She squints at me. “Yeah, weird, fucked-up ways.”
“So let’s do something fucked-up and go to that ball,” I say. “I will if you do.”
“Alright,” she says, sitting up straighter. “But we’ll need help—because neither of us knows the first thing about this stuff. Can we ask one of the soldiers? The women, I mean. I can’t see any of the men being helpful—except maybe Stratton, but he’d just flirt with us rather than give proper advice.”
“Something tells me Damia isn’t the type to help a girl out with this either. But maybe Phaia?” I say hopefully. I know she’s an aristocrat, so she must havesomeinsight about what we’re getting into.
I ask a servant to get a message to her. It’s not long before there’s a knock at Tira’s door from the woman in question, along with two other fae women who look similar, with dark brown skin and black hair braided to their waists.
“Morgana, Tira, this is my partner Helia and her sister Desme.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, eyeing up Helia with a little surprise.
Phaia smiles.
“You didn’t think any of us soldiers were in a relationship, did you?”
I give her an apologetic look. “You just all seem so…”
“Brutish? Maladjusted? Chronically absent?” Helia says with a laugh like a tinkling bell. “She does have a tendency to be gone half the year.” I look for resentment in her face but find none. Instead, she exchanges a look with Phaia so intimate I feel wrong witnessing it. “We find a way to work around all that,” Helia continues, reaching out and taking Phaia’s hand.
“I know,” Desme says catching my eye, “they’re sickeningly sweet together. I’ve been married forty years, and there’s no way I still look at my husband like that.”
“Liar,” Phaia says to her before turning to Tira and me. “So, I hear you have questions about the ball.”
“And this,” I say, picking up Lady Naia’s invitation and showing it to them. “Is it somehow related to the ball? It seems like it’s meant to happen right before.”
The fae shoot loaded looks at each other I can’t read.
“Yes, it is related. Lady Naia is the one throwing the ball,” Phaia says.
My mouth drops open. “It’sherball?”
But isn’t that just like Leon, going and inviting me to a party thrown by the very woman we argued about? I don’t think that man knows the first thing about smoothing things over.
“Lady Naia and some of her friends proposed it. Honestly, those women will use any excuse to throw a social event,” Desme explains.
“It’s still being held here at the palace though, right?” Tira asks.
“Yes, though Lady Naia and the others are the hosts, rather than the royal family themselves. Traditionally, that gives her certain privileges. She’s in charge of the wreathing, for example, and decides who’s invited. Which includes you, apparently,” Helia says.
“And what, exactly, is a wreathing?” I ask.
They look surprised I don’t know, but have the tact not to rub it in.
“It’s when the women guests gather together to prepare for the ball—choose each other’s dresses, share hairdressers, that type of thing,” Phaia says.
“Itcanbe pretty fun,” Helia says.
“Emphasis on ‘can?’” I say, picking up on her tone.
“It’s possible she’s already heard the rumors that you and the captain became…close while you were traveling in Trova. I suspect she’s invited you there with ulterior motives,” Phaia says.
Desme snorts. “Suspect? That’s absolutely what she’s doing.”
“She wants to get the measure of me, is that what you mean?” I ask.
“Or she wants to mark her territory,” Tira says.
