“We’ll have to take you shopping, but I have some sweaters that should fit you until then,” she’d said, sounding pleased by the notion. No one had ever taken me shopping before. During my confinement, there’d been no need for new clothes, and after my return, my needs had been seen to by the ducal tailors. From the sparkle in her eyes, it seemed shopping was something I might enjoy, and I decided to be accommodating about it.
Forcing a smile, I’d nodded, and turned to study the rest of what I could see of my surroundings.
Beyond the vestibule, a stairway ascended to the second floor, while a hall snaked deeper into the house, open doorways leading to other rooms that were mostly blocked from view by the architecture. What little I could see was cluttered, filled with things, as if the house were somehow desperate to prove its occupancy.
A rattling sound to my left caught my attention at that point, and I turned to see a rose goblin with pink and gray thorns peering into the room. It was among the largest I had ever seen, yellow eyes bright with obvious health and with curiosity.
“Um,” I said. “Hello.”
“Oh, that’s just Spike.” May waved a hand, dismissing the rose goblin’s presence as unremarkable and understandable. “It stays downstairs most of the time, where the kitchen and the gardens are, but it might come up sometimes, so try not to be startled.”
“I’m familiar with rose goblins.” Before my enchanted sleep, I’d even been able to understand them, thanks to the magic I’d inherited from my mother. That magic was gone now, along with any hope of understanding. Still, I remembered enough of their body language to feel safe crouching a bit and extending my hand for the beast to sniff, which it did, with exquisite delicacy, before rubbing its cheek against my fingers.
It was careful to rub with the grain of its thorns, not against, and I was unharmed as I straightened and smiled at it,
“This one’s quite well socialized,” I said. May laughed, bright and merry.
“I should hope so, with as much time as we’ve all spent spoiling it,” she said. “There are two mortal cats as well, Cagney and Lacey, but they’re quite old and spend most of their time in Toby’s room upstairs, so you’re not likely to see them much. I’ll point them out if we see them. Are you hungry?”
I shook my head, feeling suddenly awkward and out of place. I never felt much like I belonged anywhere, but I was accustomed to being met either with fawning flattery or with dislike. This plain, practical welcome was enough outside my experience to be confusing.
“Well, if that changes, I can make you a sandwich,” said May, warmly. “It’s too bad you don’t have any luggage, I can’t offer to help you with your bags. Come along, this way.” And she moved past me, starting for the stairs.
I followed. Refusing would have been both rude and foolish, as it would have left me alone in this unfamiliar place, with no idea what I was going to do next. She took the stairs two at a time, as if moving any more slowly would have been unbearable. I followed more carefully, step by step, looking around as I went.
The walls were painted a plain, unremarkable shade of cream, dotted with framed pictures. It took me a moment to recognize the people in them as October, Tybalt, and their respective teenage wards, all of them draped in the simple veils of their human disguises. There were also pictures of a woman I assumed was May with a dark-haired, brown-skinned woman I didn’t recognize at all.
May followed my gaze and smiled. “That’s my girlfriend slash fiancée, Jasmine. Jazz. She’s probably up in our room right now, sleeping. She’s a Raven-maid, so she’s basically diurnal. That’s one of the things you’ll have to get used to, living here. Someone’s always awake.”
Meaning I would never be entirely alone, even if I got up in the middle of the day. The thought should have been smothering—was I going to be constantly supervised? Instead, it was comforting. No one would steal me away, not from here. No one would seize me and hurl me back down into the dark. October had promised to give me a safe place to heal, and despite the chaos that attended on her at all times, I believed her. If peace was possible, she would provide it.
I didn’t say any of this to May, only nodded and let her lead me down the upstairs hall to the very last door on the left. It was closed, as were most of the doors, and a window filled the wall between it and the door on the right, letting the moonlight in. She stopped there, smiling at me, and tapped the doorknob. “This is yours,” she said, and opened the door.
At Shadowed Hills, I had a chamber fit for the princess my mother seemed to believe I was, huge and intimidating. I sometimes feared I might get lost in there. This room . . . wasn’t that.
It wasn’t so small as to be oppressive. If I stood in the center of the room and stretched my arms out as wide as they would go, I wouldn’t be able to touch the walls. At the same time, I would be able to see them. Losing things in there would be difficult. There was a twin bed, already made and covered by a patchwork quilt in pinks and yellows; a dresser, a desk, and a bookshelf, on which several tattered paperbacks had been placed. Gray curtains covered the window, blocking my view of the outside world, and the closet door was open, showing the small space inside. It was plain, and bare, and beautiful.
I was staring. May stepped out of the way, wincing.
“We didn’t want to go too deeply into decorating,” she said. “There seemed to be too much of a chance you wouldn’t like what we chose, or you’d want something different, and we didn’t want you to be uncomfortable while you were still getting adjusted. I know all the best thrift stores in this part of the city, and Jazz owns an antique store over in Berkeley. We can go shopping tomorrow if you’d like, start getting you things you’ll actually like . . .”
She was starting to sound genuinely distressed. I realized that if I didn’t reassure her, this was going to spiral into something unpleasant.
“No,” I said quickly, cutting her off. “I mean, yes, I’d love to go shopping with you, it sounds really nice, but no, there’s nothing wrong with the room. This is perfect. I’m going to be happy here.”
May blinked at me. Then she smiled, slow and wide, and said, “Oh. Good. Toby’ll be glad to hear that too. I’ll just let you get settled in then, shall I? I’ll be right downstairs if you need me for anything. And don’t worry about Toby. She’ll be fine. They all will.”
On that somewhat vague reassurance, she backed out of the room, and I was alone.
I waited until she was gone before I shut the door, relishing the click it made. I was alone. Awake, and alone. I had privacy. It was an intoxicating, dizzying feeling that I didn’t fully know what to do with. I spun in the middle of the room, arms stretched out wide, and then stopped before I could make myself dizzy. The bed looked soft and inviting. I walked over and stretched out, closing my eyes.
I didn’t intend to sleep.
I slept anyway.
• • •
The air around me was cold and heavy, thick with mist and smoke. It wasn’t the acrid smoke of a fire trapped inside, but the rich, diffuse smoke of a bonfire, tangled tight with the waxen smoke of a candle—or a hundred candles, all of them lit and burning down somewhere nearby. I mumbled and rubbed at my nose, trying to chase the smell away. Nothing changed.