Page 101 of This Is Not True Love’s Kiss

“And I’m taking a few more,” she said. “Just to be sure. I’m the royal dressmaker, and I want all your outfits to be perfect. Especially now that we’re opening for trade and visitors. We don’t want them thinking the dressmaker doesn’t know how to dress the queen.”

She was babbling. Just like Margaret. Something was amiss.

I stared at myself in the mirror. All I was wearing was a simple thin shift. “Are you nervous about something?”

Ceri’s eyes widened. “Me? Nervous? Why would I be nervous? It’s just another day.” She gave a weak laugh.

The door burst open and Marsten strolled in, arms out wide. “I am here,” he announced while Ceri and I stared at him blankly.

“Wow.” He tapped a bright yellow painted nail against his chin. “Tough crowd today.”

“I don’t know why I have to go to this stupid luncheon,” I grumbled.

It had been on my schedule, put there by my dear husband, who I’d be having a word with later when I saw him for dinner. Some luncheon with Marsten and the other business owners in Fairwitch Isle. I was to meet and talk with them about business needs we had. Now that Fairwitch Isle wasn’t hidden, we could expand. That was all well and good, but Lor was supposed to join, and according to the schedule I’d received this morning, he wouldn’t be there. This only heightened my suspicions that something was going on. I just didn’t know what, and every time I asked anyone, they practically ran in the other direction.

I looked down to see Ceri with a periwinkle dress bunched in her arms.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Your outfit,” she said brightly. “For the lunch.”

Marsten crossed his arms from where he sat on the pale yellow couch, his lips pursed, eyes dancing with amusement.

“Why am I wearing this to a lunch?”

Ceri swallowed thickly. “Because this is an important lunch. A chance for the business owners of Fairwitch Isle to get to know their queen.”

I blinked and was about to retort that they’d known me for well over two years when she shoved the dress over my head.

“Ceri,” I said when the dress was no longer suffocating me.

She tugged it down over my torso and began fluffing it out, and my temper was about to snap. I opened my mouth to command her to tell me what was going on when I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

Marsten’s mouth dropped open. “That is gorgeous, Ceri.”

It truly was. It reminded me of the dress Fairwitch had put me in so long ago, the one I was meant to be beheaded in. The one I’d been wearing when Lor had awoken me from my curse. Except this didn’t feel like a mockery. The dress Fairwitch had put me in was meant to humiliate me, to show everyone that I was not a true queen.

This dress was meant to show everyone that I was. The silk corset was tight around my torso, pushing my breasts up, and I could just imagine the feral look in Lor’s eyes when he saw me in this. The skirt was translucent, delicate little flowers stitched in and laying atop a silk underskirt that hung to my feet. But the sleeves were probably my favorite part. They hung off my shoulders, long-sleeved and lace, matching the same pattern as the skirt with delicate flowers.

“It’s gorgeous,” I said, tears springing to my eyes.

I wasn’t sure why I was crying except that somehow it felt like I’d come full circle. No longer the slave queen or the rebel queen or even the warrior queen. Just a queen. A true queen who finally had found her place.

“Well.” Ceri dashed a tear away, her voice wobbling. “You should go. We should go. I’m coming, of course. I just need to get my father.” Her gaze darted to Marsten. “Marsten will walk you!”

Something was definitely going on, but I supposed I was going to find out soon enough what. So I linked my arm through Marsten’s and we walked out the door.

* * *

It didn’t take long to figure out that I wasn’t going to a business meeting.

Marsten led me toward the forest, and I eyed him suspiciously. “This is where the business meeting is taking place,” he said.

“There’s no meeting, Marsten,” I said as we walked between the tall trees, that familiar crunch and snap of pines under our feet filling the silence.

“Oh, thank the godwitches I don’t have to pretend anymore.”

“You’re terrible at pretending,” I said. “All of you are. But if it’s not a business meeting you’re taking me to, then what is it?”