Page 86 of Heavensent & Hellbent

“Zahhak said he wrote a letter pretending to be me, saying I ran away,” I said. Because I’m eighteen, the police won’t even care that I’ve left home.

“He sent texts to my uni friends telling them I’d gone to Denver to visit my family. Who would question that?”

How I was feeling must have been plain on my face because Azar said, “Rox?” I looked up at her. “It’s going to be okay.”

We were interrupted by quick raps on both doors. From my door, two of the maidens from before emerged, though this time their cloaks no longer covered their heads. They had nondescript faces, with their hair pulled back into low buns. Though they were wearing similar cloaks, one had red embroidery down her lapels. She was the one to speak first.

“So, you found each other?”

I heard footsteps in the other room travel to the broken door adjoining our rooms. One of the maidens sighed.

Red Lapels called out something in a different language. And yet, somehow, I faintly understood it—understood that she had called us some unpleasant name.

“We want to leave,” Azar said in a firm, even tone. I don’t know how she managed to seem strong when we were so vulnerable.

“Well, that is impossible. The Jinn King has invited youto dinner.” She stepped aside for the other maiden to show us a large dress box. This maiden avoided our gaze as she moved around us and placed it on the bed. “Yours will be in your bedroom, Azar. You have an hour to get ready. We will assist you—”

“No, you won’t—” Azar interrupted.

“Yes, we will. This is not an offer but an order from the king. Now, we don’t have long, so hurry up. If we’re late, there will be hell to pay. And not the good kind.”

The primping and priming was like something out of a fairy tale—Grimms’, not Disney. We quickly gathered that the colored embroidery on the lapels of the cloaks denoted rank, because the ones who had no color were silent, while the other two—Red Lapels and Green Lapels—spoke in English with us and were more dominant.

I initially refused to get into the bath they attempted to lead me to in a bathroom adjoining Azar’s bedroom. Red Lapels gripped my wrist, however, and she was strong. Much stronger than any human. She dragged me to the bathroom and into the warm, soapy bath they had prepared for me. It was surreal; they clearly didn’t like us and yet Red Lapels put different potions in my hair to make it smell floral and pleasant while the silent servant scrubbed my body. I told them I could do it myself, to which Red Lapels said, deadpan, “Princesses don’t wash themselves.”

“Well, what have I been doing for the past eighteen years?” I retorted. All the Underworld stuff aside, I didn’t want strangers seeing, or touching, my naked body—I was tooself-conscious—but they didn’t seem to care, their gazes impassive as they cleaned me like a dog at a groomer.

While I was being bathed, Azar got her nails done in her bedroom. “Is thisreallynecessary?” she hissed, to which her handler said, “Your nails are the shade of the vomit we had to clean in the hallway, so yes.” Her nails had been a lime green, but when I came out of the bath, they had transformed to a shiny bloodred.

We switched places, and while my hair was blow-dried, makeup was simultaneously applied to my face. When they finished, Azar and I didn’t recognize ourselves or each other. My hair was put up in about a hundred pins, high on top of my head, with my bangs curled to the side. Azar’s hair, however, was too short to do anything like that, so instead she was given ghastly ringlets. She looked like a Victorian doll, albeit with a septum piercing and narrowed, pissed eyes.

The dress that was brought in a box was put onto my body before I could even gaze at it. It was exceptionally tight at my waist, barely fitting me, like they had assumed I would be much slimmer, like my sister. In light of everything going on, I tried not to let that bother me, and yet I couldn’t help it. The bodice was corseted, with a high neck and long sleeves. The material was rough against my skin, a coarse linen in a ripe-plum shade. Matching jewels were placed on my neck and gold bangles on my wrist before Red Lapels brought over a heavy violet robe-poncho that she placed on my shoulders. It had holes for my arms to go through and fit my shoulders snugly.

“With just four minutes to spare,” Red Lapels muttered asshe moved a stray hair away from my face. “You do look like your mother; you have the same eyes.”

Her words were a sucker punch.

“You knew my mum?” I breathed.

Red Lapels’s lips quirked up, though all she said was “Indeed.”

We were interrupted by noises of frustration coming from the other room, until Azar came bounding in, the two maidens trailing quickly behind her.

Her dress was cream, in the same material as mine, except for the lush emerald velvet robe-poncho on her shoulders. “This is ridiculous.” When she saw me, she said, “You look like you can’t breathe.”

“Thanks, I can’t.”

“Mariya,” Red Lapels called to Green Lapels—evidently named Mariya.

“The girl is quick,” Mariya said, eyeing Azar with disdain. She had a mole above her upper lip and thinner eyebrows than the rest that almost joined in the middle, resembling a bird’s wings in flight. “And irritating.”

“I would be so much less irritating if you let us out of here—” Azar began.

“Enough!” Red Cloak called. “We need to go downstairs. The king is waiting.”

38

The dining table was long, with Zahhak at the head of it and Azar and I in the center, facing each other. The other end was empty. The walk from the bedrooms to the dining room was confusing, possibly deliberately so. The place was built like a maze, and my sense of direction was poor in my calmer moments, let alone when trying to plan our escape. Rabiya lay dormant within me, inconveniently not reminding me of the lay of the palace. We went down three sets of stairs, round bends and identical corridors, dimly lit and windowless.