Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

Anger curled in Bron’s stomach. “Then perhaps we should do something about the guards.”

Like gather together and show them what a mob could do.

She marched to her room and flung her clothes off with a reckless hand. She slammed open the door to her dresser and pulled out her work dress.

Gillian sat down on the edge of the bed. “Could I talk you into the blue cotton?”

The blue cotton was her best dress, the one she wore to weddings and festivals. “I won’t waste it on him.”

She hated the mayor with his covetous eyes. She’d selected her work dress because it covered her chest and masked her curves. The mayor was looking for a wife, and he’d already asked Bron. She’d been trying to put him off.

“Will you please try to remember what your main job is?” Gillian asked.

This was a lecture Bron had heard almost every day of her life on the run. “I don’t know. Remind me.”

Gillian huffed a little. “One day you are going to make some men insane. I simply know it. Your job is to stay alive. Your job is to be a living, breathing woman when your brothers return.”

If they returned. “I will endeavor to not become a corpse in the next few hours.”

Gillian came up behind her, working the buttons up her back. When she was done, she turned Bron around and looked at her, smoothing down the small bit of scalloped edges of the neckline. “I am sometimes deeply glad that Torin planned his coup when you were a youngling since I could never make you pass for a boy now.”

Bron smiled, but it was a sarcastic thing. “I prayed for bosoms all my life. Now I rather wish I was slender.”

Gillian shook her head. “No, you don’t. You’re beautiful just the way you are. Don’t let the current palace fashions make you think otherwise.”

There was a knock on the door. Even his knock sounded short and officious, like the man himself.

Gillian took a deep breath. “I know you’re angry, love, but hold on for a bit longer. Things are happening. I can’t see them clearly yet, but something changed a few months back. I felt it. I still feel it. Something’s coming.”

“That might not be a good thing, Gilly.”

“Please.”

How in all the planes could she deny this woman? Bron nodded, giving her a silent promise to behave. Gillian called out the window to let the mayor know they were coming, and Bron followed her down the stairs.

Gillian had been a princess. She could have gotten out. She more than likely could have negotiated with Torin for her release. Torin had been looking for allies, desperate for them. He would have loved having the Unseelie king in his debt, yet Gillian hadn’t abandoned her. She’d sought a way out for them both, and when that failed, Gillian McIver had made a home for them here.

No matter how much Bron wanted to take her weapons and practice on the mayor, she would hold her tongue.

The door was opened, and there stood Micha and his ever-present guard.

“Ladies,” he said, bowing slightly.

She could hear him. Even in a backwater province, courtesy is required. She wondered if he would be so courteous when she gutted him.

Bron did what was expected and curtsied, though not as deeply as he would have wanted.

“May I come in for tea?” Micha asked with the smile of a man who knew the question was mere formality. “The palace has set forth some exciting new plans. I thought I would talk to my favorite citizens before they’re posted in the square for all to see.”

Gillian managed a bright smile. Bron’s stomach churned. He acted like it was exciting news when it more than likely was a new and inventive way to kill those Torin despised. Fae were starving across the plane, but Torin seemed more interested in coming up with ways to dispose of his enemies.

“Of course, Mayor, please make yourself welcome.” Gillian invited him in, her hand sweeping gracefully across the room, as though she were welcoming him into a palace, not the sad tower that was their home. “And your guards?”

Micha’s nose wrinkled as though it was common to even acknowledge they were there. “My guards will do their duties. Two will remain outside and one in the hallway. They have no need for anything so delicate as tea.”

The tightness of the guard’s mouth told Bron that perhaps he had been looking forward to some food. Even the guards were on rations, it seemed. When he noticed her watching, he gave a tight smile and a nod. Bron thought he was almost giving her permission to ignore him.

“I’ll get the tea,” Bron said as Gillian showed the mayor into what passed for the parlor.