“The Rivals?” I asked, cocking a brow as I slid under the warmest comforter I’d ever felt.
“Red,” she told me.
“You aren’t including your court among the obsessors?”
She looked up at me, raising a brow in question. I rolled my eyes.
“Oh, come on,” I teased. “The constant black, all of you. It’s like you don’t possess another color in your wardrobe at all.”
“We don’t,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, black is slimming.”
I chuckled.
“Lark and I,” she continued after a moment, “we have to wear it. It and nothing else because of who we are. For Rook, it’s a choice but whether he does it because of his black soul or because of his loyalty to Lark, I don’t know.”
“What did he do?”
Cass hesitated. My eyelids were already drooping but I waited to see if she would answer, anyway.
“Rook is… from here, originally,” she answered after a moment. “He was born in this court. Let’s just say that the good folk of the Light Court don’t take it very well when someone leaves.”
“So why did he?”
Cass’ eyes were on me then. I felt them burning against my skin almost as badly as her brother’s always seemed to. I was prying, I knew, but I was desperate to know more about the people I seemed to have allied myself with.
“Something you should remember,” she said then, her voice turning serious. “People who claim to be the most good are also usually the most hypocritical.”
I didn’t have time to process that in my exhausted state before I fell asleep in the most comfortable bed I’d ever laid in.
The morning came without warning and I woke up feeling as though I’d never slept. After the most grueling forty-eight hours of my life, it turned out I would need more than five of sleep. But we didn’t have the time because Semyaza strode in at seven in the morning, flinging our curtains wide and letting in the morning sun. Cass grumbled and buried herself in her sheets. I echoed the sentiment, trying to throw an arm over my eyes to shield them. But Semyaza wasn’t having it.
“You’ll miss your morning prayers,” she chided, pulling back my covers and grabbing my arms to help me upright. I just watched her, confused and half asleep.
Prayers? Who did gods pray to?
I half expected Cass to laugh and throw a pillow at our meddling sentry but instead she rose from her bed reluctantly and shuffled off to the washroom. After a moment of poking and prodding from Semyaza, I followed.
I didn’t dare ask for an explanation the whole time we freshened up and dressed. It seemed like requesting such a thing might be offensive, to Semyaza at least. So I just brushed my hair and dabbed on a bit of makeup, turning just in time to see Semyaza entering the washroom again, another white gossamer monstrosity draped over her arm. This one was true to toga fashion, with a strap over one arm, leaving the other exposed, and cascading down the legs to trail on the floor below.
She raised a brow but Cass snapped her fingers and another gown of shimmering gray appeared on my body. It was loose and flowy, much like the toga, but with embellishments that I had a feeling the sentries of the Life Court might consider vain.
Semyaza’s face screwed up into an expression of rage and she tossed the white gown on the floor, ballerina slippers sliding out from beneath it and skittering across the marble, before storming from the room in a dignified huff.
“She just keeps trying, doesn’t she?” I asked with a sigh.
“She will,” Cass replied in warning, striding up to me where I stood in front of the mirror. “Hold your ground. You don’t have to be anyone you don’t wish to be here, Ren.”
Cass wore a dress as well, this one black and sparkling but covering all the sensitive areas and trailing to the floor like mine.
“Is that why Rook left?” I asked, prying further, again, than I should.
Cass stiffened again, so much so that I almost felt bad for asking. She was only trying to help me, after all.
“Hypocrites are hypocrites. No matter how much white they wrap themselves in or how many rules they bind to their court. It’s not so different here from the mortal realm, Ren. Remember that. People lie everywhere.”
I decided not to point out the fact that she hadn’t answered my question about Rook at all as she took my arm and led me from the washroom.
“Prayers?” I asked in a whisper as we paused in our room for Cass to collect her shoes.
