I cast my gaze around, keeping my ears attuned in anticipation of fluttering wings. Araminta said to meet her outside the office at a quarter to nine, and since I don’t have any other close friends in town, she’s my best option for company. Hopefully I don’t regret it.
I step closer to the building, peering through the wide front window that reveals a pitch-black lobby. I’m not too concerned that Araminta has been locked inside. She may look like a pixie and her body and wings may be comprised of paper, but she is, at her barest essence, a book sprite. And since sprites are spiritual creatures, she can probably float through walls if she chooses to.
“Looking for me?”
I bite back a yelp and whirl around. A young woman stands there, towering over me by several inches. She has pointed ears, pale lilac hair arranged in a single long braid, and the most extravagant black gown in a style that hasn’t been fashionable for at least a decade. Her sly grin is all that sparks recognition.
I pull my head back. “Araminta?”
“Why are you surprised? I said I’d be here.” Her voice retains some of its girlish quality but with a depth it didn’t possess in her tiny body.
“I’m surprised because you look like this,” I say, gesturing from her head to the hem of her gown.
She titters, which tells me thisisAraminta. “I’m not going to enjoy a night on the town in my unseelie form. Honestly, Daphne, what a silly concept.”
I assess her again, still trying to reconcile the tiny paper sprite with this eccentric beauty who stands before me now. There’s no sign of her wings, no parchment lashes. Is this how my friends and acquaintances felt when they first saw me in seelie form? “Why is your hair purple?”
She gives me a confused half smile. “I don’t know. Why is your hair black?”
I open my mouth only to snap it shut. I see her point. While I expected her hair to resemble the paper strands she has in her unseelie form, I can’t say my hair looks like my pine marten fur either. I’m gray-brown in my unseelie form with a cream throat and underbelly. Even though some fae retain similar features from one form to the other, not all do. Apparently, Araminta and I are the kinds of fae who don’t.
I turn my attention to her black dress, scanning her overly puffed leg-of-mutton sleeves and the ridiculously high neck of her bodice. “You look like an old widow.”
“Why, thank you.”
“Where did you even get a mourning gown like that?”
She pulls a face like I’m daft. “An old widow, obviously. I would have been naked if I hadn’t procured a dress.”
I narrow my eyes. “Where did you happen to get a dress from an old widow?”
“I didn’t get it fromher. I got it from her house. She was very dead, so I don’t think she minded much.”
“You stole a gown. From a dead woman.”
“Her will hasn’t been read yet. Until then, her things don’t belong to anyone.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works. Furthermore, how did you come to know about a newly dead widow and the status of her will?”
“TheCedar Hills Gazetteobituaries, of course. Such an informative publication.” She does a twirl, showing off her voluminous skirts. As she faces me again, she takes a whiff of her sleeve, lashes fluttering. “You know, the clothing of dead people smells almost as good as paper.”
“You are positively morbid. Is it too late to cancel my night?”
Ignoring me, Araminta links her arm through mine. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be out on the town with my best friend.”
I grumble under my breath as she starts skipping, dragging me along in her wake, and drawing the judging eyes of a dour-looking businessman.
Despite how my cheeks flush, it’s oddly refreshing not being the most socially inept person around. At the very least, my current embarrassment distracts me from my anxiety over our unknown destination.
I double-checkthe address on the piece of paper. Then triple-check it for good measure. Yet there it is, the location of Monty’s mysterious solution to my model problem. It’s a blocky three-story building of crumbling brick nestled in the industrial district not far from Fletcher-Wilson’s printing warehouse. The only reason I know we’re in the right place is because the crooked sign at the top of the building that readsTamisen’s Textilesalso bears the address. Yet I know Tamisen’s Textiles closed last year after a fire swept through the interior, burning up every scrap of fabric and resulting in the company’s bankruptcy. Not to mention the wire fence that surrounds the building’s property with warning signs stating it’s been condemned. So why the hell are there so many people here?
A crowd gathers before the door as figures enter the building one at a time. Most of the patrons are men, though there are several women amongst them too, many of which are dressed like me in casual slacks and blouses. Not a soul is outfitted in a mourning gown, but Araminta doesn’t seem at all concerned that she’s overdressed.
“There are so many people here,” she says, her eyes alight with wonder as we hover on the sidewalk, neither of us daring to take a step through the gap in the wire fence that will lead us to the building. “Do you think it’s an orgy after all? I looked that word up in the dictionary this evening. It sounds fun!”
“No,” I say, a note of scolding in my tone. Not for the first time, I think of turning back. Yet my curiosity is too strong. I may be anxious around crowds and strangers, but my fascination with the unknown has always been prominent. It’s what drew me to human society in the first place. After the fae won the last human-fae war and united both peoples for the first time in over a thousand years, I got my first look at a human city. It was terrifying. Enormous. All hard lines and clashing noise. Fleshy bodies, strange scents, undetectable dangers all around. But there was something else I discovered, amidst all the grotesque new sights.
Art.
