I sit on a cushion as an imp braids my hair back from my face. The imp’s
fingers are long, her nails sharp. I wince. Her black eyes meet mine in the clawfooted mirror on my dressing table.
“The tournament is still four nights away,” the creature says. Her name is
Tatterfell, and she’s a servant in Madoc’s household, stuck here until she works
off her debt to him. She’s cared for me since I was a child. It was Tatterfell who
smeared stinging faerie ointment over my eyes to give me True Sight so that I
could see through most glamours, who brushed the mud from my boots, and who
strung dried rowan berries for me to wear around my neck so I might resist
enchantments. She wiped my wet nose and reminded me to wear my stockings
inside out, so I’d never be led astray in the forest. “And no matter how eager you
are for it, you cannot make the moon set nor rise any faster. Try to bring glory to
the general’s household tonight by appearing as comely as we can make you.”
I sigh. She’s never had much patience with my peevishness. “It’s an honor to
dance with the High King’s Court under the hill.”
The servants are overfond of telling me how fortunate I am, a bastard
daughter of a faithless wife, a human without a drop of faerie blood, to be treated like a trueborn child of Faerie. They tell Taryn much the same thing.
I know it’s an honor to be raised alongside the Gentry’s own children. A
terrifying honor, of which I will never be worthy.
It would be hard to forget it, with all the reminders I am given.
“Yes,” I say instead, because she is trying to be kind. “It’s great.”
Faeries can’t lie, so they tend to concentrate on words and ignore tone,
especially if they haven’t lived among humans. Tatterfell gives me an approving
nod, her eyes like two wet beads of jet, neither pupil nor iris visible. “Perhaps
someone will ask for your hand and you’ll be made a permanent member of the
High Court.”
“I want to win my place,” I tell her.
The imp pauses, hairpin between her fingers, probably considering pricking
me with it. “Don’t be foolish.”
There’s no point in arguing, no point to reminding her of my mother’s
disastrous marriage. There are two ways for mortals to become permanent
subjects of the Court: marrying into it or honing some great skill—in metallurgy
or lute playing or whatever. Not interested in the first, I have to hope I can be
talented enough for the second.
She finishes braiding my hair into an elaborate style that makes me look as
though I have horns. She dresses me in sapphire velvet. None of it disguises
what I am: human.
“I put in three knots for luck,” the little faerie says, not unkindly.
I sigh as she scuttles toward the door, getting up from my dressing table to
sprawl facedown on my tapestry-covered bed. I am used to having servants
attend to me. Imps and hobs, goblins and grigs. Gossamer wings and green nails,
horns and fangs. I have been in Faerie for ten years. None of it seems all that
strange anymore. Here, I am the strange one, with my blunt fingers, round ears,
and mayfly life.
Ten years is a long time for a human.
After Madoc stole us from the human world, he brought us to his estates on
Insmire, the Isle of Might, where the High King of Elfhame keeps his
stronghold. There, Madoc raised us—me and Vivienne and Taryn—out of an
obligation of honor. Even though Taryn and I are the evidence of Mom’s
betrayal, by the customs of Faerie, we’re his wife’s kids, so we’re his problem.
As the High King’s general, Madoc was away often, fighting for the crown.
We were well cared for nonetheless. We slept on mattresses stuffed with the soft
seed-heads of dandelions. Madoc personally instructed us in the art of fighting
with the cutlass and dagger, the falchion and our fists. He played Nine Men’s
Morris, Fidchell, and Fox and Geese with us before a fire. He let us sit on his
knee and eat off his plate.
Many nights I drifted off to sleep to his rumbling voice reading from a book
of battle strategy. And despite myself, despite what he’d done and what he was, I
came to love him. I do love him.
It’s just not a comfortable kind of love.
“Nice braids,” Taryn says, rushing into my room. She’s dressed in crimson
velvet. Her hair is loose—long chestnut curls that fly behind her like a capelet, a
few strands braided with gleaming silver thread. She hops onto the bed beside
me, disarranging my small pile of threadbare stuffed animals—a koala, a snake,a black cat—all beloved of my seven-year-old self. I cannot bear to throw out
any of my relics.
I sit up to take a self-conscious look in the mirror. “I like them.”
“I’m having a premonition,” Taryn says, surprising me. “We’re going to
have fun tonight.”
“Fun?” I’d been imagining myself frowning at the crowd from our usual
bolt-hole and worrying over whether I’d do well enough in the tournament to
impress one of the royal family into granting me knighthood. Just thinking about
it makes me fidgety, yet I think about it constantly. My thumb brushes over the
missing tip of my ring finger, my nervous tic.
“Yes,” she says, poking me in the side.
“Hey! Ow!” I scoot out of range. “What exactly does this plan entail?”
Mostly, when we go to Court, we hide ourselves away. We’ve watched some
very interesting things, but from a distance.
She throws up her hands. “What do you mean, what does fun entail? It’s
fun!”
I laugh a little nervously. “You have no idea, either, do you? Fine. Let’s go
see if you have a gift for prophecy.”
We are getting older and things are changing. We are changing. And as
eager as I am for it, I am also afraid.
Taryn pushes herself off my bed and holds out her arm, as though she’s my
escort for a dance. I allow myself to be guided from the room, my hand going
automatically to assure myself that my knife is still strapped to my hip.
The interior of Madoc’s house is whitewashed plaster and massive, roughcut wooden beams. The glass panes in the windows are stained gray as trapped
smoke, making...