Page 28 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

Mab, Maeve, and Titania share a panicked glance, and then disappear.

Drystan steps inside without a word and holds out a bundle of green fabric towards me. “Here. I bought you some clothes.”

“Right.” I reach forward, keeping my towel securely locked beneath my spare arm—despite the way he’s pointedly looking anywhere but at me—and accept the neatly folded dress. “Thank—”

“Never thank a fae,” he corrects me before I can finish. “It’s insulting at best and puts you in their debt at worst. Fae express their gratitude by doing things in return.”

“Oh.” I can’t think of anything else to say. “Is there something I can—”

“No.”

The silence that falls between us is heavy and awkward. I pick at the side of my towel as I wonder what to do now.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” he finally says. “This will be the last night in a proper bed for a while. Enjoy it.” He looks at the pile of my clothes on the floor. “And burn those.”

I want to ask so many questions, but my own pride refuses to let him believe me any more ignorant than he already does, so I stay silent.

He doesn’t slam the door, but the quiet thump of it closing still makes me jump. I look at the bundle of soft fabric in my hand, then down at the brown and white fabric of my human clothes.

Part of me wants to put my old woollen shift back on out of pure stubbornness. But I’m not the type to cut off my nose to spite my face. I do as he says and chuck both garments on the fire.

Then I hold up the teal dress and immediately regret the decision.

It might be made of the softest, airiest fabric I’ve ever seen, but it’s also completely see-through and scandalously short.

Is this what I’m expected to wear?

Is this what other fae wear?

It won’t even fall to my knees. The neckline is cut lower than—

I can’t wear this.

“Calm down. It’s not what you’re thinking. See? You wear this under it.” Titania points at a deep rose under-dress which has fallen from my grasp.

I hold it up and stare. It’s a plain silk dress that will conform to every curve I have, held on my body by only two fine straps.

“Or we can go down there and make them give you trousers and armour like a true fae warrior queen,” Maeve suggests, waggling her eyebrows as she pops back into existence by the door.

“I can’t sleep in them,” I mumble. “Where’s the—” I cut myself off. “They expect me to sleep nude, don’t they? In the same room as them?”

Sure, there are six separate beds in here, but they’re apparently made for diminutive goblins. Four of them have been pushed together and made up horizontally to allow for Jaromir’s height.

He said he’d take turns with Drystan, allowing one of them to keep watch, and then pushed two others together to make a second bed, which will easily accommodate my shorter frame.

But we’ll still be in the same room. And I’ll be naked.

“I’m not comfortable with this,” I murmur. “I’m only supposed to be naked with my husband!”

“That’s a human ideology,” Titania points out. “Fae are much more relaxed about nudity and sex.”

“Better at it too,” Maeve grouches. “You have no idea how painful watching some of those humans fucking was.”

Is she admitting to using her invisibility to spy on the people of my old village? A mental image of Maeve chuckling in the corner as she watches the old Reverend and his wife in bed burns into my mind, and I have to work hard not to laugh.

“We don’t marry either,” Titania continues. “We’re all born with a fated soul mate—chosen for us by Danu.”

“But given our long lifespans, it can take decades or centuries for a fae to find their mate,” Maeve adds. “So most tend to play the field while they wait.”

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