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Aimee cleared her throat. “We should, uh… try on the glamour. Make sure it fits.”

Taking a seat on a blue velvet couch, she began organizing her supplies: quills, crystals, and other various items to reference for feel or scent. “Make yourself comfortable. I just need a few moments to—” A scraping sound had her looking up. “What are you doing?”

Taly glanced up from the book she’d pulled off the bookshelf. “The Shadow’s Promise?”She flipped the book so Aimee could see the cover. “I figured you’d be too prim and proper for this kind of stuff.”

Aimee felt her cheeks heat. “It’s not mine,” she lied, unsure why Taly’s opinion suddenly mattered. “Whoever had this room before me must have left it.”

Another lie. She’d brought it with her into town the day of the attacks, planning to read it for the third time while she waited for her brother to finish up at the clinic.

“Oh. That’s too bad,” Taly said, hugging the book to her chest. “I love this book. I’ve read it six times.”

“Oh, I—” Aimee tried, not quite knowing how to salvage the lie.

Talya saved her the trouble, replacing the book and moving on. “Is this your mom?” she asked, pointing to a picture on the shelf. A woman with black hair and dull human eyes stared from beyond the glass.

“Yes.” Aimee looked back to her supplies, needing something to do with her hands. Her mother was human—a Feseraa. Which made Aimee a demi-Fey. She looked like a Highborn, had enough magic to be permitted at court. But she wasn’t a pureblood. Not like Skylen… or even Talya now she supposed.

Her cousin, the only child of the High Lord of Water, technically a Marchioness if those titles hadn’t already been given away.

“You look like her,” Talya said, and Aimee hated the tiny seed of shame that immediately took root.

“I know.”

You have your mother’s face.

Talya picked up the frame. “She’s beautiful.”

“For a human.” That was always the caveat.

Talya placed the picture back on the shelf. “No,” she said simply.

Aimee looked up. No mockery, and the little half-smile Taly threw her—

“Why are you being nice to me?”

“I’m not,” Talya said. “I’m just not going out of my way to provoke you.”

“Why?”

She shrugged and continued her exploration of the room. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems stupid. You know what I am. One word, and you could have me killed.”

Aimee stared at her hands. “Do you really think so low of me?” That she would hand over an innocent woman to be executed.

“I don’t think I know enough about you to make a judgment. I mostly find you annoying.”

“And I think you’re insufferable.”

“That’s fair,” Taly said, and Aimee’s temper guttered. The human she remembered never would’ve made that concession. She never would’ve said, “I’m abrasive, hot-tempered, and I don’t have any patience for bullshit. I’m not good at saying the right things, and most people who meet me for the first time don’t particularly like me. Being human didn’t win me any popularity contests either. Growing up the only mortal in a house full of mages, it always felt like I had to work that much harder.”

Aimee didn’t know what to say to that.

She was even more stunned when Taly said, “Ihatedhow you used to chase after Skye.”

“I know,” Aimee said, if only because it was true. She had known. That’s part of what had made it so much fun to keep pursuing him despite his complete disinterest.

“I thought you were unfairly beautiful,” Taly went on, “and I was jealous because I saw him looking at you sometimes. The way a man looks at a woman.”

“Why are you telling me this?”