“I’m not sure I’ll live that long,” I say.
“You might not,” she chuckles, “but if you do, his is a friendship that is well worth the wait.”
Adora frowns when my body tenses as the shop door swings open, announcing the arrival of a new customer with the delicate ding of a silver bell hung over the doorway.
“Awri,” the female’s voice coos sweetly, “How lucky I am to find you here.”
Adora rolls her eyes, scoffing around a mouthful of pins but no one seems to notice.
“Sycophants,” she mumbles under her breath.
The female glides from the doorway, a flutter of red silk billowing after her. She bows her head deeply as she approaches Awri. There is no doubt in my mind, had she been born La’tari, Leanna would have claimed her as one of her own.
Her dark strands gleam like raven’s feathers in the sunlight, shades of blue dancing along her tresses, pulling on the deep sea in her eyes. Her porcelain skin a stark contrast to the deep red of her pouting lips. Lips that can only be described as a mockery of sadness. For nothing about the female would convince me she has ever had a hard day in her life.
Her skin is absent a single scar, her form absent any declaration of mended bone. No calluses or sign of any wear upon her skin. If perfection has a form, it is standing across the room. The feyn blood in her veins is surely responsible for some vast part of her unearthly beauty, but even for one of them she is striking.
Awri smiles warmly, almost warmly enough to convince me she’s fond of the female.
“I’m hardly surprised to see you here, Ishara,” Awri says, “I expect you’ve already received your invitation.”
Ishara feigns a sweet laugh, her eyes darting to and from the general briefly.
“And so, I have,” she says. She produces the invitation from a cleverly concealed pocket, fanning herself with it playfully. “I’d hoped to arrive early enough to secure one of Adora’s masterful creations.”
“I’m afraid my books are completely full,” Adora says, her back to the door, as she measures my right arm for the fourth time since Ishara entered the shop. “I’ve just taken on my last client.”
Ishara looks at me for the first time, her eyes expressing her displeasure as they roam across my form before rising to meet my own.
“The La’tarian?” Her lips pucker in clear annoyance.
“Ishara, may I introduce you to Shivaria, niece of Felias.” Awri’s kind smile doesn’t fade.
“Durah?” she asks, and my fists clench at my sides.
Awri glances toward the general, who gives the subtlest of nods, before she confirms with a nod of her own. “Yes.”
Worthless.
I tell myself that maybe friendship means something else to them, and even if it doesn’t, friendship was never my goal, only a means to an end.
“How unfortunate,” she says with an overly sympathetic smile that only I can see.
The ease with which she dismisses me is perhaps more cutting than anything else she’s said or done. Her attention turns to the general and I can’t help but feel some small amount of pity for him. That is, until she speaks.
“And have you decided what your costume will be, General?” she says, her head tipped down in false modesty as her thick lashes flutter at the male. “I will have mine made to match it, if you would be agreeable to the pairing.”
“I am undecided,” he says flatly, his hands clasped behind his back.
She steps toward him, utterly unperturbed by his tone. “Then tell me what you would find most pleasing, and I will have it made.”
She only stops when the space remaining between them becomes intimate. “Perhaps one of the island nymphs of Kator?”
Adora’s hands falter in their movement as her eyes widen, and she glances over her shoulder to survey the scene. Awri tenses and the general stiffly rises to his full height. Though the suggestion would have been lost on me only days before, I had been thorough in my investigation of Awri’s drawings during my time at the cottage.
While there were many nymphs, most appeared in the forest, hiding among the bushes, blending with the bark of the trees they favored. Some seemed to prefer the sea, disappearing among the kelp and foam. The nymphs of Kator however, had been notably absent any clothing, and preferred to frolic nude beneath the stars, with an audience no less.
The shop bell chimes once again. The three young females it announces bring air into the room, releasing a small but notable bit of tension.
