Page 34 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

But I’m also afraid of how she’s going to react. I know I hurt her, leaving her behind, and I’m worried she’ll never forgive me. I’m not sure that I would forgive me if I were Kila. After all, I chose my sister

I’ll go see Kila in the morning, I decide as Lucilline comes out to let me know my bath is ready. The relief that sweeps through me at the thought leaves me feeling guilty.

I was pretty sure choosing Izzy over Kila made me a coward.

But my unwillingness to face Kila after the fact?

Yeah. Now I’m certain of it.

Ihaven’t bothered to look at myself in a mirror almost the whole time I’ve been in the Icecaix lands, so on the one hand, I’m not entirely certain how I look.

At the same time, I’m not terribly surprised by what I see in the bathroom mirror when I finally do stand in front of it to examine myself.

How I lookis awful, easily ten years older than Izzy rather than one.

I’ve grown thinner, for one thing. And for another, my hair—without product or regular trims—has become a wild, unruly mass. Not surprising, given the fact that I’ve given up brushing and taken to scraping it back off my face, tying it with a piece of ribbon from Adefina’s scrap basket.

My nails are ragged. I had tried trimming them with knives, but I finally started clipping them with trimmers from Fintan’s stash of tools for the animals—with predictable results.

And after a year in the wintery cold, my hands are chapped and cracked, my cheeks gaunt, my face drawn.

I don’t spend long cataloging my faults, though. I’m too busy stepping into the bathtub full of scented bubbles—and it’s every bit as heavenly as I expected.

Bottles and jars line the edge of the tub, and I open each one, sniffing the contents and then testing them on my fingertips.

I have to guess what some of them are for, as none are labeled. But they all smell lovely, most with at least a hint of citrus. Soaps, creams, oils—I decide I don’t care what they’re meant for. I use them all, rubbing myself down with one after the other.

When the water grows cold, I let it swirl away. Although I’ve done everything I can to keep myself clean over this last year, a light film of grit forms a sludge at the bottom of the tub as the water drains.

I rinse out the dirt and fill the tub back up, going through the whole process again. This time, I choose a sudsy concoction and use a scrub brush Lucilline left for me until I finally feel as if I’ve scraped away every horrible thing that has happened to me while I’ve been in the Icecaix lands.

Then I turn on the shower and stand under the spray until I’ve rinsed myself completely clean. It doesn’t occur to me until then to wonder if any of the filth I’m watching whirl down the drain is made up of Oriana’s ashes—or those of any of the other Ice Court Caix burned to death just a few nights ago.

Suddenly my delight in the bathing facilities evaporates.

I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around myself, once again staring at my reflection—now wet and bedraggled—until a light knock at the bathroom door catches my attention. The door cracks open a few inches.

“Miss?” Luilline’s tentative voice says. “Can I assist you?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess—can you help me find a brush?”

“Of course.”

I reach toward the counter to pick up my worn jeans, ready to pull them on.

“Not those,” Lucilline says. “Would you like me to… dispose of them?”

“I’m guessing you really mean something more along the lines oftake them out and burn them?”

My tone is dry, and Lucilline snickers. “Something like that.”

“Maybe you could just arrange to have them laundered for me? I’d be sad to lose them.”

Especially if there’s any chance I might end up stuck here for another year. Or longer.

No. I’ll keep my blue jeans—because as much as I have grown to hate them as the only clothing I own that hasn’t been burned by dragonfire, I also have no interest in losing them.

Lucilline brings me a silky robe to replace my own clothing. Tying it around my waist, I busy myself examining the bottles on the shelf in front of the mirror.

---