He exhales a low whistle. “You look beautiful.”
His words send a tingle cartwheeling all the way down my spine. “Thank you.”
It’s when I get a glimpse of myself in the mirrors that I see what he does. The deep violet offsets my complexion and highlights my auburn hair. The dress is extremely flattering, cradling my breasts and cinching at the waist. The skirt even flows in the most feminine of manners.
It’s impossiblenotto feel beautiful in this gown.
“What do you think?” Daisy asks me.
One glance at Feylin and I can tell that this is the dress he loves, and surprisingly I find that I want to make him happy and give him what he wants.
“You can try on others,” he tells me. “You might find something you like more.”
“You may,” Daisy echoes in a voice says,but you won’t.
“I’ll try on some more.”
“You’re already here.” He leans back and drapes his arm over the couch again. “And if I’m being honest, it’s good to see you dressed up. It’s a nice change from the jeans and shirts.”
He says it in a joking voice, but a sparkle fills his eyes.
I pick up the skirt and turn around. “Come on, Daisy. Let’s try on another one.”
When we’re safely tucked in the back, where hopefully his fae hearing can’t penetrate, Daisy magicks up the screens. “Told you so.”
“Told me what?”
The dress is sucked off me and another one slips over my arms and head, bringing with it a gust of wind.
She taps her fingers on the screen. “I told you that we’d foundthe dresson the first try. This is the one he’s gonna want to see you in.”
I scoff. “How do you know?”
“Because darling”—she magicks away the screens and I step forward—“I know when a man’s in love, and that man is desperately in love with you.”
My heart stops. My mouth forms words to ask what she means, but that’s when it all hits me. Feylin never had to help me find my magic, but he did. Feylin makes supper for me every night, a supper that I greedily gobble up because he can cook. Feylin’s giving me a dress that’ll be comfortable because he knows that none of the ones I wear ever are.
Feylin loves me? Could it be true?
But before I flirt with asking myself that question, I ask myself another.And don’t I love him?
Because he’s settled into my bones like minerals. He’s become so much a part of my life that I can’t imagine him not being in it, and I realize that I don’t want a life that he’s not a part of.
Which is when I also realize that if Feylin loves me, then I love him, too.
Which terrifies me more than anything.
32
My nerves jump as Ophelia places the last pin in my hair. Voices rumble throughout the castle, and music leaks through the crack at the bottom of the door.
“It sounds like everyone’s having a good time,” she muses, her gray eyes shining.
My stomach clenches. “Yes, it does.”
“There. Perfect.”
I take in my reflection and nearly gasp. Ophelia did my makeup, drawing a sparkly butterfly in pastels over my right eye that dips down to my cheek. The effect is stunning, along with the dark eyeliner rimming both eyes.
