Page 17 of Rogue's Pawn (Covenant of Thorns 1)

“Why do you grow hair on your legs?” she asked, completely astonished.

“Not by choice, I assure you. That’s why I want to take it off.”

She shook her head dubiously. “Maybe better to get Healer to fix that for you.”

“Never mind—please tell me I’ll have something to wear to this reception? Maybe something long enough that no one will see my legs?”

“Oh yes!” The sparrow girls nodded with her. “Now, stand up and we’ll give you a final rinse.”

I reluctantly left the warm water and let Mina pour several buckets over me, while Bhrta bailed from the tub. Where was all the water coming from anyway? This was far more than they’d brought in originally and no one had left the room since Blackbird locked it.

Blackbird wrapped me in warm towels—there were advantages to this being-waited-on business—and led me to the fire. The buckets warming there were all full. All except the one Bhrta was still using to empty the tub. The buckets by the fire looked different, somehow. I unfocused my eyes and they almost glowed. That same shimmer as the amber bubble in my mind. This was their “magic.” But wasn’t magic simply technology that one didn’t fully understand?

“Wrap up your lovely hair in this towel, dear, and we’ll get you oiled down.”

I bent over and shook my hair out, then wrapped it up tightly. The towels weren’t made of the familiar terry but of a silky-feeling fabric. Blackbird bustled back with her tray, slid off the towel I was wrapped in and began rubbing oil into me. Which seemed a bit odd at first, but then no different than a masseuse working on me. She smoothed the oil over my throat particularly, warning me that though it was healed, the skin had been rushed through the process and needed special care. Good to know. The fire warmed my skin, heated the oil so the fragrance of cloves, nuts and cinnamon swam together. Blackbird carefully oiled under the collar and other silver bands as well, then buffed them with a cloth—might as well treat them like jewelry, she observed with characteristic cheer.

Then she sat me on a stool, once again draped in a towel, with my back to the fire. She combed my hair, spreading it to the flames, while Bhrta and Mina finished cleaning up the tub. Mina brought over a tray with food of the fruit and cheese variety, maybe some kind of pastry things. I ignored them, though my stomach felt hollow. Not that it would hurt me to burn a little fat.

“Best have something, dear. Lady Healer said you were to eat.”

“No, thank you—not at the moment.” I tried to think of an excuse. Failed. “Are the water buckets magic?”

“Oh yes—Lord Rogue fixed them up for us, so we wouldn’t have to haul water so far. They just stay full all the time, no matter how often we empty them.”

“Like the pot of gold that never dwindles.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing as that, pet. It doesn’t sound nearly so useful.”

“Tell me more about how magic works. Can you perform magic things or do spells?”

“Me?” She fluttered. “Oh, Titania, no.”

“Why not?”

“Lady Gwynn—you should know. Some have the gifts, some do not. It’s unkind for someone as powerful as yourself to be so cavalier of your special status.”

I turned and caught her hand. “Lady Blackbird—that’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t know where I am or how I got here.”

“Don’t you?” Her black eyes glinted, just like her namesake’s. “It seems to me you’re the person who was there every step of the way.”

“I was in my own world and then I was here.”

“That’s often how it works.” She looked sympathetic and tried to pull her hand away.

I sighed at her. “Won’t you give me any information?”

“It’s really not my place, Lady Gwynn. Lord Rogue would—oh dear.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I tried to be careful, but I seem to have broken off some of your hair underneath in unsnarling it. I’m so, so sorry for it.” Blackbird sounded apprehensive. Of course, with prima donnas of the Nasty Tinker Bell and Lady Healer of Everything Under the Sun ilk running around, I wasn’t surprised. I reached back and felt the bristly stub at the right side of my nape.

“Oh, no worries. I did that.”

“I see, dear, of course you did. I believe I can braid it in.” Blackbird began tugging and weaving, apparently braiding my hair into some kind of up-do. She leaned in close to my ear, whispered, “Did you by chance cut your hair and add blood to it?”

“Yes.” My heart thumped, remembering the bizarre impulse—and the vision I’d seen in Rogue’s mind about it.

---