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His gaze briefly landed on me before it shifted away, uninterested, as he finished his extravagant tale. The men around him applauded, a chorus of approval echoing amongst them, almost as if it were a game of who could throw themselves at his feet the fastest.
I glanced at Harper. She was our best bet. When we first arrived, the madame had told us that the king’s advisor had a thing for brunettes. I willed her to look at me.
She didn’t.
I willed harder, screaming her name in my head.
Nothing.
Okay . . . that was something we were going to have to work on.
I raked my mind, trying to figure out another way to gain his attention. I glanced at the wine jug . . .That will do.
With a silent prayer to the pale-stoned carved giants, I walked closer to him, his back turned to me, and that was when I feigned tripping.
My knees barked in protest as I fell on the hard tile, the wine jug shattering into oblivion, pelting his back in wine, the droplets of red dissipating in the pool.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry,” I cried out as I crawled towards him, my hands trying to wipe the wine off.
He raised a hand, but not to strike, instead to still my frantic hands. He flashed a dashing smile. “It’s quite alright, young miss. I was going to order more wine anyway.”
The men around him burst into yet another round of applause for their shining star and his dazzling performance. They started cheering for more wine as they clinked their cups together—a droplet of a thought carried out into waves. The power he must have had.
The girls quickly scattered like a jar of upturned ants, scrambling to fulfill their orders. I had never seen so many wine jugs being plucked from the shelves.
The king’s advisor winked at me, turned around, and started his next story.
Well, I had not expected that anti-climactic response, and yet, there we were.
Huffing to myself, I glanced at my ruined outfit and bruised knees—this was a mess, both figuratively and literally. I raised to my feet and walked over to get the broom, my hand snatching it from the wall. After I finished cleaning up the broken bits of clay and wine and unfruitful schemes, I discarded it all in the trash. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, my mind whirring with thoughts of what I should do next.
Harper stepped beside me, her dark skin glimmering with beads of water, a wine jug in her hands. “That could have gone a lot worse.”
“I know.” I let out a frustrated sigh. “How are we going to get him separated from them? They cling to him like leeches.”
“I could always torch the water and send them scrambling like little piggies. We could snag him then,” she said, her fingers twitching as if she would do it right now.
I chuckled. “As much as I would pay to see that, that might create more problems than solutions.”
She huffed. “Okay, fine, we’ll hold off on that . . . for now.”
“More wine!” a young man, barely a lick over sixteen, bellowed at us.
“Good to see they are starting his training early.” Harper rolled her eyes. A hopeless sigh fell from her crimson-painted lips as she said, “That, right there, is why I have no interest in men.”
We both snickered, and then she left to refill their cups.
Vera walked up to me, her eyes so wide I could see the surrounding whites. “You’ve been requested for a private bath.”
“What? Who?” I asked, my tone more annoyed than I should have let on. Things could not get much worse at that point—I did not have the time to waste on some random man.
She popped her glossy, petal-pink lips. “The king’s advisor.”
My body was stripped of its clothes and the anklet Von had given me. Then it was scrubbed vigorously with a wad of something that felt like steel wool until my skin glowed red, red, red.
Aged hands painted my face before they moved on to style my hair—loose with a slight curl, just howheliked it, or so the woman muttered under her breath as she took out a pronged hair pin from her mouth and loosely tucked back a single wisp of curled hair.
A young girl helped the woman as she worked, handing her whatever items she needed—I guessed she was her apprentice. When the woman didn’t require her help, the girl did other things, like mist my skin with a bottle of perfume—the scent a mixture of roses and gardenia.
