The seamstress’s shop is on a quiet side street. A woman looks up from behind the counter when we enter, her eyes moving over my dirty clothes and then shifting to the fae behind me.
“I need clothes for travel. For both of us,” I say.
She comes around the counter and circles him. “That’s a tall one, isn’t it? Has a good build.” She reaches out and tilts his chin up, turning his head from side to side. “Very nice coloring. Pretty eyes. Where did you get it?”
“A gift from my father.”
“Lucky. What kind of clothes are you thinking for it? Something that displays its …” Her eyes drop to below his waist, and she smiles. “Its best assets?”
I have to force myself not to gape at her. “N-no. We’re traveling. I need clothes that will protect hi—it from the weather.”
She nods and lets go of his face. “Tell it to strip. I will need to measure everything.”
My stomach drops. “That’s not?—”
She frowns at me. “Do you want clothes that fit it properly or not?”
She’s right. By every rule I know, she’s right. Fae are animals. Property. You wouldn’t worry about a horse’s decency while you measured it for a new saddle. But I’ve seen more than I wanted to see of his body already. And the thought of watching him strip in the middle of this shop while she circles him with her measuring tape …
“Strip!” Her tone is sharp and impatient.
He obeys. The tunic goes over his head, and for just a moment—so brief I almost miss it—his jaw tightens and his eyes flash. Then it’s gone. By the time the fabric hits the floor, his expression is blank again.
I should look away. IknowI should … but I don’t.
He’s all lean muscle and pale skin. Scars criss-cross his ribs. They look like old wounds, long healed, the kind you get from blades, or claws, and things that want to kill you. My eyes follow the lines of one scar, tracking it down his hip, along his thigh, and … I force my eyes to lift, and look over his shoulder at the row of shelves.
Is this another layer of glamour, one illusion replaced by another? Can he reshape his whole body as easily as he made the collar appear, and changed my face? Or is this real? Every scar, every line, every inch of him?
There are statues in the palace gardens, carved from cold marble into the shapes of heroes and gods. He looks like that. Like a sculpture brought to life. But those statues don’t have scars that hint at a history of violence written across their skin.
The seamstress circles him, eyes moving over every inch of his body, pulling his arms out at angles, checking proportions. She runs her hands across his shoulders, and down his chest.When she cups him between his legs and lightly squeezes, my cheeks burn in mortification and horror.
His fingers curl into fists, knuckles white, tendons standing out along his wrists. His head stays bowed and his face remains a blank mask. Those fists, though, tell a different story. Yet he stands there, letting her touch him as she pleases. Because that’s what he’s supposed to do. What he’s beentrainedto do.
Bile rises in my throat, shame and guilt twisting in a tangled mess inside me.
Three days ago, I would have seen this and thought nothing was wrong. I’d have seen a beast being prepared for new trappings. That’s what fae are, aren’t they? That’s what I was raised to believe.
But I’ve heard him speak now. I’ve seen him think and plan. I’ve watched him look at me with eyes that hold years of fury, and I can’t unsee it. I can’t go back to believing he’s just an animal.
The seamstress finishes and moves to pull clothes from the shelves. Dark shirt, brown pants, belt, boots. She tosses them at him, and he catches them.
“Try those.” He dresses right there in the middle of the store. The fabric slides over his skin, covering what I shouldn’t have been looking at in the first place. With one final glance at him, she comes to me and measures my waist, height, arms, breasts, then pulls more clothing from shelves.
“Thirty silvers will cover everything. There’s a curtain in the back.” She hands me a bundle of clothes, more carefully than she did with his. “Take that with you if you need help dressing.” She jerks her chin toward the fae.
Take that with you. Like having him dress me is the most natural thing in the world.
Is this normal? Do people just … have fae? Use them for things other than hunting?
I think of the palace, and the servants who move through the halls. Nella and the other handmaidens. The stable boys and kitchen girls, and gardeners. All human.Allof them.
And that memory rises again, half-buried from when I was very young. Before my mother died. A figure in the corner of a room, too still to be human, with eyes that caught the light wrong.
I don’t know if the memory is real or something I dreamed.
He follows me without being asked, as I make my way to the back of the store, to the place the seamstress indicated behind the curtain. The space is barely big enough for both of us. He stands against the wall, dressed in his new clothes, looking impossibly taller now he’s wearing boots, and watches me.
