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“I’m not a water faerie.”

Against my better judgement, I groaned out of frustration. “You have theaudacityto come in here without warning—”

“He told you he’d send someone—”

“He alsolockedme in here!”

“What?” Wren dropped the robe right over a wet patch along the edge of the bath. “You think we locked you in here?”

All of a sudden, I didn’t care that he was still standing a foot away from the tub or that the fresh robe was now soaking up bath water from the first one. I snatched it up and rose to my feet, putting it on backwards so that Wren didn’t see anything I really didn’t want him to see.

He didn’t look the least bit interested, though.

His eyes were an angry shade of gold as he glared at me. “The door was locked from the inside, youidiot.”

“What?”

“The House locked the door from the inside,” he repeated slowly, as if he were speaking with an illiterate child. “So that no one accidentally wanders in here.” He shook his head and turned away as I began to climb out of the bathtub. “None of the High King’s inner circle know that you’re here, and they’ve been canoodling all day, and High Fae don’t particularly care which room or what bed they go to when they—”

“I get it,” I interjected, my cheeks burning with every imaginable form of mortification.

Wren cut me a glance out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t think you do.” He took a deep breath and then aimed for the archway into the bedroom. “I came to take you to dinner. Clothes are in the wardrobe. I’ll be waiting in the hall.”

“I can find it myself,” I said impulsively. The heat colouring my cheeks flared, but Wren didn’t turn back to me.

He stalked out of the room, slamming the bedroom door shut behind him. The force was enough to send tremors through the floor, and I wondered absently if that caused any feelings of hurt to the House. However, a moment later, both the bathtub and the bathroom floor were magically dried.

Shock cleared the colour from my face, and I made an aggravated gesture at the floor. The House had witnessed the whole exchange with Wren and chose not to intervene until it wasn’t urgent anymore.

“Oh, thanks a lot,” I grumbled, tying the waist of my robe. “I was about to feel sorry for you, too.”

The enchanted House did not deign to respond in any form, and so I didn’t bother asking why it had locked the bedroom door for me but still allowed Wren passage through the balcony. I didn’t care. I didn’t even care how long I left him waiting for me out in the hall while I dried myself off and got dressed.

The only reason I was going downstairs at all was because I was starving.

And because maybe—hopefully—I had been wrong about the High King of Faerie in one way and right about him in another.

Chapter twenty

You’re Not Invited to Book Club

The House either didn’tknow or didn’t care what my usual wardrobe contained. After the stunt it pulled with the water in the bathroom, I was inclined to tell it to mind its own business in any case.

Even without knowledge of runes, spells, and enchantments, the magic of the Housefeltthe same as the magic in the Forest of Eyes and Ears, except the Forest had very determinedly been on my side, whereas the House seemed to have a similar attitude to Wren and an impassive, neutral allegiance.

I didn’t like it.

And I didn’t much like the clothes it was offering me, either.

Dresses of varying lengths and styles were hung up behind the two oak doors, alongside sets of silk or velvet shirts and pants that loosely resembled pyjamas. I pushed thehangers aside and searched the drawers, but I found only a selection of different coloured socks and scarves within them. No underwear. No normal clothes.

Choosing a set of midnight blue silk—simply because I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a dress in Faerie—proved to be even more frustrating. The silk shirt was cropped at mid-length, with the lower half of the bodice replaced by scantily detailed lace.

A dress was dangerous, though, so I would have to grin and bear it.

Wishing I could have been offered a bralette for security purposes, I ran a hand through my hair before I turned to the door. The House had provided a toothbrush, mint paste, and a hairbrush—all of which felt like an apology, and one that I’d reluctantly accepted—and I was feeling more human than I had in days.

Human in all of the good ways, that is.