I place my hand on her forearm, meaning to give it a squeeze when I feel it tremble. “Catriona, is this really about some headpiece, or is something else the matter?”
Her pupils grow and shrink. Grow and shrink. “You know I’m superficial to a fault.”
My eyebrows knit. “Except, you’re not.”
“My nickname was the Puddle of Tarelexo.”
I balk. “What are you talking about? I never heard anyone call you that.”
“Sybille has.”
Syb plucks the blue gown off the floor and lays it out on the central chest of drawers. “Dargento considered us all as dirty and shallow as puddles, Catriona.”
“Dargento is a fucking fool and a disgusting excuse for a human being,” I growl.
Catriona’s gaze dips to the blue fabric. “You’re going to rob everyone of breath in that dress.”
I don’t know about everyone, but certainly myself. That corset boning looks torturous. I snap my attention off the dress and refocus on Catriona. “Mark my words, one day, I will murder Dargento.” How I wish he’d been the man Bronwen saw in her vision . . . just for confirmation’s sake.
Her lips flex over a murmur. Although not a hundred percent certain, I think she says, “May you succeed where I failed.”
Catriona tried to kill Dargento? When? Why? Did he hurt her? As she spins away, I call out her name, but she doesn’t turn back.
“She said she tried to kill him, right?”
“I didn’t hear.” As we stare at the empty door which she closed behind her, Syb says, “She’s probably on her monthlies. Mine started two days ago, and you know how we’re all in sync from living atop one another.” She nods to my bathroom. “I stocked your bathroom with some disposable, wadded cotton pads. Did I mention they were disposable? Meaning we don’t have to wash them and reuse them.”
Although still worried for Catriona, I cannot help but return Syb’s contagious smile. “This may come as a surprise, but I am aware of the meaning of disposable.”
Syb proceeds to tell me how she’s planning on finding a way to make them affordable, so halflings and humans have access to them. After all, we’re the ones without servants to do our bidding.
As I listen to her rising excitement, I roll the salt pouch between my thumb and forefinger. Syb and I have always menstruated at the same time, and my monthlies haven’t come yet. What if Nonna’s drink, the one that smelled and tasted like Racoccin water, wasn’t effective?
I drop my eyes to my stomach and pray to every deity that it’s as barren as the Selvatin desert because if—
No.My grandmother knew what she was doing. Faeries and humans came to her from far and wide for herbal decoctions.
For the first time in my life, I wish to bleed.
Thirty-Nine
My stomach hasn’t stopped churning since Syb left to get ready.
Although I insist I’m not hungry, Aoife has gone downstairs to fetch me food. That was her one stipulation: that I eat before leaving, so that she didn’t have to worry about anyone slipping me poison. The platter of food she returns with turns my stomach some more.
At my grimace, she says, “Please say you having thoughts about going tonight, Fallon?”
The only things I amhaving thoughts aboutis Catriona’s strange behavior and the possibility that I may—
No.
I will not let my mind wander there.
I eat six measly bites of food. Each goes down like plaster. I drink a full glass of water, but that does little to wash down either the food or my nerves.
I spend several minutes struggling with where to stash the pouch of salt, electing to squash it between my breasts since pureling clothing doesn’t include pockets, and although I know my way around a needle and thread thanks to Nonna, it’s too late to create a secret pocket in this dress.
I suppose I could add a cloak, but that may raise eyebrows and spur a search of my person, and my person does not want to be searched. My person wants to toss salt into the princess’s wine, learn her secrets, then either storm my grandmother’s hideout with Aoife and my guards, or go to Lore with the information and watch his view of me change.
