She was impossibly tall and slender. She had the kind of form you’d expect to grace the fashion magazines of Milan: light olive-toned skin, dark and sensual almond eyes, and lips the color of pomegranates.
Saga swallowed, hard. “Hello.”
The model-like creature deigned to take notice of her. “Appointment or walk-in?” Even her voice was beautiful. It had its own melody that caressed any lucky enough to hear it.
“Walk-in,” Saga murmured, feeling incredibly self-conscious about her own voice. Was it too harsh? Was her accent not posh enough?
“Your name?”
“Saga Trygg.” She’d always liked her name, yet speaking it now to this person made her feel like she’d tracked mud onto the pristine marble floor.
The receptionist leaned forward over the desk toward Saga, those dark eyes taking her in. It made her feel all at once at ease, and yet at the same time, incredibly vulnerable and naked.
Saga self-consciously raised a hand to cross over her chest as if to cover herself, but she dared not look away from those mesmerizing eyes. Not just dark, but the color of chicory and umber. And the deeper she stared, the more she felt she might fall into those eyes. Her heart fluttered, and despite never faltering in her gaze, she became more aware of those perfect pomegranate lips. She wanted to kiss them. The thought was so strong, so abrupt, it was intrusive. The more she tried to push it away, the more insistent it was. How sweet and intoxicating this woman’s lips might be. How if she could only—
The receptionist broke her stare to look to Avery questioningly.
“I’m with her,” Saga heard Avery’s voice as the world came back into sharp and unpleasant focus. “Emotional support.”
Satisfied with this answer, the woman sat back in her chair and begantyping away at her keyboard. “You may have a seat. I’ll escort you to Mistress Iona’s office when she’s ready for you.”
Saga took a few unsteady steps backward, looking at Avery with a disoriented blink. Somehow the warm lighting felt paler and brighter as if she were fighting off the last vestiges of a hangover.
Avery took her by the arm and led her to sit on a rich burgundy chaise. She knelt before her and guided Saga’s hand with her own. “Here, touch the fabric, it will help ground you.”
Saga idly let her fingers slide over the tufted velvet. “It was like she was staring directly into my soul,” she murmured.
Avery winced noticeably. “About that… I should probably warn you. The women who work here—Iona… They’re sometimes known as ieles.”42
Saga wasn’t familiar with the word, but itsoundedimportant, and so she forced herself to focus on Avery. “What’s an iele?”
“Well, you might also know them as the Furies or the Eumenides… They’re a kind of fey that feeds on revenge, setting the scales of justice right again. As such, they have the ability to see…yourplaceon those scales. It can leave you a bit addled.”
Saga’s mind lazily circled around comprehending what she was being told, but didn’t land just yet. “My place on the scales…”
“Which is why it was imperative you come with me.”
Realization dawned and the fog cleared from Saga’s mind. “You said I wouldn’t have to say anything!” she hissed.
“And you don’t,” said Avery.
“Because they can see it on their own?!”
“Thus keeping my promise.”
Saga stared. There was no smugness to Avery’s tone, no trace of impishtrickery, yet there was something so perfectlyfeyabout that moment. Fooled by keeping to the letter of a promise, but not the spirit. Countless fairy tales hinged on this very principle, and yet she had fallen for it without a second thought. She clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth, and the words that seethed out of her were somewhere between impressed and furious. “Ooooh, you are in such shit when we get out of here, Sleeping Beauty.”
Irritation toward the nickname flashed across Avery’s features, her tongue running along the points of her fangs, before it melted into a lazy smile. She leaned forward, her voice low. “You think I’m beautiful?”
There was no real proper prevention for emotional whiplash, and so Saga felt the world drop from under her. No longer able to hold to the foundation of frustration, she felt her mind flail outward.No. No, do not admit to that. Do not admit toanything, least of all attraction to the dangerously handsome changeling.Horror set in as she remembered only a day before she hadalreadyadmitted to it. Blatantly. At a loss for words, she scoffed and sat back. Every moment she tried to produce any sort of proper retort, it sputtered into an impotent puff of air until at last managing, “Don’t change the subject.”
The receptionist raised a hand to her earpiece and stood. She cleared her throat to get the attention of the two women. “Mistress Iona will see you now. Follow me please.” Her heels made precise percussive sounds against the floor, leading them up a small set of stairs and around the marble partition toward the offices.
On either side of the corridor was a series of more sleek black doors, decorated with rose-gold lines. They continued past these smaller offices to double doors at the end of the hall.
The receptionist placed her hands on either door and pushed them open in a grand gesture. She winked at Saga before gracefully sweeping to the side to allow her and Avery to enter.
A plush burgundy rug was centered on the marble floor of the large office. Light poured in from the large windows that lined three walls of the room. In the right corner, the space had been curated into a typicalsetup with chairs around a desk, whereas the left had been organized into a more intimate sitting arrangement. Lush greenery flourished from brushed copper planters, crystal dangled from chandeliers, and paintings hung from the wall with such grand framing and attention to their careful lighting, Saga had to wonder if they might all be originals rather than prints or replicas.
