I swallowed my surprise and struggled to maintain a neutral expression. It was too soon to raise my hopes. “Why would you help me? You don’t owe me anything.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. Raising her wineglass to her lips, she drained the remaining contents. Then she rose from her seat. I stood as well, relying on the morsel of protocol training my father had managed to instill in me. The tiny empress offered her hand to her Magician. Otokar hurried to curl her fingers into the crook of his elbow.
“Our kind are rare, Evie.” Despite her diminutive stature, Tereza’s gaze settled on me with the weight and force of a woman born and trained to rule a nation.
I could have been like her, I thought. I should have been like her.
“We are like precious stones, to be cultivated, maintained, and protected. I would hope, if I were to ever find myself in your, em, situation, that I could depend on you to provide for me in a similar way.”
A blaze of longing erupted inside me—a hunger for belonging, a want for safety and security. Not that Gideon wasn’t formidable when he put his mind to it, but I resented relying on his protection, and without the use of my powers, depending on him had become a necessity. I also hadn’t known anyone in years who understood what it meant to have the blood of a deity, even a reduced demi-god, running through her veins. Tereza and her high castle walls and her personal Magician offered an alluring enticement. “What if I say no?” I asked.
She tossed her head, reminding me of an impatient filly, eager to run. “You are not my prisoner, Evie. But things would be much more interesting if you were to say yes. Would you not agree?”
My thoughts shifted to Gideon and Marlis. “I have two friends here—a guardian and his sister.”
She flapped her hand. “Yes, yes, we know of them as well: your big handsome soldier who works in my stables, and the girl who takes in mending and wash.”
“H-how do you know?” Unease, like nausea, stirred in my stomach. The empress knew so much about me. Maybe too much.
“Do you think we would not find out everything about you before I brought you here?” Otokar asked. “That I would put my lady at risk before knowing if you were a threat to her?”
Finding my backbone, I squared my shoulders and raised my chin. “After bringing me here under duress, do you expect me to take kindly to the news that you’ve been spying on me? You pressure me to stay here with you and expect me to trust you?”
A flush rose in Tereza’s cheeks, and her lips thinned. “Do you accept my request or not, Lady Thunder?”
My pride urged me to refuse, but prudence overruled. Even if I didn’t trust Tereza and Otokar, the castle offered more protection than my humble little flat. And if she would truly offer her resources to help me track down the Fantazikes, hers was an offer I couldn’t afford to reject. “You still haven’t said whether Gideon and Marlis are welcome, too.”
Tereza rolled her eyes again. “I will have Gideon installed as your personal guard if you like.”
“And his sister?”
“She can be one of your... em...” She twiddled her fingers at Otokar again.
“Attendants?” he suggested. “A lady-in-waiting.”
“Yes, yes. Attendant.” She snapped her fingers at a footman waiting as silent and still as a statue in the corner of the room. She babbled something in Bonhemmish, and he bowed and scurried from the room. “He will ensure your companions are brought here.”
“Gideon won’t take well to being abducted.”
“He already works in my stables. He will do as instructed.” She eyed me, making obvious note of my disheveled appearance. Her nose crinkled as she took in my worn boots and frayed hems. “Otokar, my zlato, show Evie to her rooms. Have Rebekah bring a few gowns for her, as well.”
“Gowns?” I tried to keep my lip from curling.
“If you are to stay here, I will not have you mistaken for a stable girl or scullery maid. You are royalty, Evie, and you must present yourself as such.”
I withheld my objections and allowed Otokar to escort me from the shimmering room and up several flights of stairs. The apartment Tereza had selected for me occupied a darker section of the castle. The windows were smaller and the walls were paneled in dark-colored woods. Deep-blue carpets covered the floors, and oil sconces flickered on the walls, relieving the gloom.
“Rather dreary, isn’t it?” I asked.
Otokar cocked his head to the side. “Dreary?”
“Dark. Somber. Quiet. Nothing like downstairs.”
“Oh, yes.” He stopped us before a heavy door and withdrew a ring of keys from his robes. After unlocking the door, he led me into an even darker space. When he snapped his fingers, a blaze roared to life in the fireplace, illuminating the sitting room of a spacious apartment. “Tereza refurbished that whole floor after she took the throne. Before then, much of the castle resembled these rooms.”
With a twitch of his hand, the Magician lit several tapers positioned atop end tables, book cases, and the stone mantel over the fireplace. The space smelled of stale fabric, dust, and the faint sourness of mildew.
“That wasn’t so long ago, was it?” I asked. “Tereza’s coronation?”
Otokar threw open a panel of draperies, and dull sunlight filtered through grimy windows. He clucked his tongue, muttered something under his breath, and the windows cleared, the dirt seeming to disappear. His Magic was impressive, but a few cleaning tricks failed to compare to Ruelle Thibodaux’s ability to inflict pain. If Otokar possessed such capabilities, I never wanted to know.
“Tereza was crowned less than a year ago,” he said. “The youngest empress to ever rule.”
“How old is she, exactly?”
He sniffed. “She’ll be eighteen by summer’s end.”
“What about her mother and sister?” Tereza had taken the throne after her father’s death—that much I’d learned from the gossip Gideon picked up at the stables. He had a knack for languages and had nearly mastered the Bonhemmish tongue in the few weeks we had lived there.
Otokar crossed the room and opened another door, revealing a dark bedroom. “The dowager prefers to spend most of her time at the family estate in in the Boyeskid Mountains. The princess, Karolina, shares Tereza’s apartments. I’m sure you’ll be introduced soon enough.”
I watched him make his way around the bedchamber, bringing up lights, opening windows, shaking off dust. When he returned to the sitting room, he gestured to a set of doors in the opposite wall. “The maids will see to the rest of the rooms and have them prepared for your companions. If there is anything else you require, be sure to let them know. Anything you wish shall be yours.”
I wanted nothing more than a moment of solitude to process everything that had happened, but a knock at the door took away that possibility.
“Oh, Rebekah is here. Good, good.” Otokar ushered in a woman toting bundles of bright fabrics: gowns with petticoats and corsets, no doubt. My stomach plunged at the thought of trying them on.
The Magician bowed with his usual grace. “I shall leave you two to get acquainted.”
He left before I could protest. I stared at Rebekah and her mountain of dresses and sighed. “Well then,” I said, hoping she understood my meaning, even if she failed to comprehend my words. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
Chapter 4
The afternoon wore away under the ministrations of Tereza’s maids and seamstress, who must have possessed her own bit of Magic. Nothing else explained how she managed to race through the alterations on the pile of gowns she’d brought. Hours passed in a blur of satin, lace, silk, cotton, and wool. I numbed myself to the commotion and let the women adjust me as necessary—bending, lifting, twisting, and turning under the seamstress’s command as though I were her living dress form.
Near sunset, the ladies finished and left me alone with a single maid who stayed to fuss over my hair, torturing it with a hot iron and hairpins. I was sitting at the vanity in my bedroom in a plain cotton mull dress with my hair halfway arranged when the hallway door burst open. A rabble of excited voices spilled into my room.
“Evie?” Gideon bellowed. Someone, a footman perhaps, muttered a quiet question in reply. I hurried into the sitting room to find Gideon paused at the apartment’s threshold with a servant locked around his arm. That footman might as well have tugged on the tail of a bull preparing to charge. Marlis peeked around her brother, her gaze flittering over the room, taking in everything with her usual quiet contemplation.
When he saw me, Gideon’s jaw fell slack and his eyes bugged. I bit back a laugh, knowing my humor would only aggravate him more. “Hello.” I twiddled my fingers at him. “Glad you could join me.”
Marlis grinned at me, but a red stain crept up Gideon’s neck, inflaming his cheeks. His jaw snapped shut, and he gritted his teeth. “Are you all right?” he asked, almost a growl.
I gestured to my dress and slippers. “Very well.”
“So I see.” His gaze swept over me, and the corner of his mouth flinched as though he were resisting the urge to smirk.
A trio of upholstered chairs squatted before the fireplace. I pointed at them. “Might as well get comfortable. I’ll tell you everything. Or, at least, the parts I know. I’m still not sure any of this makes sense.”
