The words carried the tone of unasked questions.Where did you come from? Why are you here? Are you really a faerie?
“That’s very kind of him. And Lord Gareth.” The name felt strange in her mouth, too intimate somehow. “I’m sorry about the loss. Of Lady Margaret, I mean. Bertram said she was Lord Gareth’s sister?”
Marian’s expression softened with something like genuine grief. “She was kind, my lady. She would have liked you, I think. Like you, she talked a great deal too.”
Elodie wasn’t entirely sure that was a compliment, but she decided to take it as one.
Getting dressed, it turned out, was a production. First came a clean shift—Marian turned her back politely while Elodie struggled out of the old one and into the new. Then stockings, held up by ribbons that tied above the knee. Then the navy wool gown itself, which laced up the sides and required Marian’s help to manage.
“This would be so much easier with a zip,” Elodie muttered, then caught herself. “I mean—never mind. Just thinking out loud.”
Zippers won’t be invented for another seven hundred years. Stop referencing things that don’t exist yet.
“Do you talk to yourself often, my lady?”
“Constantly. It’s the only way to have an intelligent conversation some days.” She smiled to show she was joking, but Marian just looked confused. “That was—never mind. Different sense of humour where I come from.”
Then came a simple belt, and something Marian called a “wimple” that Elodie absolutely refused to wear.
“It covers your hair, my lady. It’s proper.”
“I’m sure it is, but I’ve already given up?—”
Jeans. Jumpers. Hot showers. Central heating. The internet. Cadbury chocolate.
“—quite a lot, actually. I’m not wearing that.”
Marian looked scandalised but didn’t argue. She did, however, insist on braiding Elodie’s long hair and coiling it at the nape of her neck in a style that felt surprisingly secure.
“There,” the girl said, stepping back to assess her work. “You look almost normal now.”
“High praise indeed.” Elodie caught sight of herself in the small polished metal that served as a mirror. The woman looking back at her was a stranger—same face, but utterly altered by context. The green of her eyes looked different against the navy wool. Her freckles stood out more without her usual concealer.
I look medieval, she thought, and had to swallow against a sudden tightness in her throat.
“Are you hungry, my lady? I’m to take you to the hall to break your fast.”
“Starving, actually.” Her stomach growled in confirmation. When had she last eaten? The bread and cheese last night felt like days ago. “Lead the way.”
The castle corridors were nothing like the ruins of other castles she’d walked a hundred times in her own century. For one thing, they were alive—servants bustling past with purpose,the smell of cooking fires and unwashed bodies and rushes underfoot, the sound of voices and footsteps echoing off stone. Elodie nearly walked into a wall because she was too busy staring at a tapestry.
“Careful, my lady!”
“Sorry—sorry, it’s just—” She reached out to touch the fabric, then snatched her hand back.Don’t touch the artefacts, Elodie.But it wasn’t an artefact, was it? It was just... a thing. A household object. Someone’s decoration.
“The weaving technique,” she breathed, examining the tight, even stitches. “The dyes—look at that blue, that’s woad, isn’t it? And the mordant work on the red, the way it’s held its colour—I spent three years of my li?—”
She stopped herself before PhD could escape.
“Of my studies. Looking at pieces like this behind glass. And here it is, just hanging on a wall like it’s nothing special.”
“It’s been there since the last lord lived here,” Marian said, with the tone of someone humouring a madwoman. “Would you like to see the hall now?”
“Yes. Right. sorry. I’m doing it again, aren’t I? The rambling thing?”
“A bit, my lady.”
“It’s a character flaw. One of many.” She forced herself to stop examining the tapestry and follow Marian down the corridor. “Feel free to tell me to shut up. My friend Jennifer does it all the time. Well, technically she signs it, because she’s deaf, but the sentiment is?—”
