Chapter 24

It wasn’t the dawn that awoke me, but rather a buzzing noise. I groaned as I sat
up in bed and squinted at the squat woman with skin made from tree bark who
fussed with my breakfast dishes.
“Where’s Alis?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Tamlin must have
carried me up here—must have carried me the whole way home.
“What?” She turned toward me. Her bird mask was familiar. But I would
have remembered a faerie with skin like that. Would have painted it already.
“Is Alis unwell?” I said, sliding from the bed. This was my room, wasn’t it?
A quick glance told me yes.
“Are you out of your right mind?” the faerie said. I bit my lip. “I am Alis,”
she clucked, and with a shake of her head, she strode into the bathing room to
start my bath.
It was impossible. The Alis I knew was fair and plump and looked like a High
Fae.
I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. A glamour—that’s what
Tamlin had said he wore. His faerie sight had stripped away the glamours I’d
been seeing. But why bother to glamour everything?
Because I’d been a cowering human, that’s why. Because Tamlin knew I
would have locked myself in this room and never come out if I’d seen them all
for their true selves.
Things only got worse when I made my way downstairs to find the High
Lord. The hallways were bustling with masked faeries I’d never seen before.
Some were tall and humanoid—High Fae like Tamlin—others were … not.
Faeries. I tried to avoid looking at those ones, as they seemed the most surprised
to notice my attention.
I was almost shaking by the time I reached the dining room. Lucien,
mercifully, appeared like Lucien. I didn’t ask whether that was because Tamlin
had informed him to put up a better glamour or because he didn’t bother trying
to be something he wasn’t.
Tamlin lounged in his usual chair but straightened as I lingered in the
doorway. “What’s wrong?”
 “There are … a lot of people—faeries—around. When did they arrive?”
I’d almost yelped when I looked out my bedroom window and spotted all the
faeries in the garden. Many of them—all with insect masks—pruned the hedges
and tended the flowers. Those faeries had been the strangest of all, with their
iridescent, buzzing wings sprouting from their backs. And, of course, then there
was the green-and-brown skin, and their unnaturally long limbs, and—
Tamlin bit his lip as if to keep from smiling. “They’ve been here all along.”
“But … but I didn’t hear anything.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Lucien drawled, and twirled one of his daggers
between his hands. “We made sure you couldn’t see or hear anyone but those
who were necessary.”
I adjusted the lapels of my tunic. “So you mean that … that when I ran after
the puca that night—”
“You had an audience,” Lucien finished for me. I thought I’d been so
stealthy. Meanwhile, I’d been tiptoeing past faeries who had probably laughed
their heads off at the blind human following an illusion.
Fighting against my rising mortification, I turned to Tamlin. His lips twitched
and he clamped them tightly together, but the amusement still danced in his eyes
as he nodded. “It was a valiant effort.”
“But I could see the naga—and the puca, and the Suriel. And—and that faerie
whose wings were … ripped off,” I said, wincing inwardly. “Why didn’t the
glamour apply to them?”
His eyes darkened. “They’re not members of my court,” Tamlin said, “so my
glamour didn’t keep a hold on them. The puca belongs to the wind and weather
and everything that changes. And the naga … they belong to someone else.”
“I see,” I lied, not quite seeing at all. Lucien chuckled, sensing it, and I glared
sidelong at him. “You’ve been noticeably absent again.”
He used the dagger to clean his nails. “I’ve been busy. So have you, I take it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“If I offer you the moon on a string, will you give me a kiss, too?”
“Don’t be an ass,” Tamlin said to him with a soft snarl, but Lucien continued
laughing, and was still laughing when he left the room.
Alone with Tamlin, I shifted on my feet. “So if I were to encounter the Attor
again,” I said, mostly to avoid the heavy silence, “would I actually see it?”
“Yes, and it wouldn’t be pleasant.”
“You said it didn’t see me that time, and it certainly doesn’t seem like a
member of your court,” I ventured. “Why?”