Page 10 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
This is confirmed when one of them, a tall fae with dark red hair, calls, “Gielle! Did you know one of the servants is in our bath?”
My pale skin, which is already flushed from the heat, flushes even more. They think, because I’m human, that I’m one of the servants.Goddess damned fae…
I hear Gielle’s bell-like laughter from outside the doorway, and she peeks in enough for me to see her triumphant smirk. “Well, you know those servants, forgetting their place…”
“Do you know what they’ll do to you?” asks another of the fae men, arms crossed over his chest. “Your punishment will be severe.”
The third man, tall and muscular and golden, skin and hair both, looks at me with a puzzled wrinkle to his brow. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “I heard that Professor Julian took in a human who showed up lost at the gates. This is no servant.” His eyes lock onto mine inquisitively. “Are you?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m not.”
Gielle’s smirk drops and her eyes narrow.
And because I refuse to show weakness in front of her, and I damn sure am not going to let her win this little game, I stand up, water streaming off me, turn my back on all of them, and calmly walking over to the towels. Once I have one wrapped around me, I pick my daggers out of my pile of clothes and approach the group of fae by the door. The two who had spoken first are staring at me, flabbergasted, but the one in the middle, who is clearly the leader of their little group, is eyeing me with something that might be admiration.
“Thanks so much for your help earlier, Gielle,” I say. “But I think I’ll show myself back to my room and wait for Professor Julian.”
She shoots daggers with her eyes as I walk past them all down the hall. It’s only a short walk to my room, thankfully, but I’mwell aware that I have no clean clothes to wear, having left mine on the floor in the bathing room. So, I’m beyond relieved when I enter my room and see that the bed has been made and there’s a stack of clothes on top of it.
I choose a pair of form-fitting brown pants and a cream-colored tunic, along with knee-high leather boots. At least the clothes are somewhat familiar in style to what I usually wear. The women here are warriors, and are not expected to wear dresses or skirts like most of the women I’ve met during my travels. There’s even a simple brassiere, so I don’t have to worry about binding my breasts.
When I’m done, I go to the window and examine myself tentatively in what little reflection I can see in the glass. My fingers reach up and touch the damp ends of my hair that falls just below my ears. It’s odd to have it loose, not knotted at the back of my head. I can’t see much in the wavy reflection, but I can see the curve of my cheek, catch the shimmer of my gray eyes, the flame color of my hair.
I still don’t know what strange magic brought me here, and I don’t trust a single one of these fae, but I can’t help but feel like this all has the bitter taste of fate about it.
And what exactly that fate has in store for me remains to be seen.
Chapter Six
Professor Julian comesback an hour later.
“Ahh,” he says. “You look somewhat refreshed from your travels. And I see the servants brought you bedding and clothes.”
“Yes, thank you,” I respond.
He looks around the room as if there’s some hidden compartment. “Where’s Gielle?”
I shrug and smile sweetly. “She must have had something important to do.”
Julian frowns and his brow wrinkles. After a moment, he says, “Well, we have a few hours yet until dinner, so I thought I would introduce you to a couple of the other professors.”
I nod and follow him out of the room.Myroom, which still feels incredibly odd.
We travel down to the second floor and across the huge castle to the opposite wing. I can’t get over how huge this place is, and how utterly out of place I feel. The stone walls seem asif they rose from the roots of the earth. Glowing lanterns in crystal sconces line the walls, their flames flicking an unnatural shade of lavender that is clearly derived from magic. Massive chandeliers hang from the ceilings in the large public spaces, wrought of metal and glass, each one designed differently. Some look like flowers, others like leaves, and yet others like the teeth of some ancient creature. Here and there a stained-glass window takes up an entire wall, casting rainbow hues across the stone tiles.
As we walk, my eyes soak in every detail. We pass a library filled floor-to-ceiling with books, with strange ladders that appear to be made of glass leading to the highest levels. Inside, I see a broom moving of its own accord, tidying up. Another room, which is rounded on the exterior wall and two-stories tall, a tower it seems, has a domed ceiling made entirely of pale-green glass and several enormous metal telescopes designed to look at the night sky. Then there is a room filled entirely with plants and trees, a forest inside the castle. There’s a hum of crickets from within, and the scent of soil and flowering things.
I have never been inside a castle, at least to my memory, but I know enough from reading to understand that this castle is not ordinary at all. It is a castle filled with magic, a castle created by fae. A castle that is not meant for my kind.
“Ahh, here we are,” Professor Julian says, pulling me from my observations.
We enter a room that looks like a personal study with a large window on the far side overlooking the castle grounds. Gray sky and vibrant green fields can be seen beyond. There’s a long polished wooden table on one side of the room, covered in strange artifacts and stacks of books. The opposite wall is covered in maps, and I notice there are little dots and icons moving about the maps slowly, though I have no idea what they represent. A cat sits in a leather chair in one corner, licking itspaw as cats are prone to do and looking perfectly ordinary except for the vibrant blue of its fur.
Two fae are waiting for us.
“Embyr, let me introduce you to Professor Wyllora and Professor Gwynoch,” Julian says, waving a hand toward them. They both nod in greeting, eyeing me intently and in a less than friendly manner.
Professor Julian gestures to the fae woman on the left with long black hair and stunning lavender eyes. “Professor Wyllora is Head Incantrix of the House of Souls. She’s an eleventh-degree spirit summoner.” He pivots toward the second woman, who is just as tall as the first (of course, all the fae are tall and lithe), but with long silver hair and dark skin. “Professor Gwynoch is Head Incantrix of the House of Sky. Twelfth-degree air elemental.”
