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CHAPTER ONE
Asingle drop of scarlet blood welled against my pale skin, threatening to stain the pristine fabric. With a hiss, I withdrew my finger before I could ruin my dress and set my needle aside. Besides, there was no more time to fuss over the gown, and it was finished. Even if I wished I could spend the rest of the night adding delicate details like lace or tiny bits of embroidery—anything that could keep me confined to the relative safety of my room and away from the oppressive atmosphere of tonight’s town ball.
Kate was already there, her face an expressionless mask as she offered me a handkerchief. Though my maid had learned to school herself, I could sense the judgment emanating from her, as heavy as the dark clouds painting the evening sky outside my bedroom window. I was used to her coldness, but tonight, my nerves were frayed, and it grated on me.
Cringing, I pressed the kerchief to my finger, waiting for the bleeding to stop, and succumbed to letting Kate begin preparing me.
“Your brother has enough for you to pay a seamstress to make your gowns,” Kate muttered at last, tugging harder than necessary on the laces of my stays.
In my heart, I knew I should rebuke her. There was nothing unladylike about making one’s own dresses, and it wasn’t a servant’s place to give her opinion on my brother’s wealth or myhobbies. But my tongue remained frozen, stuck to the roof of my mouth as she tugged me into my petticoats and finally my dress.
As I studied my reflection in the mirror, taking in the soft lavender fabric I’d spent so many hours carefully stitching together, pride warmed my heart. It offered the barest relief from Kate’s icy looks and the unwelcome howling of the early December winds outside.
When I settled into the chair before my vanity so Kate could start on my hair, she paused, her permanent scowl deepening. Her eyes flicked disdainfully toward the long locks cascading down my shoulders, gleaming bright silver in the flickering candlelight. “Perhaps you should cover it for once.”
Instead of answering, I looked down, silently fidgeting with the folds of my skirt until Kate sighed and got to work, barely trying to repress her grimace as her fingers brushed through my hair. As if touching it would harm her in some way.
Shame and hopelessness smothered my earlier pride. My brother Charles and his friends had been gossiping about me more than ever. I suspected it had much to do with the fact that Charles was hoping to make a match with Louisa Eggerton, a woman whose beauty was fine, no doubt, but whose father’s fortune and influence in our town had a far greater pull on every eligible young man’s heart. The more he distanced himself and made cutting remarks about me, the more the townspeople warmed toward him.
While the wind continued to howl and the clouds smothered the dying sun, threatening either icy rain or snow, I concentrated on ignoring Kate and her disapproving looks and erecting an imaginary world to escape into. One where Charles remained my affectionate younger brother, where my stepfather was still alive, and where I could dream of a peaceful existence. A gentleman falling in love with me and taking me to a comfortable house, somewhere in the countryside away fromtown gossip and superstition, somewhere I could stitch dresses to my heart’s content and know peace and love and security. Somewhere I was wanted, not tolerated or scorned.
The illusion shattered as Kate finished, and not a moment too soon. Persistent knocking sounded on my door, jolting me from my chair. While Kate crossed my bedroom to open the door, I shoved my feet into my slippers and seized my jacket from where I’d laid it across my bed.
“The carriage is ready,” Charles said impatiently from where he hovered in the doorway. His eyes were the same rich brown as mine, but when they locked on me, there was nothing but hostility in them. “Don’t make us late.”
My heart ached, remembering all the times we used to laugh together. Back then, he’d let me mend tears in his clothes and had appreciated my skill the same way Father had. He’d enjoyed games of chess with me and evenings reading together by the fire.
Now, the only remaining member of my family was a stranger. He cared only for the approval of the town, for gaining their favor now that he ran Father’s house, and for marrying well.
“I’m ready,” I said softly, stepping toward the door.
My half-brother’s eyes landed on my hands, taking in the callouses adorning them. “Put on some gloves.”
I seized a pair from my vanity. As I trailed him along the hall, down the steps, and toward our front entryway, I dared to ask the question that had pestered me all evening and every other event Charles had forced me to attend with him. “Why not spare yourself embarrassment and permit me to stay home? It’s not as if anyone will want to dance with me. I can sit alone at home just as well as at the ball.”
When we approached the door, I buttoned my jacket and braced for the night’s chill wind. As soon as we stepped outside,its fingers raked along my cheeks and toyed with my hair, pulling unruly strands free to frame my face.
Silence hovered between my half-brother and me as the coachman handed me in and Charles followed after. But as soon as the door shut, I turned to him expectantly.
A muscle ticked in Charles’s jaw, and for a moment, I imagined I saw a shadow of regret in his eyes. But it was gone too fast. Perhaps my memories with him were a dream, some strange farce, and this was the true Charles. Not the laughing, teasing one I remembered, who’d looked up to me fondly. “As your guardian and provider,” he said stiffly, staring out the window rather than meeting my gaze, “it is my responsibility to assure you want for nothing.”
“And I don’t,” I said. Though my allowance was pitiful, Charles had never withheld anything from me. He’d let me keep my old room, clothes, and maid. I had everything I could ever need or dream of—except what I desperately longed for most. Love. Peace. Family. “A ball is not a need, Charlie.”
At the sound of his name, Charles cast me a sidelong glance. The carriage rolled forward, horse hooves clopping along dirt and wheels creaking over holes and pebbles as we wound toward the town hall. “You’re out in society, and a proper lady. Not a recluse. Perhaps if you made an effort to cover your hair andtryto be normal—”
“I am as human as you,” I interrupted, my voice trembling around the lump in my throat. My vision swam, and I glanced away, staring out the window at the passing houses, the scattered leaves tearing across the road, the looming clouds blotting out the last of the evening light. “And Father loved my hair. He said it was beautiful and unique and nothing to be ashamed of. Certainly nothing tofear.”
“It’s a sign of fae blood,” Charles snapped. “And you can’t tell the citizens of Altidvale not to be afraid of the fae, notwhen we’ve all heard the stories and the warnings. You’ve lived through the winter solstices with the rest of us. You’ve seen them—with all manner of strange colors of skin and hair and eyes—dancing and cavorting. The violence. The bloodshed. The horrors.”
I ground my teeth.And that’s why you, of all people, should know I’m not like them.But I let the argument die. Charles’s distance was hard enough to bear. I wasn’t sure I could withstand a full-fledged fight if I dug in my heels and tried to counter all his wild theories. According to him, my fae blood meant that eventually, I would crumple to their allure. Maybe I’d leave the safety of our home one winter solstice night—the only night the creatures of Silverfrost, the nearest fae kingdom—were allowed to freely roam our town. Maybe I’d conjure magic, wild and unpredictable and violent.
In his mind, fae were untamable, and that meant I was destined to follow in their ways no matter what I thought or how human I behaved now.
All of Charles’s suspicions had begun a year ago, once Father had confessed on his deathbed that he’d married my motherafterI was born, after my true father, a man whose identity my mother had kept a secret, had died. It had turned my world upside down, realizing the man I’d called Father wasn’t related to me at all, and that Charles was only my half-brother. The town gossip had started not long afterward, everyone talking about how they’d known my silver hair wasn’t natural. How my late mother must have had a romantic dalliance with a fae. How I was not to be trusted.
Perhaps I’d been naïve to trust that Charles would come to my defense, to assume he’d care for me more than his own reputation.
Instead, he’d made me an outcast in my own home.
