Internally, I wince.
I’ve grown somewhat comfortable in this long, simple skirt with an equally simple shirt tucked into the waistband. It’s a far stretch from my preferred shirt and pants, but it’s better than her dazzling, primped, and fluffed proposal.
“Neither. I’ll just wear a cloak over what I’m wearing.”
Her eyes nearly bug out of her head. “Absolutely not! I’m under strict instructions to pamper you. And that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
“Instructions from … Cainon?” I ask, trying to get a gauge on where her loyalties lie. How closely bound she is to the man who seems intent ononlyletting me see the city from the back of a carriage today.
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, I lied. I just want to dress you up. You have so many pretty dresses, and I’ve never had a sister. Humor me,” she pleads, extending a garment in my direction.
I chew the inside of my mouth.
Unfortunately for me, stamping down her excitement is no means to weasel my way into ditching the carriage.
“Fine,” I mutter, taking the dress.
She squeals and claps her hands as I stalk into my suite.
Glancing over my shoulder to see her looking out upon the city, I snatch my dagger off the bed and ease my vanity drawer open, pulling out a strip of material I tore off the end of my bedsheet this morning. Moving into the bathing chamber, I top up the water in my propagation jars stashed along the windowsill, then undress, strapping the blade to the outside of my upper thigh with the length of material. Another quietfuck youto Rhordyn and his unwanted gift that I can’t bring myself to toss away.
I step into the dress, pull it up, and fumble with the unfamiliar clutches down the back, twisting and turning to see in the mirror. After a few minutes of me muttering curses, Gael knocks on the door.
“Need help?”
I gladly accept, trying not to fidget as she pushes my hair to the side and buttons the many eyes and loops that line the length of my spine.
“So … I heard the Ocruth High Master kept you locked in a tower, and that he feeds his people to the Vruk.”
I choke on my breath. “You’re—”
“Dazzling? Charismatic? Impeccably styled?”
“A straight shooter.”
She shrugs. “You have to be to survive the tiers of our society.”
A few more buttons, and the dress gets tighter, clinging to my curves in that way I hate.
“He offered me refuge,” I finally say. “And as far as I’m aware, he doesnotfeed his people to the Vruks. Though I could be wrong.”
“So you lived there all these years but you barely know him?”
Something inside me arches up.
Is she trying to get information out of me? Perhaps she’s been commissioned to report back to Cainon …
I shake my head. “I barely saw him until I came of age. Then he began trying to shove me out the door. And here I am,” I say, flashing her a hollow smile. “Successfully shoved.”
She scrunches her nose—a look that suggests that’s nowhere near as juicy as she thought it was going to be. “Well, it looks like you landed on your feet.”
I drop my gaze, heavy with the knowledge that I’m not on my feet at all—that I’m floating in an angry ocean, powerless to the push of the storm that won’t stop lashing at me. That I drowned that day in Puddles, and every breath I’ve pulled since has failed to drag me back to the world of the living.
That every day I fail to pull myself out of The Bowl, my heart and soul decompose just a little bit more.
“Yes, I’m very lucky.”
Fastening the final loop, she scoops my hair into her hand and drags a wide-tooth comb through the wet length.
