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The last time I’d heard that voice, it was raised in screeching rage. I snap my head up in time to see the blonde fae from the market—the one who’d punished Clara so vilely. The one who’d caused her death, even if she hadn’t killed her directly.
She’s with her friends, all dressed as extravagantly as her, in velvet tunics and silk gowns so richly finished that their collective wardrobe must’ve taken twenty tailors and dressmakers months to create. Of course, she looks utterly at ease, her life a series of minor inconveniences punctuated by the suffering she wreaks on others.
Anger burns within me as fresh as that day at the market, and it feels like my gaze should be able to burn a hole straight through her. As if she senses it, her eyes move to meet mine.
“What are you looking at, human?” She stops, her friends slowing as well, exchanging puzzled looks.
“What’s wrong, Galaphina?” one of them asks.
The blonde steps towards me, haughty irritation written on her face.
“This dirty little louse, look at how she’s watching me.” She speaks about me as if I can’t understand what she’s saying, but I can tell that she’s confused as much as insulted. She doesn’t understand why someone like me would dare look at her in such a way, and that lack of understanding perplexes her.
“So she is,” says one of Galaphina’s companions, a man with thin eyebrows and even thinner lips. His nose is turned up into a point that’s rather too severe to be truly beautiful, and he curls his lips into a sneer, seeming torn between whether to be amused or disgusted by my behavior.
I cannot help myself. I know the stupidity of provoking the fae…but the image of Clara lying withered and broken on the meadow grass flashes before me, and I can’t tame the hate in my eyes any more than I can stop my own heart beating. As it happens, it’s beating fast, my instincts telling me that I’ve probably invited more trouble here than I can handle.
“What are you playing at, human?” asks a freckled redhead, her voice shrill. “Who do you belong to? Hmm?”
“I think she might be a bit slow, Hortense,” says Thin-lips when I don’t immediately answer.
Every instinct I have is blaring warning signs, but it’s too late to back down now. I sense these fae are already too insulted to let me go without punishment, and I figure that if the damage is done, then this evil woman might as well know why. I open my mouth.
“Have you found someone else to make your cloaks, Galaphina?”
Hortense actually gasps when I don’t address her as “my lady,” the typical way we’re expected to speak to fae at the market.
“Someone else who you can trick and destroy?” I continue, my words spilling out before I know what they’ll be, getting louder and louder. “Someone else you can ruin on a whim for your pathetic little parties?”
The slap comes too fast for me to see. I feel just the brush of air across my cheek, then I’m on the floor, the side of my face throbbing so intensely I think for a moment that I’m losing my vision.
There’s a moment of silence, then Thin-lips laughs, long and hard. What’s terrifying is it’s genuine—he’s actually tickled by the series of events.
“My goodness, Galaphina, what a knack you have for pissing people off. She hates your guts!” He descends into laughter again, and I lift my aching head to see him wipe tears of mirth from his eyes as Galaphina wipes her hand on her skirts, disgusted by touching me.
“It’s ridiculous, is what it is,” Hortense says, straightening her dress primly. “Scarcely have I heard the like from a human.”
“She’s feral,” Galaphina says, looking down at me. “Insane over some crook of a seamstress I took issue with the other day.”
“Her name was Clara!” I shout. I know I’m tying my own noose here, but it feels too important. She should at least know the name of the woman she left dead and bloody in the mud.
“What are you going to do with her, Galaphina?” Thin-lips looks excited. “Something good I hope.”
Galaphina looks thoughtful, sweeping her long hair over her shoulder in what I realize is a practiced gesture. “She doesn’t like our ‘pathetic little parties,’ so I suggest we take her to one, and show her just how much fun they can be.”
I try to scramble to my feet. Maybe I can lose them in the endless halls of this place. But she’s too quick.
“Will you do the honors, Vanis?”
Thin-lips has his fingers around my arm in an instant, strong as a vise.
They march me through the palace at a rapid pace, eager to get on with whatever they have in mind for me. I don’t try to fight Vanis. Galaphina’s slap was enough to tell me I’m no physical match for them. The High Fae might look dainty and delicate, yet they’re anything but.
I redirect my thoughts to try to hold my fear at bay. I’m beginning to think the dwellings I saw from the window of my tower room aren’t grand enough for the likes of the High Fae. Perhaps they’re where some of the Low Fae live. As I’m dragged across a plaza with balconies stretching up on either side, I wonder where the palace ends and the rest of “court”” begins. It seems to be an entire neighborhood rather than a single building, the grand courtyards and private rooms stretching on for miles. I think about Fiona saying her mistress lived nearby. By the looks of the High Fae we cross paths with, they are very much at home here in the palace. We pass one draped across a pile of cushions in a window seat, apparently napping, and a group of youths picnicking by a pond. They eye us as we move by, but their gazes don’t linger long. I wonder if anything seems interesting after an eternity of lounging about enjoying delicious foods and balmy weather.
Vanis forces me up some steep steps which the ladies navigate with ease even in their trailing gowns. We come up into a walled garden, but I note we must be a few levels up, as the air is cooler here. I can hear the sound of music, growing louder the closer we get.
I’m almost too distracted to take in the gathered fae milling about with glasses in hand. The music is too beautiful, the melody drifting over me like an embrace. The sound is coming from a quartet of Low Fae over in one corner, their bows sweeping across the strings of their instruments with an impossible ease for the piercing emotion of the music coming from them. I have the sudden urge to cry and think there must be magic in their playing, magic they probably also used to purchase the talents of human musicians, so they can bask in the stolen beauty of our melodies.
