Page 91 of I Summon the Sea

But it alights on my shoulder, instead, and hunkers down, turning back into an opalescent gem.

“Look at it,” Daria whispers, approaching me with careful steps, her voice growing hushed. “Pretty, but… We also call it a Death Moth. Fire and shadow magic belong to the realm of the dead, more than any other magic, but I’ve never heard of one being drawn to a mere human.”

This is… bad. I try to shoo the moth away with my fingertips, but it won’t budge. Does it sense what I really am? Or is it yet another bodyguard set by Jai to keep an eye on me?

The thought of the pretty moth watching over me almost makes me laugh, but the new fear in Daria’s eyes is nothing funny.

She holds out a few gowns for me to try on, keeping her gaze averted. “My lady.”

Sighing, I get up and pad toward her, selecting the same gray spidersilk gown I wore yesterday. Her mouth pinches, and I find her gaze fixed on the moth that has now lifted off and is flying over my head.

Like that darakin flew over us on the terrace yesterday, letting Jai touch it.

Stop thinking about Jai, I admonish myself. It feels like that’s all I do, trying to steer my mind away from him, with little to no success.

Daria helps me out of my night shift and into the gown, then grabs the brush to tackle my already tangled hair.

“If my lady may allow a suggestion,” she says, her voice low and controlled, “it would be to eat and drink and stay away from the other contestants.”

I gesture for her to explain without turning around.

“I’ve heard they sometimes push one another off the terraces into the sea, thinking that the fae king will grant them favors if they do so. They don’t understand…” She pauses. “They don’tseethat there is strength in numbers, and that the fae don’t care who lives or dies. In fact, they expect all of you to die. That’s it. That’s all they want.”

Wasn’t she the one fawning over the fae king, singing his praises? It strikes me that it had been a show, in case anyone was listening in, and now…

I step in front of the oval mirror and see her behind me, hairbrush in hand. I watch as she realizes what she has said and pales. It doesn’t do to badmouth your fae employers inside their own palace, does it? To badmouth the powerful creatures who enslaved your kind.

I give her my warmest smile to let her know I understand. I wouldn’t repeat what she told me to anyone, not even if I could speak.

I see the moment that realization hits her, see her shoulders relax.

Again all business, she gathers my white hair back, twists it, and starts stuffing it with hairpins. “All I’m saying is, enjoy your free day, but be careful. Nothing wrong with being careful.”

No, nothing wrong with that. No need for her to explain it to me. I remember all too well the human man who had climbedon top of me in the games, pushing me down to drown as he attempted to scale the sheer face of the platform.

Today is a free day. As if we are aristocrats, without a care in the world, taking a carriage tour of the countryside, visiting our estates. As if we decided to take a day to stroll around a picturesque town on the way, feed the swans, and picnic on the grassy lawns.

While the world is burning.

Well, not exactly burning, but the rebels are fighting, the humans in the outer reaches close to the Circle Sea are said to be starving, and the fae delight in hunting down humanfolk and finnfolk for sport, under the guise of religious traditions and divine grace.

It sickens me.

But when given the chance, you were only interested in asking about Jai, weren’t you?

I swallow hard.

What else could I ask without raising suspicion? The guards’ shifts at the king’s chambers? His eating habits? Occasions where he takes strolls unattended in the gardens? How about poisons that can kill him? I mean… He’s the fae king. Only magic can end him, magic I don’t possess anymore.

After Daria has finished twisting my hair up and using it as a pincushion, leaving tendrils to float down my neck and frame my face, she lets me choose the shoes I want to wear and busies herself making my bed and straightening the drapes.

My shoe choices are abysmal, all of them as uncomfortable as they can possibly be. Don’t they need towalkaround here?

“The seamstress will come along in the afternoon,” Daria informs me as she finally takes her leave. “To finish fixing the ball gown for you. It’s an appointment you shouldn’t miss, or else you won’t have a gown to wear at the ball tomorrow. That would displease the king and his telchin greatly.”

So the free day isn’t so free after all.

That leaves me less time for another attempt to return to the king’s chambers, what I had set out to do yesterday before Tru stopped me.

---