And the Court of Moths are showing off what good hosts they are.
“The gown is the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen,” I say to her, as I can pay her no other way without insult. It has been a long time since I have been given a gift, barbed though it may be. “It does feel as though it might come from a dream.”
That makes Habetrot’s cheeks pink. “Good. Maybe you will come back and tell me how the Prince of Sunlight liked the Queen of Night.”
Embarrassed, I step out into the hall, wondering how she could believe that a dress—no matter how beautiful—could make me into an object of desire. Wondering if everyone at the revel would think that I was dangling after Oak and laugh behind their hands.
I stomp back through the hall to my room and swing open the door, only to find Oak lounging in one of the chairs, his long limbs spread out in shameless comfort. A flower crown of myrtle rests just above his horns. With it, he wears a new shirt of white linen and scarlet trousers embroidered with vines. Even his hooves appear polished.
He looks every bit the handsome faerie prince, beloved by everyone and everything. Rabbits probably eat from his hands. Blue jays try to feed him worms meant for their own children.
He smiles, as though not surprised to see me in a beautiful gown. In fact, his gaze passes over it quickly, to rest with an odd intensity on my face. “Striking,” he says, although I do not see how he could have possibly given it enough attention to know.
I feel both shy and resentful.
The Prince of Sunlight.
I do not bother telling him what he looks like. I am sure he already knows.
He brushes one hand through his golden curls. “We have an audience with Annet. Hopefully we can persuade her to send us to the Thistlewitch swiftly. Until then, we have been invited to roam her halls and eat from her banquet tables.”
I sit on a stool, pull on my new boots, and then tie up the laces. “Why do you think she took Hyacinthe?”
Oak rubs a hand over his face. “I believe she wanted to show she could. I hope there’s no more to it than that.”
I take the comb from a pocket of my new dress and then hesitate. If I begin to untangle my nimbus of snarls, he will see how badly my hair is matted and be reminded of where he found me.
He stands.
Good. He will leave, and then I will be able to wrangle my hair alone.
But instead he steps behind me and takes the comb from my hands. “Let me do that,” he says, taking strands of my hair in his fingers. “It’s the color of primroses.”
My shoulders tense. I am unused to people touching me. “You don’t need to—” I start.
“It’s no trouble,” he says. “I had three older sisters brushing and braiding mine, no matter how I howled. I had to learn to do theirs, in self-defense. And my mother . . .”
His fingers are clever. He holds each lock at the base, slowly teasing out the knots at the very ends and then working backward to the scalp. Under his hands, it becomes smooth ribbons. If I had done this, I would have yanked half of it out in frustration.
“Your mother . . . ,” I echo, prompting him to continue in a voice that shakes only a little.
He begins to braid, sweeping my hair up so that thick plaits become something like his circlet, wrapping around my head.
“When we were in the mortal world, away from her servants, she needed help arranging it.” His voice is soft.
This, along with the slightly painful pull against my scalp, the brush of his fingertips against my neck as he separates a section, the slight frown of concentration on his face, is overwhelming. I am not accustomed to someone being this close.
When I look up, his smile is all invitation.
We are no longer children, playing games and hiding beneath his bed, but I feel as though this is a different kind of game, one where I do not understand the rules.
With a shiver, I take up the mirror from the dresser. In this hair and with this dress, I look pretty. The kind of pretty that allows monsters to deceive people into forests, into dances where they will find their doom.
CHAPTER
6
A
knock on the door announces a knight with hair the color of rotten vegetation and eyes like onyx, who introduces herself as Lupine. She tells us that she is to lead us to the revel happening in the great hall of the palace. When she speaks, I see that the inside of her mouth is as black as her eyes. “The Queen of Moths awaits you.”
She appears to be one of the sluagh, the half-dead Folk. Banshees, who are said to be the souls of those who died in grief. Fetches, which mirror the faces of the dying and announce their doom. If the Gentry are proof that faeries can live forever, and be forever young, then the sluagh are proof they might even live on after that. I find them both disconcerting and fascinating in equal measure.
Tiernan and Jack have made themselves presentable. The kelpie slicked back his dark hair and affixed a flower just below the collar of his shirt. Tiernan wears a doublet he must have hunted up from one of his bags, brown velvet and slightly wrinkled, more that of a soldier than a courtier. He frowned when he saw Oak emerge from my room with me.
“Lead on,” Oak tells Lupine, and with a shallow bow, she sets off, leaving us to trail behind.
The tunnels of the Court of Moths carry the scents of fresh-turned earth and seawater. As the southernmost Court on the coast, it is perhaps not surprising that we pass through sea caves, their walls studded with the sharp remains of barnacles. There is a wet, crashing sound, and for a moment I imagine the ocean rushing in and drowning us all. But it recedes, and I realize the waves must be far enough off not to be a danger.
A little farther and we come to an underground grove. The air is suffocatingly humid. We pass floss-silk trees, their thick gray trunks covered in thorns bigger than two of my fingers together. From them hang what appear to be woolen nests of white seedpods. A few wriggle as I study them, as though something more than seeds is trapped inside, trying to be born.
The next room has a still pool dipping down into unknown depths, with night-dark water. Jack of the Lakes goes toward it, dabbling his hand. Tiernan tugs sharply on the back of his doublet. “You don’t want to go swimming in there, kelpie.”
“Do you think there’s an enchantment on it?” Jack asks, fascinated, squatting to look at his reflection.
“I think it’s where the sea folk come in,” says the knight grimly. “Swim too far, and you will find yourself in the Undersea, where they have little love for lake dwellers.”
I kick my skirt ahead of me. My fingers dig deep into my pockets, running over what I stuffed into them. The sharp scissors I stole from Habetrot, the matchbook, the fox figurine, a single licorice jelly bean. I hate the idea of my things remaining in the room and being pawed over by inquisitive servants, inventoried for the queen.
Three more turns, and then I hear strains of music. We pass a smattering of guards, one that smacks their lips at me.
“Did they let you see Hyacinthe?” I ask Tiernan, matching my step to his. I do not like the thought of the former falcon being confined when he was already desperate to be free. And I am worried over Queen Annet’s plans, no less her whims.
Tiernan seems surprised I have spoken to him voluntarily. “He’s well enough.”
I study the knight. His expression is stiff, his broad shoulders set. A thin dusting of stubble darkens his jaw. His short black hair appears unbrushed. I wonder how long he remained in the prisons and how quickly he had to dress because of it.