That big, internal dome rattles, like the ones beneath it popped off or shattered. I slather more light upon it and force myself to stare at the moon. Watch it rise in daunting increments. Focus on everything I must do and the steps I must take.
Simple. Empty.
Superficial.
A wild gust of wind whips past the curtains and glazes my skin, lifting the hairs on my arms like an electrical charge that seems to swathe me. As if leaning into it, my entire body sways—
A servant takes my arm, urging me to step into a garment puddled at my feet. The dress is lifted—a sheer, shimmery sheath that looks less hardy than tissue parchment … though I guess that’s the point.
Easy to shred.
Who needs proper clothes when all this night is really about is what’s between my legs?
Another thought that glides across the surface before I blow it away like the seeds of a dandelion.
They ease the gown over my painted breasts and settle it into place, its neckline cutting a straight line from one shoulder to the other. The back is low and draping, long sleeves the shape of bells. It’s opaque from the knees down, but through the rest I glimpse the scrawls of scripture tangled across my sun-kissed skin. The more intimate parts of my body are cleverly hidden beneath swirling trails of shimmering gauze.
Something I’m thankful for.
The servants who scrubbed me in the bathing chamber back away, heads bowed, their murmured words crawling across my skin like ants: “We serve as one. We serve as one. We serve as one—”
They exit through the door with the unfamiliar handmaiden, leaving only Izel, who caps the cosmetics on my vanity. Her motions are loud and disruptive now that the others have gone, snapping lids down and clanking things into place. “I’ll leave you to your pre-ceremonial prayers,” she says, glancing at me through the mirror, her expression guarded. Perhaps she’s pissed that I didn’t drink her poison tea or eat her poison cake. “I’ll be back with the fertility tonic.”
Her words hit like a punch to my dome as she turns on her heel and leaves.
All I can do is stare at the closed door, struggling to remember what it is I have to do. The next step I have to take.
Nobody said anything about afertilitytonic …
I shake off a full-body shudder, slather another layer of light upon my trembling dome, and snap into action—unlatching my necklace. My fake skin barely gets the chance to peel down before I loop the chain around my ankle twice and resecure the clasp, thankful the opaque hem of my gown conceals the contraband.
I uncap the lip lacquer, then open my vanity drawer, pull out my cloak, and retrieve the small vial I stashed behind it. My heart drops when I see the cork—no longer a tawny tone but stained black, soaked with the liquid it was meant to stopper.
Shit.
I cut a glance at the door behind me, then dig my hand into the drawer and grab the vial of leftover bane bush berries from Izel’s suspected assassination attempts. I tip them across the bench and pick the ripest ones, retrieve my pestle and mortar from the other drawer, sprinkle the tiny berries into the hollow with a few drops of water, and grind them into a slurry.
The liquid is thick and gray at first, before finally turning loose and dark as ink.
I lift the mortar and tip the liquid bane toward the pottle of red lip stain.
One drip.
Two—
Enough to kill a dinner party worth of people if it were dispersed within a jug of water.
I frown.
Maybe I’ll try to squeeze out a little more? Cainon’s half Unseelie, and I need to knock him out for a good long while. At the very least, I need him asleep until the High Septum cracks open our coupling chamber at sunrise, hunting for evidence of my freshly stripped virtue—or so I’ve been told.
Another drip.
Another—
The door clicks shut.
My attention snaps to the mirror before me. In it, I see Izel near the entrance, paused, a small bottle of grass-colored liquid in her hand. Her shrewd gaze shifts over the mortar. The berries sprinkled on the table. The pottle of red lip lacquer.
