Page 48 of Immortal Rose

“Lord Foxcourt had been told about me by an acquaintance in Northbrook—my village, that is. He wrote to me, and it was a miracle of the highest order the letter reached my hands before my father’s.”

Felicity stepped back, disguising the ripple of emotion on her face by pretending to study her work.

“My childhood was . . . quite peculiar, you see,” Felicity said, now forcing the brightness into her tone. “I saw glints and glimmers here and there, especially in the nearby woods. I heard little whispers in the leaves and faint songs carried on the wind. I adored them. I knew all the old stories, of course, but these were gentle beings. They were my friends.”

“The second sight,” I said, my shock turning to awe. So Felicity was fairyborn herself then, and possessed the ability to see magic in its truest form.

“Not exactly,” Felicity admitted, motioning for me to sit at the vanity. “It’s more that magic has no effect on me.”

Oh, that would account for her lack of essence. If she was invulnerable to magic, my own would be useless in reading her. Perhaps it was the same for Foxcourt? It was an easier explanation to swallow than him being a changeling.

“That’s remarkable,” I told her. One heard murmurings of fairy sightings, especially in Albion’s ancient forests, but they had always seemed just as likely to be tales to sell papers. Having grown up in colorless, overcrowded streets, I was beyond envious of that touch of whimsy in her childhood.

Felicity nodded, though she didn’t seem as convinced. “They were nothing like those cold, trickster fairies, you see. They were little greenlings who tended to the forest. I felt so very sorry for them, dreaming up a succession of more tragic twists of how they had been left behind by the other fairykind.”

I smiled. She had a soft heart, one this city hadn’t yet hardened.

“I didn’t understand I was seeing through their glamours and that no one else could,” Felicity continued, picking up a silver hairbrush. “I learned rather quickly not to speak of it, especially once I realized I could sense which villagers had fairy relics and even fairy blood, as I can feel it in you. My father was a religious man, and he . . . well, it was all devilry to him. Not fairies, but demons. He tried everything to save my soul. Prayer . . . the rod.”

A terrible image of suffering formed in the silence, the stillness of her hands. My heart ached.

“It is a story with a happy ending, I promise. Lord Foxcourt knew what I was and had use for me,” Felicity said, seeming to reclaim some of her usual brightness.

More use for her than a lady’s maid? I bit my tongue, letting her finish.

“And so, a farmer’s daughter fled on a mail coach in the dead of night and found herself in Linden for the first time.” Felicity smiled again. “I tell you all of this not for your sympathy, though it’s appreciated, but to encourage you to think about your situation differently.”

“How so?” I asked.

“We can choose to be anyone we wish to be,” Felicity said. “At first it may seem as though we are playing a character, but with enough time, we become it. We will that character into being, and in that way, we write our own narrative. The past is only a backstory, unless you allow it to wield the quill.”

My hands folded together in my lap as she brushed through my curls. If only it were as easy as she said; in the world I would be entering, the past was everything. Lineage was destiny. It was the source of all privilege, wealth, and power that mattered.

But . . . I could try. What did the opinion of the Patricians matter to me, when I had so little respect for them? I would never be one of them, no, but I would never wish to be. They had bought their bespoke magic scents from William Rosebourne, and if they wished for more, they would have to come to me. And I would choose who received a bottle.

Mama had told me once that a true lady was marked not by her finery, but by her courage and kind heart. If I couldn’t have the former, I could at least cling to the latter. They had been my constant companions these last twenty-five years.

“I’m glad that you’re here,” I told her, meeting her gaze in the mirror, “and that you’re safe.”

“I’m very fortunate to have a new life here,” Felicity said, “and I’m grateful the earl cares about our well-being—what, you don’t agree?”

Apparently, I hadn’t hidden my disdain as well as I’d hoped. “I’m relieved to hear that he isn’t a beast to everyone he encounters.”

Felicity’s brow creased. “Forcing you to accompany him last night was rather uncalled for, especially after your ordeal—”

“An ordeal of his making,” I muttered.

She had started to lift the brush to my hair, but at that, she lowered it again. “What do you mean?”

The scaly bastard. He really hadn’t told them. “He was the one who arrested me and sent me to Fairgate in the first place. You really didn’t know?”

Felicity’s lips parted, her gaze drifting from the silvered glass, drawn astray by the dark story playing out in her mind. She drew in a breath and held it for a long moment. I should have kept my mouth shut—seeing the surprise and hurt in her expression made me regret the impulse.

“No,” Felicity said as she brought the brush to my hair. “No, I didn’t know that.”

Within minutes, Felicity had my hair brushed into a gleaming curtain and twisted into place. She attacked the heavy mass of it with more hairpins than I had ever seen in my life. The simple ritual seemed to steady us both, and soon, the brightness had returned to Felicity’s face.

“I’ve never seen hair this shade,” Felicity marveled as she mastered the uncooperative curls. “Strawberry blond with threads of white gold.”