“You…” he starts, then stops. “You…”
Yes,I think.I fucked you, too, with words and looks alone.
“The pleasure was all mine,” I say.
Then I turn and walk out, leaving my spent lovers alone without a master.
Chapter Thirty
Four days later, Lila andI eat herbed potatoes in the Mouth before our shift. The kitchen is warm and fuzzy, the clatter of the next meal filling the space. It feels like a new normal, one that I want to resist but feel relieved exists. Carter trudges in, holding a sack of towels, his face grim. He collapses into a chair opposite us at the center table and groans.
“That bad, is it, love?” Fern asks from the stove, cheeks ruddy from the steaming pot.
“They’ve been at it all day.”
My fork screeches against the plate. A passing errand boy giggles.
So they’re still trying to find what I brought to the bedchamber that night. When I returned to Lila’s room four days ago, she asked not what happened. Instead, she gave me a change of clothes and we passed out in her double cot, both too exhausted to lace me back to Illusion. Still, she did not inquire when we received word the next morning that we were dismissed for two days. When it happened again, my smugness spoiled to regret.
“So, the king is enraptured by another female,” Fern says, following up.
“You think he has moved on from Kassandra?” I ask, but in truth, I had been wondering.
“Maybe he’ll just marry another Reign like they all do,” a laundry Scarp adds, grabbing the bag from Carter’s feet.
“Think we’d all go deaf if this is the one,” he says. “They’re so strangely loud.”
“Aren’t they always?”
Lila clutches my leg, whispers that we can talk in her room. It feels as if we are the couple and I have cheated. An emptiness washes through me. I shovel the last of the meal into my mouth, collect my plate, and stand.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
I feel several gazes on us. “Just need to handle a few financials back in Illusion. I’ll meet you under the stars tonight. I promise.”
“Okay!” But Lila’s bright, pleasant tone disrupts me.
It is the one she gives the king.
—
Faeries watch asI weave through the common room in the Nest. My hand tugs down the hem of my golden Reign uniform.I’m taking it off next week,I want to tell them.Just one more week, and then I’ll be Illusion again.
I join the line at the creditor’s counter. A raven-haired male faerie shakes a finger at the teller, who puts down his quill and adjusts his glasses. I recognize the weathered face, the calm demeanor. Silas, the halfling who spoke with me.
“This is the most outrageous complaint against me!” the faerie screams, face beet-red.
“I understand—”
“I didn’t even do it.”
“In three years, the Council of Keepers will vote on a law that allows faeries to dispute complaints—”
“How thefuckdoes that help me now?”
“Well, I just—”
The faerie spits. Saliva splatters against Silas’s glasses, his face.
