible to manage on my own,” I grit through a wince, my poor skull pulsing.
The corners of her lips lift. “If you marry Ronan, you won’t be on your own.”
True. A princess would have a whole bevy of servants at her beck and call, which sounds wonderful in theory. But I enjoy baking and mending—and even cleaning, on occasion. If there are maids and servants to complete all those tasks, what wouldIdo all day?
If our forbidden excursion into the city yesterday tells me anything, it’s that I am no good at sitting around.
I offer a non-committal “We’ll see,” to avoid hearing yet another monologue on the merits of being a princess.
There’s no point dreaming of crowns and thrones when Ronan is bound to come to his senses and set his sights on someone more suitable, like a wealthy heiress or a foreign princess who already knows how to be royalty.
“What are your plans for the day?” I ask.
“I’m meeting Nolan for tea.”
“Is that a euphemism?”