“Fine,” she grumbled. “I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do, and it backfired on me. No one is surprised. Just help me back to our rooms.”
Hadrian chuckled, and Darby just shook her head. But they each got an arm under her. They walked back like a ridiculous-looking trio and dumped her onto the bed.
“Ugh! Everything hurts. Maybe I can’t go.”
Darby sighed. “Don’t move. Give me a minute.”
She vanished, and Hadrian sank down on the bed. “You’re a mess.”
“Don’t I know it.” She reached forward and tousled his blue hair. It was her favorite thing about her straitlaced friend. “Tell me about the House of Shadows.”
Hadrian sighed dramatically. “The House of Shadows are a dark Fae group called the Dark Court. A terrorist sect of people that wants to enslave anyone they deem lesser.”
Kerrigan pointed at herself. “Like me.”
He winced. “Yes. But you’re not lesser, Ker.”
“I know that. But that’s what he thinks.”
“It seems likely that he despises all humans and half-Fae.”
She nodded. “He said that they meant insult by sending me to escort him.” She bit her lip. “Do you think they actually meant to insult him?”
“That doesn’t seem like Helly’s style,” Hadrian said just as Darby walked back into Kerrigan’s room with a bowl of water and her pouch of herbs.
Darby sank onto the floor before Kerrigan and got to work to try to speed up her recovery.
“Well, the tribes and the Society were tired of how the House of Shadows treated the humans and half-Fae. They were keeping slaves and torturing people. So, they turned against the House of Shadows. A thousand years ago, the Great War occurred, and in the end, the Society won, casting them out forever.”
Kerrigan shivered as Darby set her right hand into the bowl of water. This must be what Fordham meant when he said they owed them a debt. He must think he deserved reparations after a thousand years apart from society.
“If they were cast out, how is Fordham here?”
“That’s the real problem. It should have been impossible for him to leave,” Hadrian said, his features growing dark.
“Where exactly is the House of Shadows anyway?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. The whereabouts were struck from the record.”
“But somebody must know,” Kerrigan said.
She could feel whatever Darby was doing was working. Strength was returning to her muscles. Her headache dimmed. She didn’t feel like a barren wasteland any longer.
“Surely, somebody knows,” Hadrian agreed.
Kerrigan shrugged. “Isn’t it weird that there’s a place on Alandria that we don’t know about?”
“Maybe it’s not on the island then,” he suggested.
“Then, how did he get here? There isn’t another continent within four months by boat.”
“I don’t know. I’m not an expert.”
“As much as it pains you,” she interjected.
Darby shushed her. “Leave him be.”
Hadrian flashed her an irritated look. She liked to push him to the point that he dropped the studious little scholar act and the street urchin came back out. Hadrian had survived on the back streets of Kinkadia for years—pickpocketing, stealing food, and squatting. Until, one day, a Society member had caught him, and instead of handing him over for punishment, he’d been brought in to the House of Dragons. Underneath his newfound class was the scrappy boy she’d known on sight would be her friend.
“How does that feel?” Darby asked.
Kerrigan tested out her limbs. She still couldn’t touch her magic, which made her distinctly uncomfortable, but otherwise, she felt hale. “Better. Thanks, Darbs.”
Darby tucked her chin and nodded. “Of course. Let’s get dressed so that we can go. And leave the work talk here, hmm?”
“Sure,” Kerrigan agreed easily.
Hadrian stood then. “I’ll meet you at the entrance in a half hour.”
“Hour,” Darby called after him.
“Fine,” he said with an eye roll. “An hour.”
And an hour they needed. Kerrigan felt better, but she still wasn’t at a hundred percent.
Darby had forced her into a bath to scrub her skin until it was pink. Then, she’d woven her hair up into an intricate series of braids. Curls fell in precise positions, framing her face. Kerrigan didn’t think it was worth the trouble, considering by the end of the night, the humidity would make her hair go poof. And suddenly, it would be twice as big as when they’d started.
But she couldn’t help but love the style and wish it could last the night.
“Oh, hand me that gold shimmer powder,” Kerrigan said eagerly.
Darby huffed, “I paid a small fortune for this.”
“Then, we’d better use it, huh?”
Kerrigan saw the hesitation in Darby’s eyes. “Never mind,” Kerrigan said at once.
Darby was the youngest of seven siblings. Her parents were farmers, north of the valley. And at the end of the day, they just hadn’t been able to afford a seventh mouth to feed. Her father had packed her up, taken the donkey into the big city, and deposited her on the steps to Draco Mountain. He’d done it out of love. She’d have a much better life here than where she had come from, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Darby still felt the pangs of hunger and poverty, just as Hadrian did. Kerrigan… had never known such. She had only seen it secondhand on the streets and from her friends. Though she would have preferred to have grown up with someone like Darby’s parents. Who had left her out of love… not shame.
“No, no,” Darby said with a sigh. “Wear the powder. It will look lovely with your dress.”
“Are you sure?”
Darby nodded. “That’s why I got it, isn’t it?”
Kerrigan took the small pot of powder and gently brushed a hint of it across her lids. Instantly, the sweep of the kohl that winged at the edges and the brush of black paint along her lashes all came together. Her emerald-green eyes looked twice as big as normal.
“Wow,” Darby said in awe. “That suits you.”
Kerrigan swiveled around and brushed some along Darby’s nearly black lids. “It suits us both.”
Darby looked at her reflection and smiled shyly. “I suppose it does. Now, get in your dress. We’re already late to meet Hay.”
Kerrigan reached into her wardrobe and retrieved the forest-green dress. She was lucky enough to have made friends with an up-and-coming fashion designer, Parris, who liked to try out all of his styles on Kerrigan’s frame. He’d sent this one over this morning, and she was dying to see what he’d put together for the Dragon Blessed ceremony.
“You are the only person I know who can primp and preen in a skintight crushed-velvet dress and be just as happy in men’s clothing, running her fists through things.”
Kerrigan admired her figure in the slim cut of the dress. It had long, breathable lace sleeves and exposed the entire top of her shoulders. The dress had a slit up just past her knee on one side, exposing the milky white of her leg. Scandalous indeed.