Sure enough, she hisses as though I’ve prodded her wrinkly skin with an iron ingot.
“In case you haven’t heard, I work at a tavern, so I’m quite adept at pouring wine into goblets and gullets. Or wherever it is our customers want their wine poured.” I let the innuendo hang. However often I refute anyone who implies I’m a sex worker, the paling of my grandmother’s and aunt’s faces is much too satisfying.
Dante makes a choked sound beside me.
“I promise to leave after one drink,” I say sweetly, taking in the fancy revelers.
I spot a slew of familiar faces: the Acolti parents and daughter, Flavia’s soon-to-be husband, Victorius Surro, who is as ancient as her father and just as patronizing, and manyBottom of the Jugregulars. Some hold my stare and give me lengthy once-overs that make my skin crawl; others look away, as though worried I’ll acknowledge them and thus tarnish their reputation.
The women all stare unabashedly, though, and whisper just as shamelessly. The few words I catch are about my ears and the prince’s coat draped over my shoulders.
“I see Ceres’s gaudy sense of fashion rubbed off on you.” Xema holds her head so high that I can see up the narrow slits of her nose.
Gaudy?My grandmother’s frocks are as plain as the ones humans wear in Rax. “Sadly, the money she makes from selling tea and poultices doesn’t allow for gaudy gowns. Not that she’d have anywhere to wear them. You know, what with her being persona non grata for not turning her back on her daughter, or me, however sordid we both may be.”
Fallon, play nice. We aren’t quite done.
They’re wretched.
I know, Behach Éan.I don’t miss the sigh in his voice, and although he must be halfway across the property from me, hearing him brings me a little solace.
“Out! Get out of my house, you filthy little . . . little . . .”
“Halfling?” I supply.
“Bastard!” she shrills, loud enough for all of Tarespagia to hear.
The crowd grows so quiet that I can hear the bubbles pop atop the crystal carafes of faerie wine. I can also hear the white cotton slide over Dante’s skin as he crosses his arms.
“Bastard,” her parrot repeats.
“That’s enough,” Dante says.
I lift my chin, glad for Dante’s solidarity, even if it’s the parrot he’s scolding.
“That’s enough, Fallon,” he repeats quietly.
As I swing my gaze up to his, I catch the smirk painting Domitina’s red lips.
Dante siding with my hateful relatives feels like a slap to the face.
“Thank you, Princci.” Xema stacks her palms atop the pommel of her cane.
The crushed shell inserts between the slabs of sandstone blur. I blink the blur away, then raise my fingers to the collar of Dante’s jacket and undo the button. “I’m suddenly too warm, Altezza.”
He doesn’t extricate the military coat I dangle between us.
Does he consider it dirty now that it’s touched my skin? “Shall I have it burned, or will laundering it be enough?”
“Fal, stop. You’re acting—you’re acting unlike yourself.”
Except I’m not. I’m speaking my mind and heart. “I’m sorry you preferred the doormat version of me best.”
“That’s not what I said.”
I hear Victorius murmur that I must be having my monthly, which wins him the glare of a whole slew of women, including his wife-to-be. I may have smiled if my ego weren’t smarting.
I end up tossing the white jacket on a wind-sculpted piece of wood beside the door.I’m sorry, Morrgot, but I cannot stay here any longer.
