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“Come to think of it, he said you might bebusy.” Chloé waggles her eyebrows suggestively.
“Remind me to have him flogged.” Remy’s words are met with a round of chuckles before he continues. “But, yes, Chlo, we are busy, so if you don’t mind…” He tries to shut the door, but Margot sticks out a hand to stop him.
She holds the door open while her sisters file into the room, then promptly follows them.
“You’ve kept her from us long enough. It’s time we get to spend some quality time with our new sister,” Gisele says as the door swings shut.
My mind snags on her use ofsister. Such a loaded word, full of so many different meanings depending on who you are. Mother did her best to keep my sisters and me from getting too close, always chipping away at our bond or pitting us against one another.
Then again, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have them at all.
Darkness creeps in around the edges of my thoughts as I consider that if it weren’t for Madame, Zaina would be with her real family and siblings and the word would mean something else to her entirely.
Maybe it would represent something more like this—like what Remy and his sisters have.
“Besides,” Chloé adds a moment later. “We need to prepare her for tea tomorrow. You know how Maman can be.”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s always been her favorite. You know her preciousFrancycan do no wrong.” This time it’s Margot who speaks up, giving him a haughty glare.
I choke on a laugh, eyeing him for confirmation of what I suspect was his childhood nickname from his mother. His pink cheeks and blatant refusal to look in my direction say more than words would.
“Plus, we wanted to see the monkey,” Gisele practically squeals from the other side of the room.
Remy and I whip around to face her. All thoughts of the little guy went out the window in the moments after I sent him to the balcony, but he is excitedly bouncing up and down in front of Remy’s youngest sister now.
“Don’t worry, we didn’t tell Maman,” Margot adds, taking several steps forward to stand with Gisele. “Is he really as awful as they said he was?”
“Yes,” Remy says at the exact same time that I say, “No.”
He rolls his eyes then. “Yes, he is a pain in my arse and completely useless, but the damned thing seems to have imprinted itself onto Aika…”
The monkey chitters in irritation as if he understood Remy’s words, and the girls laugh. They look to me for confirmation of our bond, and I shrug, moving closer to the monkey.
I’m still over a foot away when he leaps toward me, latching onto my gown before climbing up to hide beneath my long hair.
“He’s much too tiny and adorable to be any real sort of terror,” Gisele says, smiling at us.
Chloé arches a brow. “Speaking of tiny, adorable terrors… Did you really set fire to all of those people?”
I suppose it’s fair that she refers to me as tiny when she and her sisters tower over me by several inches with their perfectly reasonable heights—well over my even five feet.
“Chloé!” Remy throws his head back in exasperation.
“What?” She widens her eyes in a show of innocence. “There’s no judgment here, and I’ve been dying to ask her since the ball! Besides,” she adds, turning to me, “They were all pretty bloody terrible people. You’d be a hero if it were true.”
“We are not doing this,” Remy says. “We are not arguing the merits of vigilante violence—”
“She didn’t answer the question, though,” Margot interrupts, her imperious, perfect brow raised in an expression eerily reminiscent of Zaina’s.
“We know you kicked the bloody hell out of the guards at least, which is already impressive by itself,” Chloé points out, still grinning. “Did you learn that during your time on the streets?”
One of my eyebrows slips up of its own accord. Was she the one who fetched him from the tavern that day?
No. Her hair is the exact same light brown shade as Remy’s, and that girl had been blonde. When my eyes land on Gisele’s pale tresses, she gives me a secretive smile, like she knows exactly what conclusion I just reached.
No wonder Madame said she didn’t need me as The Flame once I was in the palace. She probably knows what I hadn’t considered until now, that the royal family, or at least the princesses, are a veritable gold mine of information.
“I thought you said this was to prepare her for tea, not that it was going to be an interrogation,” Remy says, crossing his arms.
