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I want to say yes and bite down on the word before it escapes my lips. “Be serious.”
She lifts my hair, twists it. “I think a chignon will look good.Serious.”
I can’t be more serious than this. I’m dressed in the golden gown and I’m wearing a pair of golden earrings my father gifted me when I turned of age a few months ago. They are heavy, chunky, and grandmotherly.
They should do the job of making me look more like a woman.Right?
Why am I doubting myself now? I had decided not to worry about this, that I didn’t need to work at looking older just because Iason seemed to prefer it, and yet here I am. All in gold. All serious.
Truth is, seeing Adar… scared me, and not only because I almost drowned in the lake.
No, it was the things I felt when he’d held me. The worry that gripped me when I saw that wound again. The crushing sorrow when I thought of him dying.
And then the confusion and doubt. What am I supposed to do with a Fae? He’s not human. Not like us. He may seem nice but he’s wicked and powerful and…
And I shouldn’t feel that way about him.
Especially not while wearing Iason’s tokens once more, while I prepare to meet with him, convince him I am the one he should propose to, not that other princess.
While I tell myself it’s Iason I want.
Not Adar.
Not a merman.
Not a Fae.
Not someone cursed to die.
“You really are lost in thought today,” Lily mutters, patting my shoulders, her face beside mine in the round mirror. “What do you think?”
“Oh. It looks… nice,” I whisper, turning my head a little to look at the chignon.
“Nice?Nice? Maybe I should call for your handmaid to do it for you? This is a masterpiece. I’m the best chignon-maker in the land.”
Her indignation makes me laugh. “You are. It looks amazing.”
“That’s better.” She winks at me. “You need to work on your compliments.”
“Ah-huh.”
She clucks her tongue. “Look at you. So pretty. Such a bright future ahead of you. Don’t throw your fortune away. You’ll end up like Ash.”
“Our cousin?”
“Yes. Turned servant, helping in the kitchens, with no prospects. You don’t want that.”
“But it wasn’t Ash’s fault,” I mutter irritably. I used to like Ash before she vanished from the palace. I remember her when we were little, when she was still princess Elaine. “Not her fault that her mother had her with a Fae.”
“A half-Fae, just like a full-blooded Fae, is not a human,” Lily said firmly, “so don’t you feel pity for her. I’m only saying… if you’re not careful, you’ll lose it all.”
“Why are you saying that?” I turn around to face her. “I’m going to accept Iason’s proposal, given he proposes… and if he doesn’t, then there will be another prince. What’s with the gloom and doom?”
“Cousin…” She tucks a flyaway strand of hair behind my ear. “Are you sure there is no one else? I see the look in your eyes. I’m not blind. Where did you run off to yesterday? Are you cheating on Iason? Because if he finds out, he’ll destroy you.”
“Destroy me?” A cold shiver racks me but I brush it off. “He’s not like that.”
“He’s a prince. His reputation is on the line.”
