Alder crossed the room, his suit no less black than the one in which she’d first encountered him, but certainly more formal. Noal remained steady, shoulders back and hands crossed precisely in the manner of a member of staff, not a hint of the man who’d been impertinent within Mireille’s earshot a half dozen times so far.
The prince ended his approach just in front of Mireille and when he leaned forward, taking her hand to bow low over it, she caught the faint scent of bergamot and something more warm and musky. Her hand was bare, as was much of her arm and chest.
His gaze rose. “Highness. So generous of you to grace us with your company.”
Though custom demanded no deference, Mireille returned his gesture with a small curtsy. The prince kept hold of her hand, placing it on his arm to lead her farther into the room. He paused before the woman he’d been speaking with. “My sister.”
Mireille inclined her head. The woman’s lips pursed. Her dark hair was braided through with a delicate jeweled band and, perhaps not intentionally, a thick thorny leaf.
“Nisha is the spare,” the prince explained. “You’ll find she attends every gathering to protect the throne by preventing threats against my person.” There was a brief pause before he added meaningfully, “Lest she have to take my place.”
Nisha’s mouth twisted in a wry smile as she held his gaze, some unspoken message passing between them, and then the woman glanced purposefully at Mireille, seeming to note her bare hand where it was tucked into Alder’s arm. “And what of this one? Does she have claws? Is she a threat against your person?”
The prince gave his sister a quelling look. “This one,as you so ineloquently put, is under my protection. You will leave her alone.”
He drew his arm—and Mireille’s hand with it—closer to his side, then led her from the room. Nisha chuckled as she followed behind them.
When the prince and Mireille stepped through a wide set of doors to the chamber outside the dining hall, two dozen pairs of eyes turned toward them. Fae courtiers stood in their finery, jewels tucked into neatly tied tresses, delicate embroidery trimming dinner jackets, and boots polished to within an inch of their lives. They had clearly been waiting on their prince and, perhaps, on Mireille.
Mireille had no way of knowing to whom the prince had revealed their betrothal, but the gathered fae certainly did not disguise their interest in the pair, paying particular notice to her hand where it was tucked against his arm.
As they walked past the other attendees, the prince not sparing the crowd a glance, Mireille realized none of the others present were wearing a gown cut in the style of her own. In fact, the woman standing nearest wore a garment with extravagant lace shaped so high on the neck that it tipped into a point near her slender ears. Another had a bare throat but full-length gloves and a fur-trimmed drape. The styles were not entirely dissimilar to other royal functions Mireille had attended, but while her wardrobe cabinet had been stocked with sheer gowns and daring cuts, the fae were dressed in sturdier fabrics trimmed with designs resembling vines and branches, their appeal the fine make, not the figure beneath. They seemed not to judge her for it, but as she’d yet to see another human in the palace or on its grounds, they may have simply been distracted by her appearance at all.
The gathered fae stared on, but the prince moved past the lot of them without introduction.
Dinner with the prince, it turned out, was not the private affair Mireille had anticipated. The dining hall was large and elegant, candelabra lining the walls and dozens of serving staff standing in attendance. At the foot of the table, a tall man uniformed in black drew out a finely carved chair, and as Mireille sat, her fingers slid from the prince’s arm. He crossed to the opposite end of the exceedingly long table, past an array of fine dishes, and took his seat in an even grander chair at the table’s head. The others came in, filling the long row of seats at either side. Nisha settled two chairs down from the prince, and began conversation with a tall, thin man at her side. Nisha did not particularly favor the prince, but Mireille understood that succession in the fae court was not a mirror of her own court. In fact, she suspected very little of their respective traditions overlapped. She would need to remember that.
The service began without a pause or address, indicating a level of informality. To Mireille’s right sat a petite fae with copper hair. When the server leaned forward to place a dish of roast vegetables, a comment passed that caused a smile to split the woman’s face and drew a quiet chuckle from the man beside her. To Mireille’s left, a stout man with dark hair and deep-set eyes poured amber liquid into Mireille’s glass, then gave her a friendly nod while the couple beyond him took candied fruit from a long platter. Aside from their unnatural elegance and grace, and the occasional tell of their magic or strength, the fae around her appeared much like any other royal court. But nothing could have been further from the truth.
A bit of dread swam in Mireille’s stomach. She had hoped to meet the prince alone. She was not prepared for whatever rules of propriety his court held, even if the dinner did seem less formal. Her gaze lifted to the opposite end of the table, past serving dishes and ornate candelabra, where the prince leaned forward, his head inclined toward a stately, silver-haired woman to his right but his eyes on Mireille. In the high-backed chair among the group of courtiers, it would not take a crown to recognize who held rule. But the crown was there, a stark reminder of just what Mireille had gotten herself into.
She was too deeply in the situation to do anything but see herself through. She lifted her glass toward the prince, then took a cautious sip of a sweet, fruity cordial. His gaze tracked the motion, staying on her until a server leaned forward and blocked him from view.
“Have you toured the gardens?”
The voice of the man at Mireille’s side snapped her attention back to her immediate surroundings. She pasted on a pleasant expression. “I have not. We only just arrived this afternoon. Do you recommend them?”
“Without reservation. The lilies alone…” He sighed wistfully. “Would you agree to let me show them to you? It would only require a bit of your time.”
“That sounds lovely?—”
Mireille’s words cut off as a server leaned between the pair to place a dish of pears onto the table, more heavily than required and before the first course was up. The server’s dark eyes met hers. She was thin with short, smooth hair and a chin that came to a delicate point. Her expression remained neutral but the act had clearly been a warning.
When the server drew away, the man asked, “It is agreed then?”
“No. As I was saying, that sounds lovely but I must decline.”
“Must you?”
Mireille’s fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. “It would be foolish, would it not, to agree to any bargain—no matter how trivial—so readily?”
His answering grin was wide and sharp. When he raised his glass, the gesture seemed intended more toward the server and the interruption than toward Mireille.Right, she thought. The games hadn’t taken long to commence. Her every step would have to remain measured and cautious. For an entire month, regardless of whatever came after, she could be nothing but vigilant. Bargains were dangerous things. It was impossible to guess what the man’s offer might have brought—perhaps Mireille would have awoken to the darkness to find herself helplessly striding toward a nighttime rendezvous. Perhaps something worse. It was difficult to know when even the mention of her time could translate to literal days of her life, or her freedom.
Those were things Mireille did not have to spare.
Conversation carried on around her, no further bargains offered but no real interest from the fae placed near her. They spoke to one another about trivial matters, laughing and nattering without bothering to include their guest, which implied Mireille was only truly considered a guest by the prince and his staff. She took another sip of cordial, the entire ordeal seeming to sour her stomach. If the evenings that followed were much the same, she would never get near the prince, and never discover what she needed.
His eyes met hers once more from across the long table, and she could swear they mocked her demand for nightly dinners. Another point for him, another chance at answers lost for her. It was not as if she didn’t know the fae could not be trusted, but she desperately needed to win. She had known it would not be easy, that the fae loved toying with humans, and that she would be in danger every step of the way. But if she could not outwit a mere prince, what chance did she have with a queen? Mireille let her gaze slide down the row of fae at each side of the table, careful not to linger long on the details she cataloged. Colors, flowers, symbols, and trim. Who preferred jewels, who had jagged nails, whose garments appeared to be hiding something beneath. She knew what nearly none of it meant, but she would learn.
