Page 18 of By the Fae

“You okay?” she said.

Urgh, fuck this fae not being able to lie bullshit.

“I will be,” I said, because it was the only sliver of truth I was prepared to admit at that point. I barricaded myself in my room and flopped down onto the bed.

Chapter 7.

Holly

I tiptoed through the door and let it close as quietly as possible behind me. Goldie would be back this afternoon for the meeting. All senior designers were obligated to attend. I swallowed the lump building in my throat. I’d have to announce, in front of everyone, who I’d shadow for the next few months. Still ninety-eight percent sure I would choose Seth, but I’d been ruminating on his ‘inexperienced’ comment all night. Tossing about in bed, hardly getting a wink of sleep. On the top bunk, Abby was losing her mind.

“Every time you move, it shakes the whole bed. You’re doing my head in. Please, just stay still.”

That, coupled with what the two fae women had said to me about ‘the Golden rule’, had sent my thoughts churning over one another. Like they were on the spin cycle of the planet’s most aggressive washing machine.

Like, I knew Goldie was promiscuous, I didn’t realise he wasthatpromiscuous. I don’t know why my brain had decided to fixate on that.

Everyone.Even August?

He might come back this morning, so I had to be quick. It was my last chance to retrieve my cardigan myself, without having to use words like a grownup and ask him for it.

I headed straight to the arm of the sofa where I’d left it, but it wasn’t there anymore.

Fudgesicles! Where would it be? I cast my eyes around Goldie’s office. It shouldn’t be too difficult to spot. The thing was bright pink, and super fluffy, like baby ostrich fluffy. He’d drawn the blinds again after I’d stormed out, the room so much darker than it ought to be at ten o’clock on a Friday morning.

Come on, if I were a beautiful, feathery cardigan, where would I be?

Aha! There it was. One pink sleeve draped across the back of his filing cabinet, the rest of it hidden behind.

“How did you get over there?” I said, shaking off the dust and cradling it in my arms. He must have thrown it.

Really? Goldie threw my cardigan across his office? He hated me that much?

“Don’t worry, Mummy’s here. You don’t have to be in that nasty man’s office anymore.” I turned to leave, not wanting to spend a moment longer in here than I had to, but something stopped me in my tracks.

The cardigan slipped through my fingers. My eyes locked onto the drawing pad on his desk, and I found myself floating towards it.

“What the heck?!”

It was . . . me.

He’d drawn me. In the style of an old-school, high-fantasy, video game character. I mean, it was definitely me. She had my hair, and glasses, and — I laughed out loud — even my dungarees. It was a sexy drawing, but not sexualised. I didn’t know how there was a difference, but there was, and he had managed to capture it.

But why?

Why had he drawn me? Had Goldie drawn me before or after he tossed my cardigan across the room? Did it matter?

Part of me was desperate to stay and figure out this riddle, but I was suddenly overcome with the sensation that I’d been snooping and could be caught at any moment.

I wanted to take the drawing with me, study it in detail, but it would have to stay. Goldie would know I’d been prying about his things.

I scooped my cardigan up and exited the scene as quickly as my little dungaree-clad legs would carry me.

“But why is the human here?” said Lans, one of the Other Five, as I’d begun to refer to them. He made wingball games. Not something that had ever interested me.

“Because,” began August, putting on herI’m your boss, and you will respect mevoice. Maybe she could give me lessons. “Holly is part of the team now, whether you like it or not, so you’ll just have to deal with it.”

A few of the designers gave ill-disguised eye-rolls, including, with a pang of hurt to my chest, Seth.

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