12. Niamh

CHAPTER 12

Niamh

S he is beautiful in name only. To call her that is a crime. An insult.

There is so much more to her than meets the eye. So much mystery contained in her thin, frail frame. I have never been jealous of anyone for their beauty before. Not even Day.

Minchae is everything I want to be. She is poise and grace, but most of all… She is powerful. It drips from her, hidden but no less undeniable than Caspian's bared fangs. She cloaks herself in delicate movements and a quiet voice, but I can see through the act to what lurks beneath.

She is not fae. They are taught to hide themselves. Shield their specialness.

She merely toys with those who think her weak. One day—a day that only she decides—she will punish them for insolence.

Yet she looks at me and smiles sweetly. "You're an odd one. You can talk to me here. Those bastards won't barge in. I've trained them well."

Trained them not to enter this room of fabric—a tent, she called it. Her realm, made of purple fabric and lamps that glow a hellish green. She crouches before a tall, clear mirror while I stand. The grime and muck on me have been washed away, but her touch is nothing like Caspian's. Colder. Indifferent. To her, I am a doll, but one she strives to dress well.

For I am part of her plan, whatever it may be. There is a role she would like me to play that has nothing to do with what Cyrus has planned for us.

To suit her needs, I must be pretty and soft. The rosy red contrast to her vibrant green. In an outfit like hers, I seem half-naked. Unseemly. Wrong.

"Where the hell did they find you?" Minchae asks, continuing to tug my thin, silken shirt into place. "From one of the enclaves up north? I hear they go further than the ones down south do. Breed brother to sister like the fucking fae. Sick bastards. Is that where you're from? Can't you speak?"

"I can speak," I say, my voice halting and broken. "I don't know what you mean."

Enclaves. North. South. She speaks almost as if…

"I'm from the Desinan complex," she explains, her eyes downcast, voice low. "Been established for a few generations now, and they think we're bloody fae royalty. We don't get married to our blood siblings, but they don't frown upon first cousin relations. Just as sick in my opinion. Don't know how my Ma was related to my Da thank God. Yet, this is the result."

She gestures sadly to herself, as if her beauty and grace alone is a shameful outcome of whatever horror she implies. I don't understand her derision. To the fae, blood is everything. Siblings are married and that is the only way. Cousins are a foreign concept. I think about asking her to elaborate. Then I see her face and say nothing. This topic hurts her more deeply than I can ever know. The pain in her eyes is sharp and real and…

Do I look this way? To others? To Caspian? Is that why…

"Well, wherever you came from, it's rotten luck that you wound up here. Cyrus is a right prick, but if you toe the line, he'll ignore you. His other two minions are pure dumbasses, too stupid to know their cock from their arseholes. It's the clients you've got to watch out for." She meets my gaze over the mirror's surface, her expression stone. "Especially the VIPs. Cyrus warns them to only look but not touch, but you get enough pricks with money in one place, and they believe they can do as they please. Just heed my advice: stay above, on your toes and you'll be fine."

She rises to her feet and stretches her arms above her head. "It's almost show time. I'll just freshen up my makeup and then we'll head out to the main stage."

She crosses over to a small desk laden with vials and tubes of colored powders and liquid. She raises one to her lips; like magic, they transform from a dull pink to a luscious red. I watch in awe as she dabbles powder around her eyes next, giving them an ethereal purple shimmer.

"You want some?" she asks, catching me staring. She nods to her pots of powder. "Frankly, you're so damn pretty makeup would just be overdoing it. I, on the other hand, have to play up my ‘exotic features.'" She scoffs at her appearance, narrowing her different-colored eyes. "It's my only appeal. Otherwise, the customers would just tune out. You, however, don't need it. You're right pretty. Too pretty," she decides, eyeing me from over her shoulder. "Anymore and we'd have to beat the brutes off you with a stick. Come here." She crooks a finger, festooned with long, bright blue nails.

As I approach, she stands to allow me to sit on the small stool she vacated. I stare blankly at the features splayed over yet another mirror. Pretty, she says. Perhaps to the mundane. Perhaps to mortals. Perhaps…even to Caspian, I am as such.

But to the fae?

I am nothing. These black eyes reflect only emptiness and sorrow, even as Minchae carefully dusts the lids in a coating of gold powder.

"Damn," she says, reaching for a rag. "Let's get this off of you before someone sees. You most definitely do not ever need makeup. If I were free and had the money, I'd want to buy you myself." She smiles warmly. I think she believes it. In her world, that is a compliment: to be bought and sold.

Or so she pretends. There is a calculatedness to her words. Everything she says has a double meaning, decipherable only to her. Even now, she looks at me and schemes and plots. Something about my face, festooned with makeup pleases her. Yet another piece to her ultimate plan.

If I were like her, I'd have a plan of my own. I would act on the thoughts bothering and prickling on my mind. I wouldn't hesitate for fear of rejection or violence. I would trust in my allure the same way she seems to trust in hers.

"They said there was another fae," I say, my voice thick. It trembles. Oh, how it trembles even at the mere mention of her. Night Aurelia. Was she truly… No, she couldn't have been. Even Altaris claimed it to be so, and for whatever reason I am inclined to believe him. On that point at least.

Fae can't leave the other realm.

So then how…

"I've been here for three years, and I'm the only ‘fae' I've seen," she says with a shrug. "I heard the Crowley boys claimed to have one a while back, but they're the sort to stick fake teeth on a piece of shit and call it a goblin, so who knows. Besides, we're all fakes anyway. Never the real deal." She spins and contorts herself to view her back in the mirror.

I have never seen fae wings before, not even Day's. His robes were specifically designed to conceal them, and he kept them hidden at all times.

But… if I had to guess, his might look something like the beautiful design etched onto Minchae's skin. Spanning from her shoulder down to her hip, it is an amalgamation of pigment and skin. Shimmering greens and blue seem to swirl against her flesh, as if it could peel away at any moment. Unfurl and become a real wing with which to fly with.

She only has one. Just one.

Yet…

I'd give anything to have something similar.

"It is so beautiful," I say, reaching out. I don't mean to. I can't help it. At the last minute, I ball my hand into fists before so much as a finger can come in contact with her.

"It doesn't hurt," she says, spinning back around. "You can touch it if you'd like. I don't mind."

I shake my head. "I couldn't."

It would be unseemly and rude. As if I asked to touch her eyes or stick my fingers in her nose. As beautiful as they are, I must content myself with watching the shimmering almost-wing. All while longing I had something even remotely close to the same.

"I'm guessing you don't have a mark," she says, frowning. "I didn't check before. Do you mind?"

She gestures for me to spin in a circle. I do, and she gingerly peels back the silk custom from my skin, peering at the flesh beneath.

She doesn't gasp in awe, shock, or remark sadly at my lack of wings. She hisses through her teeth instead.

"Fucking monsters! Oh honey, I'm so sorry." Her voice is choked. She's genuinely disgusted, but not because of my deformity. Something else makes her breathing hitch and her hands shake. What is it?

I don't realize I've asked out loud until she raises an eyebrow at me, her eyes wide. "You mean you've never seen what they did to you?"

Did?

"Here. Look—" She takes hold of my shoulders and gingerly steers me back before the tall mirror. Then she makes me contort my neck much like she had, so I can view my back in detail.

Caspian viewed me in this way once. I will never be able to forget it. The shock in his tone. The subtle disgust he couldn't hide. I'd always assumed…

I'd assumed it was me. My abominable deformity. Perhaps the scars left by the Lord Master from my punishments. It didn't matter.

Whatever he saw that disturbed him so, didn't matter to me.

Minchae's pity reveals a darker truth. One that slowly starts to creep in as I make out pale flesh and a ropey spine. Under icy, pale skin, bluish veins creep and crawl, but that is not the alarming visual.

Neither are the scars, though they are numerous: several neat lines from years and years of accumulated sin.

The sight of them isn't what makes my stomach turn. I can feel something raw and cruel clawing across my chest and burning my eyes. It's shame. Regret.

Regret for never looking before. For never being curious. Maybe if I had, if I was…

I would have left much sooner.

Seeing what they did to me, I would have rebelled without a trace of painful guilt. My sins were not enough to justify their lies. A horrible, twisted lie.

Once, I had wings.

So long ago that very little remains of them but shorn nubs on my shoulders. I know it instinctively, the way I know my heart beats in my chest. After cutting them out, they left wicked wounds behind.

Then, year after year after year, they punished me. Nothing can hide their work, not even scar tissue. Through blurring, searing tears, I can see now. I can remember… Something that scratches at my soul and makes me sob openly without caring for who sees or hears.

I was whole once. My true nature was not an abomination, but a fae.

I was robbed of that right.

They stripped me bare.

Then punished me for their crime.