Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

G etting whisked away by a prince to a castle should be every girl's fantasy. And in a way, this feels like a dream.

I lie back on the lush pillows of my bed, sipping tea, enjoying the views in my new place.

Last night, we rode on horseback to Castle Perillos, where servants immediately bustled around me, getting me anything I wanted. When we arrived, Talan left me with a small entourage of guards and servants who brought me to my room—a vast tower chamber with window views of the wild, moonlit forest beyond the castle walls.

White flowering plants climb the tall columns and stone walls, and the air smells faintly of jasmine. Outside, sunlight breaks through the iron gray clouds and streams over a rug threaded with turquoise and gold and the shelves crammed with Fey books.

A burnished mahogany table stands beneath the tall windows. After I arrived, I ate an amazing dinner there with a book of Fey history. A couple of obsequious servants brought me a lavish meal of salmon and wildflower salad, and it was possibly the best thing I'd ever eaten. And after days of eating nothing but onions and carrots, I was genuinely starving.

Breakfast this morning was fresh bread with chocolate, more mead, and a bowl of strawberries with cream. In my new chambers, I had the luxury of a hot bath in a room with a giant skylight. They even left out a bottle of champagne to drink in the steaming water.

Even my lungs feel better here. The air is free of the things that usually irritate them, like bleach or pollution—which is good, because taking out my plastic inhaler would give me away in a heartbeat.

As I sip my tea, a knock sounds on the door.

"Come in!" I swing my legs over the side of the bed.

The door opens, and a servant with braided black hair carries in a domed tray for me. She sets it on the table by the window, smiling. When she pulls off the dome, the scent of the food has my mouth watering. "Lunch is served, my lady."

Before me lies a plate of roasted pheasant, a dandelion and violet salad, and a plate of bread and cheese. More mead, of course. Always mead.

"Enjoy, my lady!" the servant calls out behind her as she leaves me in the room.

So, like I said, this is every girl's dream—apart from the fact that I'm supposed to be the mistress of a nightmare. My beautiful Prince Charming is pathologically unable to form any kind of emotional connection with another person. He'd murder me if he knew what I really was.

I bite into the pheasant, and the tender meat, flavored delicately with rosemary and a hint of juniper berries, melts in my mouth. As I eat, I glance outside at the forest beyond the castle walls. I wonder how Raphael is doing out there, and thinking about him makes my heart ache.

I take a sip of the mead. He did tell me that he could look after himself. He doesn't need me thinking of him.

I will also try not think about what I heard the servants whispering this morning: that when he met me in Lauron, Talan ordered me to hike up my skirt and get on my hands and knees, and then he fucked me on the forest floor in front of his soldiers— "like a common whore" who was now "rising above her station."

As I swallow another bite of pheasant, a knock sounds at the door.

I cross the vast room and pull open the door. A man is standing in the hall in a crisp white shirt, partially unbuttoned in the front. He reminds me of a knock-off version of Talan, the way his hair looks tousled and long in the front and so many rings gleam on his fingers. It's also the way he stands casually, one hand in his pocket, the other with a black box resting jauntily against his hip.

"Well." He bends his arm and leans against the doorframe, his gaze sweeping all the way down to my hips, then my legs. He licks his lips.

I can't tell if he's evaluating my body or the simple blue dress I'm wearing. "Yes? Can I help you?

He meets my gaze, biting his lip. "Well, I can say that the prince has impeccable taste in women, but of course he has impeccable taste in everything, doesn't he? That's what makes him the prince." He barks a laugh.

"Okay." It's not what makes him the prince, but I'm not going to argue.

He runs a hand through his black hair. His skin is pale, and his hair is so unnaturally black that I wonder if he glamours it.

He nods. "Yeah, you'd be my type, you know, Nia? If the prince hadn't already claimed you for himself, you'd be my type, definitely. Interesting. Not that I'm going to tread on his territory when he so clearly values you, his royal mistress."

Two women bustle behind him carrying swaths of fabric, one with long white hair, the other with a blond pixie cut. He shoves the box into the hands of the white-haired lady, then claps his hands together, smiling at me. "What did you say your name was?"

"Nia," I remind him, though he literally just said it.

"Right, right." He points at me.

This man has a distinctly practiced indifference.

"And you are?" I ask.

"The name's Jasper. I'm in creative control of the royal wardrobe. I'm an artist, and I've been sent here to create art."

Without waiting for an invitation, Jasper saunters into the room, looking around. "My dear friend Talan really gives his mistresses nice rooms, doesn't he? Nice. Nice. You really did bewitch him, didn't you, you little minx? Must have quite the snatch, but we don't judge how one gets power, do we? The power is what matters."

"Thank you?"

He turns to me, cocking his head. He narrows his eyes, and I think he's pretending to think. "Right, what are we doing, then?"

"The banquet," snaps the woman with the blond pixie cut. She cuts me a sharp look as she crosses inside.

Jasper claps again, then points at her. "Yes, Riona. Yes. The banquet. Talan has invited his new friend, and we need to get her dressed in the finest attire."

"Banquet?" I ask.

Instead of answering, Jasper drops into an upholstered armchair and picks up my half-empty glass of mead. He fills it to the brim, then takes a long sip, draining half of it. "You mind if I have a little of this? It helps me think creatively. I do my best work with mead. Do you know what I mean?"

"Not really."

He stares at me again, swirling the glass. "Do you make art?"

I flick my hair over my shoulders, staying in character as the imperious farm girl. "I'm a farmer, actually. Onions, carrots, and pigs. Of course, there is a certain artistry to onion farming during these times of famine."

He freezes and stares at me over his glass as if he's trying to figure out whether I'm joking. "Are you being serious?"

I fold my arms. "Why wouldn't I be? The kingdom needs farmers, you know. We don't have as much to work with these days as we used to, but we still manage to pull your food from the blighted soil. And yes, there's an art to that."

"Wow. Yeah, no, I can imagine. Onions. Interesting. Interesting. And of course, I'm sure you're as layered as an onion." He laughs again.

He's highly skilled at saying absolutely nothing of substance.

He snaps his fingers again. "Riona. Riona. Bring out the?—"

"It's Ranae," the blonde says acidly. "You know my name. I've worked with you every day for eight years."

He slouches in his chair, smiling. "Right. Ranae. Great to meet you. Nice one. Bring out the sheer midnight blue, please." He drains the rest of the mead in his glass, then stares at me again. "Could you get undressed now, please? Sorry, what did you say your name was, again?"

I'm positive he knows everyone's name. " Nia ."

Undressing in front of others was a well-practiced part of our training. The Fey are not self-conscious about their bodies, and I can't ask Jasper to go into another room, even if I want him to. So, while he sips his mead, I pull off my blue dress and stand there in my brand-new white lace underwear.

He scrubs his hand over his jaw, and I can hear him mumbling, "A tiny pig farmer. Runty. Interesting, interesting. What will he think of next?"

I toss my hair over my shoulder again. "The prince and I met last night, and we just hit it off. I showed him our apple grove, or what's left of it. And it seems he found me intriguing."

"Obviously, that's not all you showed him," snaps the white-haired woman.

Ranae shushes her.

Until now, all the servants have been the picture of politeness, but I'm clearly on the bad side of these two women.

Jasper nods, his eyes half-lidded, like he's on the verge of falling asleep. "So, my new friend, do you like blackberry mead?"

"Never had it on the farm," I say.

"Well, we need to get you some." Jasper snaps his fingers again. "You, there, the blonde. Would you mind draping her in the midnight blue, the lake-mist silk? Shape the dress as we go, yeah? I want you to use the sheerest silk."

He slides his mead onto the table and rests his elbows on his knees. He steeples his ringed fingers, then presses them against his mouth, staring at me. "I want the plunging neckline. I want her to look like a goddess. I want the silk to skim over her waist. Do you know what? Let's do an empire waist. And make it backless."

"That doesn't make sense," the white-haired woman says sharply.

Jasper closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. "I don't give a fuck. Make it happen, Tilly."

She shoots me a look of death, as though I'm responsible for Jasper being annoying.

His eyes snap open again. "The bra has to go. We'll do a leg slit, yeah? Show off the strong farmer legs. They're short but quite shapely. Like I always say, the prince has impeccable taste. Unusual taste. Use the star-woven silks, too, yes?"

"Do you know how much that costs?" seethes Tilly.

Jasper grimaces and inhales. "We don't worry about cost at Perillos, not for a chief mistress. Not when you see the gift he bought for her."

Gift?

He slouches back in the chair again and pours himself another glass of mead, chuckling to himself. "A pig farmer. That's mad, isn't it? He's always full of surprises." He waggles his finger at me, grinning. "You just never know with him. That's what makes him interesting, yeah? You think he's going to marry Countess Arwenna Blythe. She's the obvious choice for her beauty and vast fortune, but then boom . He brings home a pig farmer from Lauron who's never had blackberry mead. Throws the whole marriage process into disarray. Madness, you know what I mean? But that's Prince Talan, isn't it? The man's a genius. An absolute genius. Granted, you're very pretty. I can see the logic in it. Anyone can find a pretty lady at court. But finding a lady squatting in the dirt of Lauron, pulling carrots with her bare hands? That takes a certain skill. You really never know what he's up to, do you?"

No, but I intend to find out.

As he's talking, Tilly is working her magic around me, whispering a spell that makes the dress stitch together on my body. The fabric feels gorgeous against my skin, a whisper of soft silk that falls gracefully over my hips, the sheer blue shimmering in the light. It almost feels like a warm liquid.

Tilly manages to fold the fabric over itself in just the right places so my underwear isn't showing through the dress and my nipples are covered with layers of silk.

Jasper stares out the window, looking lost in thought. "No one ever knows what he's going to do, which makes it hard to..." He trails off, but I already know what he was thinking.

It makes it hard to imitate him.

I have a feeling Jasper will be running out to find himself a girlfriend from a farm in Lauron.

As she works, Tilly glares at me like I murdered her firstborn. "He hasn't just been with farmers. Seamstresses, too."

I wonder what gifts he gave to Tilly.

"Could you twirl, darling?" Jasper narrows his eyes at me. "Yes. Yes. That's the one, isn't it? For the banquet. I tell you what, my farmer girl, all the other women are going to be outrageously jealous of you with this dress on. And we haven't even got to the real showpiece yet."

He picks up the black box from the table and opens it.

My jaw drops as I stare at the jewels gleaming before me—a necklace made of dozens of teardrop-shaped diamonds, which hang from delicate chains. The gems have a faint silver-blue sheen to them.

When I turn to see Tilly and Ranae, the vicious expressions on their faces tell me everything I need to know about what this means.

Ranae licks one of her sharp canines. The corrosive envy in the air is palpable, toxic.

Tonight, the courtiers and servants alike will be out to get me.