It makes me look somehow regal.
Like a dark queen.
My face is still my own, only more polished and refined. My skin glows with a radiance like it never has before and my silver eyes look extra bright from the wash of mascara and liner on my lashes. It all looks like it could be natural, save for the deep heartsblood color of my lips.
Though I am not the masterpiece. The dress steals the spotlight. Making me look curved and bowed in all the right places. My breasts were nothing to brag about, but with the reaching branches of lace cupping them, casting shadows on my skin through the wisp thin material, they look almost airbrushed.
Even I have to admit it—I look good.
Pattywort has crafted me into someone who looks worthy of such finery. I lift my chin, wishing I could feel like it were true.
“Come, miss. Let’s not keep him waiting.”
25
Kincaid is waiting by the front door, a scowl on his face, his hooked black staff clasped tightly in his grip.
I’m surprised to find I’m nervous when I catch sight of him in his fine clothes. His black hair is thrown back, only one small curl of it out of place, but it almost looks purposeful the way it bends over his brow.
He wears a tailored jacket much like the one he wore the day he purchased me from the demon market. It’s long and detailed through the collar and cuffs. Beneath he wears a loose-fitted dress shirt tucked into trim dark trousers.
When he catches sight of me nearly stumbling down the stairs in the cursed heels he sent along with the dress, he stills.
His lips part and from the way he’s staring I think he’s about to change his mind about the whole thing and make me stay here.
Pattywort clears her throat when we reach the bottom of the stairs. She drops the small train and bows before Kincaid. “I hope my work is to your liking, my lord?”
Kincaid nods. “Yes,” he says, something scratching in his voice. “You may go. Thank you for your services.”
Pattywort tosses me a wink before scuttling out the front door, sealing it behind her.
“How are—”
“I chose—”
We speak at the same time, and I drop my gaze, turning what I’m sure is a very unflattering shade of red. All the while cursing the riotous nerves wreaking havoc in my belly.
I want to think it’s because of where Kincaid’s taking me, but I worry it’s for another reason entirely. I thought after four days spent apart, maybe the strange after-effects of his power over my desire would have waned. It seems I was mistaken.
My traitorous heart pounds wildly behind my rib cage as his hungry eyes rove over every inch of Pattywort’s handiwork.
“You go ahead,” I say awkwardly, having entirely forgotten what I was even going to say to him anyway.
“I chose black, thinking it might help you blend in more easily,” he says, and I startle when the press of two warm fingers lifts my chin so I have to hold his gaze again.
He looks over my face, settling his yellow eyes on mine. He snorts and releases me with a sigh. “I can see now that I was wrong.”
I cock my head at him, unsure I catch his meaning. Or rather, hoping I’m wrong about it.
“You could never blend in, Na’vazēm.”
Is…is he saying I look beautiful?
“It’s almost midnight,” I croak, and the spell is broken.
Kincaid straightens and whatever trace of humanity I’d found in his gaze vanishes. “So it is,” he says, his voice back to his usual dull monotone.
He holds out an arm to me.
“Take it,” he orders when I hesitate. “I would keep you close tonight, Na’vazēm. Very close.”
The drive to the Midnight Court is quick and quiet. Kincaid stares out his window, and I can see his jaw working in the light thrown over him every so often from the streetlamps.
I wonder what he’s thinking, but I’m too afraid to ask.
He asked me once more when we first got into the vehicle if I’d heard the voice of his fallen brother, Malphas, at all since we returned from Bellefontaine cemetery. When I told him I hadn’t, but that I could hear others sometimes, he fell into a stony silence and hasn’t spoken again.
If he did, I think I know what he might say. What he might ask of me.
I’ve read enough of the necromancy book now to know that the staff he purchased from Tori—the Soul Scepter—is a thing that serves to enhance a necromancer’s power.
It whispers because immortal souls are trapped within it.
It enhances a necromancer’s power by harnessing energy from those imprisoned spirits.
I never want to touch it again, but I know it’s only a matter of time before Kincaid will ask me to, and if I want to hold up my end of the bargain, then I must.
“Is that it?” I ask, pointing into the distance. The question is more to rid the air of this tepid silence than to get an answer.
Of course, it’s the Midnight Court. The palace shines like a beacon in the dark. A Greco-Roman style building with a massive domed middle and smooth columns to either side, it shines with spotlights aimed up against its walls from the grassy lawn at its feet.
“Yes,” Kincaid answers grimly as we pull into a queue leading to the entrance. There, fairy lights twinkle in the arched entryway. Diablim walk along a carpet that looks like it’s a swath cut from the midnight sky, complete with a smattering of stars.
A line of horned men in tailored suits and white gloves wait to take the keys of the guests and park their cars for them. Valet, my mind supplies.
Since we have our own driver, when it’s our turn to pull up, Kincaid merely steps out, extending a hand to me from where he stands outside.
A sweet smell like lilac and honeysuckle tickles my nose, and the murmur of too many voices rises above the sound of a band playing from somewhere within the palace.
Faces twisted with hooked noses and bright red eyes turn to take me in as I step out of the gangstermobile and Kincaid tugs my arm through his.
Those whispers quell as Kincaid leads me past dallying guests and onto the carpeted runway leading inside.
“Try to relax,” Kincaid says in a hush. “They can scent fear from a mile away.”
My lungs seize, and I force myself to stand a little straighter—the boning in the top part of my dress helps me stay there—with my chin held high.
Kincaid is right of course. I am afraid, there’s no denying it, but I also cannot deny my mounting curiosity as I take in all the new sights, smells, and sounds.
On Kincaid’s arm, I am untouchable.
In his shadow, I am safe.
I don’t have to be afraid.
There’s something exhilarating about that. And as I tilt my head to one side to take in his stoic, regal face, something clenches low in my belly.
Diablim incline their heads as we pass, making no secret of their own interest in the silver-eyed girl on his arm. I can’t help noticing in furtive glances how some have that light in their eyes, like Artemis does. How they glow with different, brightly colored auras if I let my eyes go unfocused. A couple gleam brightly, but most don’t shine at all, or very, very little.
We enter under a canopy of dark flowers and shining silvery thorns and Kincaid steers me down a smaller corridor than the one everyone else seems to be taking towards the sound of the music.