Page 508 of Flirting with Darkness

The view outside was beautiful. Unearthly.

The door opened between me, and three smiling women entered, greeting me cheerfully. They were all beautiful, incredibly so—sharp cheekbones and lush lips and thick, waist-length hair—and then one of them swept her hair back over her shoulder and I caught sight of her pointed ears.

They didn’t look anything like Tor, and I wondered why. The Fae in the forest had looked more like Tor.

“Hello,” one of them greeted me. She knelt and touched a spot by the wall, and part of the floor slid away, revealing an enormous steaming bathtub and steps down into it. Another woman touched the wall, and a wardrobe appeared where nothing had been before.

I stared around in shock. It seemed like… magic. But maybe there was a logical explanation for everything. Clever engineering.

“What colors should she wear?” One of the women said to another.

That woman touched my hair, running her hand down it, then looking as if she wished it were different. “It’s not much to style.”

I touched my hair, which seemed thin and lank compared to theirs, and the first woman assured me, “Your hair is lovely. And we’ll make it look even lovelier.”

“It’s just so short.” One woman complained.

“So work your magic, Vivi!”

Vivi pulled a face. Then she asked me, “How long would you like your hair to be?”

“Excuse me?”

“I need it to be longer to style,” she said. “The court loves their long, ridiculous hair. And do you have a preference about color? Are you… are you very tied to this color?”

She touched the edge of my light brown hair again.

“Color?”

“We can change it as often as you want, so you aren’t tied to it,” she promised. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“Blue it is,” she said with a grin. My scalp prickled, and I raised my fingers to my hair only to feel it sliding between my fingers. At first, I thought my hair was all falling out, then I realized it was cascading around my shoulders, growing longer and longer until it hung past my waist. The bottom ten inches were the old brown, but the new hair was a silvery-blue, lush and shiny. I ran my hands over my hair disbelievingly.

“Now we have something to work with,” Vivi said in delight.

Another of the maids rolled her eyes. “You’re just proud of your work and want compliments.”

“So?”

The next few hours passed being plucked and preened and cleaned. They spoke to each other constantly, teasing each other, trying to include me in their conversation with little asides. I asked them about the prince (apparently Prince Akim was a terrifying warrior, who would kill anyone who insulted his beloved, which made him highly prized husband material). I asked them about Tor (he tried to stay away from court because the high Fae were as uncomfortable around him as he was them; they reminded him that low Fae had their own ideas).

I pressed for more details, only to be cut off with a hundred questions about what kind of dressed I liked. I told them, but they kept correcting my every comment. I didn’t see how anyone could make the dress we dreamt up together in time to meet the prince; we described a long black dress with a wide black leather belt and a plunging neckline.

Finally, Vivi and Somai pranced to the tall wardrobe in the corner and swung the doors wide open.

Only one dress hung inside.

The exact dress we’d just been describing.

They laughed at my surprise, seeming delighted to help me dress. I barely recognized the girl in the mirror; I was a long way from beige sweaters and sensible bobs.

They went on chattering to me, gushing about how pretty I was. As beautiful as any high Fae, they assured me.

It was a little bit charming.

And then abruptly it ended.

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