Olive notices me staring and pulls a funny face.
I hate Rhion for making me doubt her for one moment. I don’t want to live in a world where there’s one less person I can trust when the number is already so few.
The morning sun streams like water through the central staircase as I descend. I have no desire to spend my morning with Rhion,but I am a little relieved at the second chance to make a good impression after last night’s disaster.
I pull my white ermine cape tight around my shoulders and step out into the brisk October morning.
The Royal Crescent is in complete shambles after last night’s revel. The frost-covered lawn is covered in a rainbow of confetti, the burned-out skeletons of bonfires, and even a few fae, still sleeping off their hangovers.
At the bottom of our steps, I trip over something, barely catching myself before I topple over completely.
It’s someone covered up by a maroon cloak. I nudge them with the toe of my boot, hoping to wake the drunkard and send them on their way.
They don’t stir, so I nudge again, a little harder this time.
The person rolls onto their back with a flop and I stumble, gasping with my hand over my mouth. It’s not a person, at least not anymore.
The lifeless eyes of the girl in the deer mask from last night stare up at me, ghost pale and unseeing. The deer mask lies next to her head, dirty and askew.
The footman must hear me scream, because he comes running out the door after me. “Your Majesty?” he asks. It’s unsettling to hear his voice. Bram’s cadre of servants so rarely speak.
“She’s—” The words get stuck in my throat like day-old bread.
I don’t need to finish my sentence. He sees it as clearly as I do.
He pushes past me, takes off his coat, and drapes it over her body. Her begging from last night rings in my ears, sharp like noon church bells. She asked me to help her and I did nothing. She looks even younger without the mask, no older than seventeen. I’m goingto be sick. I kneel at her side, my tears landing in fat splotches all over her ruined cloak.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, even knowing she can’t hear me. “I’m so sorry.”
I never even asked her name.
Another footman appears, and with one carrying her arms, and another carrying her legs, they haul her away.
I’m left standing alone in tears on the sidewalk.
“Greetings!” comes a cheery voice behind me.
I turn to see Rhion poking his head out of his front door. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
I wipe my eyes, but it’s still clear I was crying.
“Oh no.” Rhion’s face falls as he sees me. “You’re crying. Wait—let me guess why.”
“Um,” I hesitate.
“Burnt toast, bad dream, money trouble, unrequited love, homesickness—” He lists them out on his fingers.
“None of those,” I reply. “But I’ll take some unburnt toast if you have it.” I have no desire to speak of the girl in the deer mask to Rhion. Either he’d understand my sadness and report my dissatisfaction with their courtly games to Bram, or he wouldn’t understand and I’d be left trying to explain to an immortal why human life is precious. I’ve had four months to become an expert in hiding my emotions.
I get a better look at Rhion. He’s dressed even more unusually today. He’s wearing riding breeches, a woman’s corset, a pale blue silk evening coat, and about a dozen diamond necklaces.
I’m struck, as I often am in the presence of the fae, by how young he looks. Rhion doesn’t seem any older than eighteen or nineteenwith his wild mop of dark hair and the faint smattering of freckles across his perfect nose. In truth, he must be nearly a century, if he’s Bram’s oldest friend.
In his receiving room, an elaborate breakfast has been laid out across side tables, coffee tables, tufted stools, and even the grand piano.
“I didn’t realize we’d have company,” I say, more out of surprise than anything. There are at least ten humans in this room, Rhion’s pets, all dressed as oddly as he is. They’re young, a little hollow-eyed, clearly hungover after last night. One man is still fast asleep, snoring softly on a chaise by the fire.
“Oh, there’s always a rotation,” Rhion says dismissively. A pretty brunette approaches him and he plants a kiss on her cheek affectionately.
