I harden my heart, turning it into a block of obsidian that no one—especially a Crow—will ever be able to soften.
She mistakes my murky mood for confusion. “We need Glacin army, Fallon.”
“How do you sayassin Crow?”
“Animal or body part?”
“Body part.”
“Tàin.”
I repeat the word, and spittle flies out of my mouth because it is positively guttural. “Tawhhn.” Such a fitting sound.
A crooked smile bends her lips. “Should I be teaching insults?”
“Oh, you should. I want to learn them all.”
“I do, too!” Syb exclaims, bustling into the room, a large, glossy shopping bag swinging from her arm.
“You picked up our dresses for the gilding revel?”
“They weren’t ready yet.” At my frown, she says, “Eponine agreed to meet for dinner, but she insists we all wear headpieces. You know, so no one can identify us.”
I cannot help but wonder if byus, she means me. After all, I’m enemy of the kingdom number one and she is the crowned princess. We may have gone shopping together, but we were inside a boutique. Hanging out in public is a completely different story.
“Catriona fetched them from the shop. This one’s for you.” She plops the shopping bag on the table.
Aoife reclines in her seat. “Dinner?”
I seize the bag. “Yes, dinner.”
“Did Lorcan approve?”
Although I hate lying to Aoife, I say, “He did. He said it was a wonderful idea to speed things up on the Meriam front.”
Aoife frowns.
“By all means, shift and ask him, Aoife. Then again, now may not be the best time if he’s in Glace and all.”
She puckers her mouth as she obviously mulls my suggestion over.
“He’s the one who suggested headpieces by the way,” I add tritely.
One of Syb’s eyebrows rises high, but a look at my livid face makes hergo with it. “Want to see mine?”
“I would love to see yours,” I say with great enthusiasm.
Syb overturns her shopping bag, and out spills a fluorescent pink wig attached to a crystallized mask. “They’re genuine tourmalines,” she explains as though she saw me thinking the wordcrystaland just had to set me straight. “And look at the length of the hair!” She holds it up, and the pink strands unspool like Minimus when he’s about to dart away. “I’ve always dreamed of growing my hair long.”
I pluck mine out from the bag and gently unfold the silk paper, then stare at the strange but beautiful creation. The waist-length platinum hair glitters as though threaded with diamonds and the filigree gray mask looks crafted from pure silver. It really is a thing of beauty.
Aoife sets the pen down, splattering the paper with more droplets of sapphire ink that expand as they soak into the vellum. “So you will wear scary thing on your head to go to meal with queen?”
Syb blinks in shock. “Scary?These are glorious.” To demonstrate just how so, she plops hers atop her head.
“You look like lampshade.” Aoife gestures to the desk lamp.
I cannot stifle the laugh that erupts from my mouth because Ptolemy’s brocade lampshades fringed with crystals are, indeed, a dead ringer for what Syb is modeling.
