Page 26 of Lux

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. Siblingsare 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 offyou 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 noteverneed 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.”

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