Page 45

Aimee stood in front of the long mirror in the corner of her bedroom. She smoothed her hands over her red velvet skirt.

They were going to a bar tonight—a first for her. She’d been to tea houses and restaurants, and there was always more than enough alcohol and other inebriating substances at the balls and parties thrown during the court season. But she’d never been to a commoner’s bar.

It would be a lie to say that she wasn’t a little excited. Aiden had always been free to do whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted—and now she was getting to go with him.

To a bar .

She adjusted the ruffles along the collar of her white silk shirt. What would the other women be wearing? Was she underdressed? Overdressed? Should she change into… trousers, maybe?

Talya would probably be wearing trousers, likely paired with some ill-fitting potato sack with holes cut for the arms.

Aimee leaned in, checking her glamour. She darkened her lashes, added a touch more red to her lips.

You have your mother’s face.

Scowling, she straightened. Halfway across the cosmos, and somehow Arys Thorne still found his way into her head.

“Hey.” The word was accompanied by a tentative knock on the open door.

Aimee turned. It wasn’t a potato sack, she noted, eyes flicking up and down as Talya stepped into the room. And while the cream, oversized sweater wasn’t completely unfortunate, it did nothing for her. Emphasized her small stature, hid her curves.

Talya stepped inside, her gaze drifting over the turquoise drapes, pale blue walls, and crisp white linens. “The boys are already downstairs.”

Yes, Aimee had heard them going on, faint strands of conversation coming from the first floor. Skylen and Kato were arguing about which one could make it to the tavern the fastest. Aiden threatened to bury them both a mile underground if they didn’t shut up.

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, “I hated how 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?”

Taly gave another shrug. “Because I’ve got more than enough enemies and not enough friends, and I’m tired of picking pointless fights, and…

I don’t know. I just figured this was the part where we say uncomfortably personal things just for shits and giggles.

I could be wrong, though. I haven’t had that many female friends. ”

That easy, Aimee felt the hate shift into something less sharp, less all-consuming.

“I never loved Skylen,” she said because if that was the case—if this was the time to say the things that still needed to be said—then this still needed to be said.

“I saw him as a means to an end—a way to get myself out of Picolo.” She could feel Taly’s eyes on her like a physical weight.

“You have to understand, my stepfather, he’s…

not a good man. I thought if I married Skylen, I could get away from him. ”

The noble Houses had stopped giving away their women in the wake of the birth crisis. Marriages now almost always involved the transfer of a man between families. But Skylen’s status, his crown, was enough of a prize to tempt Arys Thorne into petitioning House Thanos’ Matriarch to make the trade.

Taly slowly circled the room, looking at books and pictures, studying the vase of weeds glamoured to look like roses and smiling when she figured out the trick. “Is that what you’re wearing?” she asked.

Aimee looked down at her blouse. “Yes. Why?”

Taly finally dropped into a chair, crossing an ankle over her knee—sitting like a man and either too unaware or too uncaring to feel any shame at the display.

“Because we’re going to a bar. And even at their cleanest, bar floors are still perpetually coated in a fine layer of vomit, stale beer, and whatever else people track in.

It’s worse when it rains. The water makes everything into a nice little shit slurry, and that skirt is going to mop it right up. ”

Aimee blinked. “You paint a… very graphic picture.”

Taly shrugged. “I just wanted to be sure you got the message and didn’t turn it down just to spite me. Bar floors are nasty. I might not like you, but I’m not heartless.”

Aimee laughed—truly laughed for what felt like the first time in too long. “Okay. I’ll change,” she conceded and grabbed her quill. “But only if you let me do something about that sweater.”

Taly picked at her sweater. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s hideous. That’s what’s wrong with it.” Aimee touched the tip of the quill to Taly’s cheek. The glamour shimmered as she began applying the first layer. “Now, don’t move. The glamour needs to be skin-tight, or the itch will be unbearable.”

Quiet fell, broken only by the scratch of the quill and the audible pop of magic as Aimee applied the first layer.

“By the way,” Aimee murmured, “I thought the sequel, The Shadow’s Dance, was better than the first.”

Taly frowned as the quill traced along her jaw. “I thought you’d never read it.”

“I lied.”

“Why?”

Aimee smiled a bit. “Because I thought you were going to be a bitch about it.”

“Oh. That’s fair.”

Taly stared at her face in the mirror—her human face.

It was simultaneously like seeing an old friend and a complete stranger.

The glamour was perfect. It didn’t itch at all.

Anchored to a braided leather bracelet woven with silver thread and crystals, it masked her scent, her magic, and could stand up to even a shadow mage’s scrutiny, as they’d already been able to test. Ivain couldn’t detect even the faintest whiff of her magic.

Aimee knew what she was doing. When it came to glamours, at least. Taly would even admit that the outfit her new cousin —that word still felt so awkward in her head—had chosen wasn’t as bad as she’d been expecting.

Having Aimee pick apart her closet was painful, make no mistake.

But it was Sarina joining halfway through that took it to a new level of agony.

Together, they’d managed to browbeat Taly into heeled boots, black velvet leggings, and a black silk shirt layered beneath some blue brocaded bodice thing that dipped low between her breasts and laced up her back like a corset.

It was uncomfortable, both the shoes and the bodice. Also, Sarina spent way too much time fussing with her hair, braiding back the sides and curling the rest. It was just going to flatten with the first burst of humidity.