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Celine snapped her fingers at me. “I like that better. We’ll keep that way of thinking.”
“I can dress myself,” I said.
“I should hope so. I’m not doing up your damn corset. I’m just here to assist. Whatever that means.”
She jerked her chin toward me, and the three women shuffled forward.
Until the next clock bell chimed, I was prodded and stripped, my hair was brushed and braided, then smoothed again when it didn’t sit right. More than once, I laughed. The three servants were flustered, and it was clear they’d never truly had a lady to dress in the palace.
By the end, I’d taken over my hair, leaving most of it down in waves half braided into an intricate knot Mira’s mother had taught me as a girl.
The stacks of fabric weren’t only for me. Celine took the liberty of dressing herself in the king’s room, and I hid my grin more than once as she’d muttered that it served him right to have her underthings strewn about since he kept demoting her to nursemaid for his captive.
When she emerged from the washroom, I didn’t hide the smile. “You look beautiful, Celine.”
Her mouth tugged into a grimace. “I’m not going. The crew’ll never let me live this down.”
“You’re going.” The iridescent skirt of the gown I’d been shoved inside rustled around my legs with each step across the room. It was a little big on the top, but a few pins kept it from spilling down my chest. “I always prepare for balls and feasts with my friend. She isn’t here, but I am, and you are, and we breasts must stick together.”
Her mouth parted and released a laugh that turned into a strange kind of chortle. “You’re odd, earth fae, but not wrong. Soon enough, you’ll learn that some of the upper nobles in the Ever see women as bodies meant for heirs, nothing else.”
“Truly?”
“The House of Mists is where females hold the most power. Witches and sirens. The men have voices of the sea, to be sure, but not as powerful as the women. Even still, voices are often overruled or stripped away.” Celine smoothed the velvet of her full crimson skirt. “You see the claiming as a terrible thing, but in truth, to have the king’s protection is likely the only way you will survive. An enemy female in the Ever?”
Celine didn’t finish the thought, merely arched her brows and shook her head.
Voices in Erik’s ear told him to be a wretch toward the women of his realm? I couldn’t understand it. Queens had been fated to win the peace of my land, and they’d done it, kings by their sides, not at the lead.
The Ever King took a woman from her home. A cruel, vindictive act, yet he’d never put a hand on me. He’d never forced himself on me. Quite the opposite—he’d given me a sleeping drought when lust was unbearable and sent one of his boneweavers to tend to me. Erik had a woman on his crew, and not merely as a common crew member. Clearly, Celine was part of his inner circle.
I linked my arm through Celine’s elbow. “Shall we go then?”
“What are you doing?” As though my arm might reach out and strike, Celine waggled her fingers over the place we touched.
“Sticking together.”
Like the three servants, she looked at me as though I’d grown a second head, but one that she liked.
CHAPTER32
The Songbird
Iclung to Celine’s arm like I’d clung to Mira. Truth be told, she held to me much the same. A wash of fright filled her bright eyes when we reached two wide doors.
The clatter of silver on fine platters, rolls of voices in low tones, and a few brisk laughs flowed into our corridor like an ebbing tide.
Celine swallowed with effort. “Don’t you go anywhere without me or the king, understand?”
“What frightens you about your own people?”
Celine blinked, a shimmer of wet glass coated her eyes. “I’ve never . . . agreed to attend a return feast.”
“Why?”
“Reasons.” She blew out a long breath. “King asks me every time but lets me refuse. Aboard the ship is one thing. There, I’m a blade. I’m of use. Here, I’m a weak thing who slept her way into the king’s good graces.”
My stomach cinched. It didn’t matter who Erik Bloodsinger bedded, but he was set to claim me. If Celine held a place for him in her heart, I did not wish this to hurt her. Against my best efforts, I liked her.
