Elizabeth noted with no small sense of wonder that Fiza’s jet-black hair was already neat and dry. “How is your hair dry already?” Elizabeth asked curiously. Hers was still damp.
Fiza smiled. “Trick of the trade, my lady.”
“What do you mean?”
Fiza disappeared into the bathing chamber. The tap ran briefly, and she emerged with sodden hair. Fiza screwed up her eyes in concentration, and when she opened them, her hair was dry again.
Right. The girl had said she was a shapeshifter demon.
“That’s fantastic!” Elizabeth exclaimed. Unlike the other servants with their obvious demonic features, Fiza was definitely the most human-looking—from her warm brown eyes to her large nose. If Elizabeth hadn’t been told she was a demon, she would have never suspected. “What do you really look like, then? Your true form?”
Fiza’s fingers stilled in Elizabeth’s hair. “I don’t think—"
“Please? ” she asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I’m trying to understand this world better. Only if you are comfortable, that is.”
Fiza’s human appearance disappeared in a wisp of black smoke. Elizabeth fought to control her expression as she beheld her maid’s true form. Bottomless black eyes stared from clammy blue-gray skin. Long, webbed fingers hung at her sides. A wide, flat nose dominated her face, while frilled gills replaced her ears. Green-blonde hair hung in rope-like strands, framing features that seemed designed for water rather than land.
When Fiza took off her shoes, Elizabeth understood why—her feet were enormous and webbed. The demon bared her teeth in what might have been a smile, revealing rows of pointed, sharp teeth.
“Just as pretty as before,” lied Elizabeth, reining in her shudder.
Fiza features brightened, seeming pleased with that assessment. In a flash, she was back to her usual, well, her familiar human self, and resumed styling Elizabeth’s hair.
As Elizabeth watched those now-ordinary fingers weaving pearls into her braid, a troubling thought emerged. If someone as gentle as Fiza could hide such a monstrous form, she wondered what Caspian’s form really looked like, and if it was just as horrible.
Chapter 10
Dinner with Demons
The evening found Elizabeth strolling about the castle in search of the library. After taking a few wrong turns, she eventually found the familiar looking doors and pushed them open to reveal the enormous library with high vaulted ceilings. It was infinitely larger than the small library in her father’s study, and it might even be larger than the queen’s library in the palace.
She wandered through aisles and aisles of books, her footsteps echoing across the polished black marble floor.
The library was made up of two floors, softly lit by torches that flickered in the sconces along the walls. It looked inviting, with squashy leather armchairs and tall windows.
She had never seen so many books in one place. She craned her neck to peer at titles on the high shelves, most written by authors she had never even heard of.
Feeling a bit like she was snooping, she ran a finger over the spines, and her brows pinched together. A good chunk of the books here were on demonic summoning and witchcraft.
Caspian seemed to collect many copies of the same books. He had about twenty copies ofDemonic Summoningand at least fifty copies ofSummoning High-Level Demons.
Why did he have so many copies of the same books? And wasn’t he a demon and probably well aware of how summoning and magic worked in his world?
She continued to wander, finding a shelf filled with books written in a different language. The curling script with accents above the letters was not one she had ever seen before. Perhaps these books were of a different age, or of a different world entirely. She ran her fingers over the tomes, wondering what the strange words meant and what the language was called.
Drawn to an ancient book bound in aged black leather, she slid it from the shelf. The cover of the book bore no title, and instead was dominated by a strange symbol.
She opened the book curiously and looked at the odd, curling script.
The light dimmed slightly, as if the torches in the brackets burned lower, and she eyed the window, wondering if it was letting in a draft.
She bent to admire the lines of elegant calligraphy and skimmed a few pages, wondering how the words might be pronounced. The strange language consisted of consonants that looked like it might sound harsh and guttural when spoken.
Was this a demon language?
She rifled through a few more pages, mesmerized by the strange lettering. To her perplexion, a handful of pages in the middle of the book were missing, as if they’d been ripped away in a hurry. She propped the book open and ran her thumb along the roughness of the torn pages.
She peered at the page before, and after the gap, but couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was supposed to be reading.
