“Are you okay?” I asked, pointing.
“Oh!” She waved her hand and blushed. “Yes, don’t worry about me. That was asked for.”
It looked like someone had tried to strangle her— Oh.
So she wasn’t into fuzzy beast costumes; she was into the harder stuff. Noted.
“I’m Leala, your lady’s maid. How are you this morning, milady?”
“Lady’s maid? Um… I think there must be some misunderstanding. I’m not noble or anything.”
She smiled pleasantly. “You’re the master’s guest in the castle, and therefore you need a lady’s maid.” She bustled into the room, heading first for the curtains. Bright sunlight streamed in, and I put up my hand to block it from my face.
“Right. I think that’s the misunderstanding. I’m not actually a guest. More like…a prisoner.”
“Well. We’re all prisoners in some respects, aren’t we?” She gave me a comforting smile. “If anyone asks, though, we’re going to say that you’re waiting to be executed for stealing. That’s in case anyone gets chatty with the demons. The demons are…not kind to new people. They might go babble to their king, and we don’t want him coming around. He is not pleasant.”
“How often does the demon king come around here?”
She picked up the dresses Hadriel had dropped and opened the wardrobe. After stuffing his rejects away, she leafed through a few of the others. “Goodness me, these are…old.” Her face colored a little. She shut the doors. “He comes around every so often—time is hard to keep track of here. Everything is the same. Day in and day out, it’s all more of the same. He comes to harass the master, essentially, and make sure our lives are ruled by his demons. It’s not a nice time when he visits.”
Fire kindled deep inside of me. My animal moved within my chest, the first time it had happened without the beast—Nyfain—close at hand.
“I won’t say a word. Chances are I’ll still say something that’ll piss Nyfain off—” I stopped at her flinch. “What?”
“It’s just…” She curtsied, something I’d never actually seen done before. “We don’t call him by his birth name. We call him master.”
“You can call him whatever you like. I’ll call him by his name, and if he doesn’t like that, I’ll call him a ballbag fuckbumper. I’ll let it be his choice.”
She made a face like “oh!”
“Anyway, the chances are that I’ll piss off the ballbag fuckbumper very quickly, and he’ll kill me in rage.”
“Oh now, milady. I doubt he’ll…” She pulled her lips to the side as she looked through a chest of drawers Hadriel had poked through last night. “He does have a temper, sure, but…”
“He grabbed me by my throat last night when I wouldn’t answer his question.”
“Hadriel mentioned the master had been stabbed. Did you stab him then, milady?”
“Yeah. It’s why he let me go.”
I didn’t elaborate. Her look of triumph made me feel good about myself. I didn’t want to ruin it by telling her that I hadn’t been in control.
“You’ll do just fine, then.” She pulled out a set of leather pants and held them up in front of her. “The master said you might like a pair of trousers instead of a dress for day-to-day activities. Was he correct? I hope so, because there aren’t any dresses suitable for your beauty. They are all designed to add flourishes for someone with a plain face. Also, they will nowhere near fit. Much too small.”
I hadn’t realized such considerations went into fashion. Then again, Mom had made our clothes, and she didn’t care about such things. Hannon had taken over that duty after she had died, and he cared even less.
“Trousers, yes,” I said as dangerous tingles worked up my spine.
Nyfain must’ve been paying pretty close attention to me the last time he chased me out of the Forbidden Wood. How else would he know what sort of attire I preferred?
“Well, then.” She laid them out on the bed and looked through another drawer. “Thankfully you’re a tall girl, or you’d have to stay in your room until we had something made up. Which reminds me. I’ve booked you appointments with both seamstresses for later today. They can start working on your clothing right away. They were very excited to have the opportunity to do something new. All they work on now is party costumes and servants’ clothes.”