She winked as we turned a corner. A handful of guards waited at the end. “I’ll tell you later.”
Before we stepped through the doorway, she warned me we were passing into a lodestone, and I steeled myself for the lurch that felt like walking down a staircase with one more step than I expected.
A columned chamber stretched before us, wide and long, the high ceiling showing a sky full of racing clouds and the tinge of sunrise gold. The image moved, and when I gave Rose a questioning look, she shrugged. “Magic. You’ll get used to it.”
In fact, the buzz on my skin was less noticeable than it had been when I’d left the Hall of Healing, growing clearer when I focused.
Ahead, at the chamber’s centre, a fountain glittered, and beyond that stood two huge doors, wide open to the outside. The grand hall Bastian had mentioned. He’d brought me a different route that first day.
I could probably find my way from here back to his offices and the practice yard, even if it wasn’t the most direct way. That was progress.
Before we stepped out into the burgeoning day, I glanced back. The door we’d entered through cut off the far left-hand corner of the chamber, while another matching door cut off the right-hand corner. That had to be Dawn’s entrance.
We crossed the same bridge as that first day, and since I avoided looking over its edge （or even acknowledging it had one）， I spotted that the sky above matched the one from the hallway. Magic, indeed.
“You’ll get used to it all.” Rose gave me a lopsided grin. “It took me a little while, but now I love it here. Ari, too. That’s my friend—she’s one of us.” She tapped the rounded tip of her ear.
“Mostly” human—yet her canine teeth were long and sharp like a fae’s.
Curiosity ate at me, but the bridge deposited us into a busy street and fae stared as we passed.
So many people—people I could kill with a single touch.
I clutched at the buzzing sensation on my skin, desperately trying to will the magic inside me to be small. I was a girl again, my father rapping a ruler across the table, making me jump.
Sit straight.
Knees together—you’re not a whore.
I hated myself for leaning on those lessons—what had they got me? I’d been poisoned—not just by the aconite, but by all the words my father and uncle had dripped into me for so, so long. Except… without those lessons, without their tight boundaries, who the hells was I?
That was too big a question. Far, far too big.
And right now, I needed to keep this magic under control. Much as I hated their rules, they had taught me to be quiet, small, contained, and I needed this power in my veins to be the same.
Still, the fae watched.
“What are they looking at?”
“Us.” Rose shrugged. “But mostly you.”
I frowned, every inch of me rigid from holding on. “They didn’t stare as much when I came this way before.”
She gave me a sidelong look. “Were you with Bastian, by any chance?”
“I suppose he’s enough to scare the curiosity out of most people.”
Another flashing grin. “Mm-hmm. We’re human, which is unusual enough. But I’m old news now. You’re still fresh and new, and you must know about fae and red hair. I’m sure Bastian’s told you the effect—”
“They like it. I know.” I didn’t want to think about the effect I had on Bastian nor him on me.
“There you go. And, of course, the rumour mill started churning the moment Bastian came galloping into the city with a half-dead woman in his arms and demanded the best healer save her life.”
I swallowed down a reaction. Galloped. Demanded. I rubbed my chest where my heart dipped.
All of this is real.
Rose went on, pointing out various buildings along the way. Art galleries that were open for anyone to visit. Indoor and outdoor theatres. A school of art, where, through a window, I caught the glimpse of a naked model posing with a pair of weighing scales in her hand and a snake draped over her shoulders.
Music drifted from open windows, a song dropping off as we passed from one street only to be picked up as we entered another. Sometimes the next tune was faster or slower, happy where the last one had been sad, but somehow they all felt akin to one another, like garments cut from the same cloth.
I’d heard in stories that fae loved art and beauty, but this…
It drowned me so exquisitely, I didn’t know where to look next, even as I tried to keep an eye on the surrounding faces. Was that woman following us? Was I just being paranoid?
“I probably should’ve shown you around the palace first, but I figure you’ve been cooped up too long.”
Agreed. Outside and doing something at long last. Speaking of which…
“I have a request, actually.” I kept my tone casual, even though a little thrill ran through me. “This necklace—I think it came from the city, and I’d love to get something to match it. Do you think we could find the jeweller it came from?”
She glanced from the pearlwort necklace to a tower topped with a massive orrery. “We have time to visit a few before your appointment, and getting to know the city though jewellery shops is as good a way as any. Though I warn you, there are a lot of jewellers in the city. It might take us a while to find the right one.”
“I’ve got nothing but time.” I had to find out more about unCavendish, and this was my only lead.
So Rose led the way. My head spun a little with her endless chatter about different people and places in the city. It was comforting, even if I didn’t fully understand all the references she made, but that comfort was at odds with the looks following us.
I started to build a picture of who was from Dawn and who came from Dusk. As well as blond, brown, and leafy green, Dawn hair colours tended towards the soft tones of a dreamy sunrise, while Dusk favoured deeper colours like the bright ones of a spectacular sunset or the deep dark of midnight. Though a few had starlight hair in pale shades of blue, purple, and silver.
Skin tone varied across both, including the palest and darkest shades seen in humans as well as tinges of green or blue.
Everyone had pointed ears and that same impossible beauty that felt as dangerous as their sharp teeth.
In truth, it was.
Especially in the Dawn fae. As far as I knew, any one of them could be behind unCavendish. True, it was likely to be someone with power and influence, but I didn’t know the players yet, nor did I understand how to pick out the powerful fae from the average pawn.
This was a new game.
Still deadly, but with new pieces and new rules, none of which I knew beyond Bastian’s warnings.
“Bastian asked me to help train you,” Rose said as we turned onto a wide road full of shops with large, curved windows that seemed impossible to make from something as fragile as glass.
I eyed the paired long knives at her side. “To fight?”
She glanced around, then ducked closer. “To use your magic.”
Use it? There didn’t seem much point, since I didn’t intend to have it for long. Elthea had said she was confident she’d find a cure. Fingers crossed, that was why she’d arranged this appointment.
Still, it was a good excuse to pry a little about Rose’s “mostly” human status. I tugged the cuffs of my gloves. “You have… something similar?”