Page 46 of Lord of the Hollow Court
A moment later, the dance ended, and Katty found herself paired with a completely different fae. This one was a winged old man who beamed when he discovered who his partner was. It was odd that her presence brought them such joy. Katty’s confidence grew with every partner, with every smiling face—as did the speed of the dances. Yet she never missed a step. As long as she kept the rhythm, song after song, her steps were right and she never stumbled. She felt she could dance forever like this, as long as she ignored the ache in her legs, the burn in her feet at every pivot, the way her ephemeral dress felt clammy beneath her arms and against her back.
“Katty,” Braam said as she whirled by, voice urgent. “Katty, wait!”
Gasping for breath, Katty twirled once, then felt a shock through her body. Her feet stopped moving, her arms still poised for the end of the dance. The voices murmured between songs as the musicians shifted on the balcony, the break overly long.Please,she begged them silently, eyes pressed shut.Please, just play.A moment later, a fierce jig began, once she felt in her joints with every bounce. She twirled again, slippers patting against the still sticky floor. Once again, the voices disappeared.
And then they roared back.
Slattern,a voice hissed.Human whore. You’ll never be good enough for the fae.
With tears in her eyes, Katty began to sway and swirl, desperate to keep the voices out. Twirling and whirling, dipping and pivoting, grasping fae hands and wicked nails raking her, the faces melting into those of monsters as she moved with wild abandon, hands reaching high for something, anything to save her.
“Katty!” Braam appeared behind her, sweeping her off her still moving feet. His cane clattered to the floor, the sound suddenly loud as the dancers froze. “Stop the music! Stop the music!” he screamed.
The instruments halted with a screech and a misplaced note, the strands of it lingering in the air. Katty’s feet kicked uncontrollably.
In the silence of the packed room, the music ceased and Katty stilled at last.
Her head lolled back, her feet burning. Cooler air met the bottoms of her feet, as if she wore no slippers at all. As Katty began to sob, Braam pressed her body to his, the room blurring as he tightened his grip on her convulsing body. “Misman!” he shouted. The lanky butler appeared, lifting her immediately. Someone provided the lord with his fallen cane, the head shaped like a graceful swan. The room was so still, Katty could hear the clink of it against the floor as he followed her from the ballroom.
“They hate me,” she cried when they reached the hallway. “They all hate me. And they should! Who do I think I am? I can’t do this, I can’t!”
“Hush,” Braam said, a touch sharply. They were climbing the stairs. The silence between them was unbearable. Katty’s sureness that he thought as ill of her as everyone else did made her chest tighten until it threatened to collapse.
“I’m sorry,” Braam said as a servant zipped by, throwing open a door ahead of them. “I’m so sorry, Katty. I didn’t—I should’ve thought—”
“Thought what?” she choked out, covering her face with her hands.
“A fae revel is no place for a human,” he said, and set her on the bed.
Katty rolled onto a comforter so plush it was indistinguishable from a pillow. There she lay, crying until her eyes hurt and her lids swelled, dispensing sorrow over every awful thought she’d had, every bad thing she’d done, every twinge of homesickness she’d suffered in the last week. She cried for all the nights she’d spent doing this, wishing she’d had a different lot, a kinder mother, a gentler world to greet her when she rose in the morning.
But the world was never any gentler, no one was any kinder, and by stumbling through the woods that night, she’d entered someplace magical and dark, a world that was crueler still. Her tears grew bitter then, because for just a moment Katty had thought she might belong here.
Only it was worse than that—worse by far. Because shewantedto belong here.
Chapter Twenty-One
Restoration
Quiet as the fall of an autumn leaf, Braam eased the door of the Court’s Lady’s chambers shut to avoid disturbing his bride. Rineke and Bibi had coaxed her into uneasy sleep at last, the faeries lying across each set of her limbs, wings snapping to attention each time Katty’s body began to spasm. Rineke and Bibi wore matching expressions that mixed fatigue with worry, and were perfect mirrors of his own.
These faerie servants of his truly cared for her. In the short time since Katty had stumbled into his court, Rineke especially had become her fast companion. Even Lula had developed some kind of begrudging respect for the human girl. He did not know Katty well, or understand how to resolve the many things she was in his mind. Only this was clear to him. She was utterly beguiling—and from her words tonight, she had no idea.
That bold girl he’d stood with in the Grove, stepping out of her undergarments and meeting his eye with a spark of rebellion—she was not being courageous, but challenging him to confirm her worst fears about herself, almost daring him to turn away. She had not guessed at how he welcomed the curves of her body, the fleshy bounty of her human form that filled him with an immediate longing to touch her, to explore the ways she was different from a fae. To honor her as his bride. She had guessed at none of that, yet had shown herself to him. It was she who stepped towards him first, bridging the divide between their bodies with the touch of an uncertain hand.
What a brilliant spirit she had. It made the situation that much more bizarre: how could one night tear down everything she was?
Braam’s wedding band was yet hot on his finger, the spell he’d placed upon it himself beginning to calm. He was grateful for that ounce of foresight that led him to cast it, not only on her band but upon his own. He would not have known she was in trouble if the woven silver had not heated in warning.
Even so, he’d reached her too late. Katty lay on the draped bed of the bridal suite more helplessly than a babe, the heels and balls of her feet so reddened they appeared touched by flame. Her frenzied steps had torn right through her slippers.
What frightened Braam most was how long it had taken him to notice the music’s insidious effect. She had swayed and twirled like a proper fae bride, lost to the power of the revel in a way that showed appreciation for both the music and the folk gathered to dance. As he glanced at her through the throng, he made a mental note to give Lula a commendation for how well she had prepared Katty. She knew every reel and jig.
He told himself that the panic he’d glimpsed in her features upon entering was mere jitters, that all of that had passed. She looked so comfortable there among her subjects. Braam had not known a human body couldn’t withstand it—that her movements were not her own, the magic of fae music spinning her and controlling her every step, long past when her mortal body should’ve given out. But it was not until his ring began to burn him that he ever suspected—that he so much as looked for a cause of her distress.
Braam dragged a hand down his face, guilty and fiercely angry at himself. He should’ve known. He should’ve taken the time to learn more about humans. He should’ve—
What good was all this talk? However well he’d convinced himself this was a marriage of convenience—that it would mean nothing since he could not be with Madeleif—it mattered. This was not how the wedding night was meant to go for either of them. It pained him that the magic woven into his very bones was responsible, that he had nearly doomed Katty just by wedding her. And if not for his damned hip, he would’ve danced with her. Surely then he would’ve noticed.
