Page 44 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
Then the fae lights faded, the spinning world with it, and I floated away on a cloud of feathers and night.
War & Fashion
The next day I woke refreshed but ravenous. When I appeared in the little dining room, Hil was only too glad to ply me with pastries and toast loaded with butter and elderberry jam. Once my stomach was satisfied, I thanked her and went to work. Amongst the deliveries, several sketchbooks and drawing implements arrived, and I set to work designing. Ly had told me that if I saidit is soat the end of sewing my spidersilk gown, it would leave it strengthened and complete, so the delicate fabric wouldn’t fall apart as I wore it.
Not long after I started, Sylvie arrived to keep me company and she answered my questions about fae fashions, as well as making some suggestions of her own.
It turned out my assumption that she was a maid had been wildly off the mark. When I asked her exactly what she did, she screwed up her face, the sunlight gleaming on her silvery skin. “I’m a caretaker, I suppose. Of the house, of its contents… of the wardrobe, especially—both for war and fashion.”
“War and fashion?” I raised my eyebrows. No one in Briarbridge would’ve put those two words in the same sentence. War was important, dangerous, serious. Fashion was a frivolity for women and dandies and other ornamental folk.
“Well”—she grinned—“they’re practically the same thing.” Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re going to stay in faerie for any amount of time, you need to understand. They aren’t just clothes. In fae society, appearance is everything. The illusion of power is almost as good as the real thing—hells, it might even be half of it.”
My pencil stilled on the page. “I’ve never heard it put like that before.” After all, if they were “just clothes,” why didn’t men like Lord Hawthorne wear the same as Rose’s Papa? Why did he give his wife and daughters the allowance to dress so lavishly? “I think it’s the same in Albion, just most men don’t like to admit it.”
Sylvie nodded, tapping her lip. “And it’s not only what you wear. Take Fluffy”—the hellhound lay by the door and looked up from her spot—“when Ly walks into a room with her at his heel, he isn’t just a man with a dog. He’s the man a hellhound chose. Fluffy is the only hellhound I know of outside the Wild Hunt, and she lends him a whisper of that same mystique.”
The dog huffed and returned her head to her paws as if frustrated to find the mention of her name hadn’t led to any treats.
When the Wild Hunt’s hellhounds caught a scent, they howled. That sound alone was enough to break the bravest warrior. And if the Wild Hunt caught sight of their quarry, they would pursue them to the ends of the earth.
Fluffy, though?
I cocked my head. “Shelends him mystique?”
Sylvie chuckled. “Well, when she’s putting on the act.”
A little while later, around midmorning, she left me to work, and I sketched a few more designs before starting on the long seams of Ly’s breeches.
Thread the needle, knot the end, in and out of the fabric, pull taut, in and out again.
The web of magic stretched on and on around me, a complex lattice of interconnection with every line perfectly placed. Here, it was moresolidthan in Briarbridge.
“Silent and unseen,” I whispered, intent on that one silver thread I could control. “He is a shadow under starlight.” The image of him dressed in shades of midnight, prowling like a hunter, sped my pulse, a dull echo of the resonance that had throbbed through me last night. I tried to ignore it and focus on the task at hand.
My muscles ached the longer I worked as each whisper of magic settled into my stitches and drained my strength.
“Knock, knock.”
Blinking up from my work, I found Ly in the doorway, tray in one hand, bottle and glasses in the other, gorgeous as ever.
“Morning.” I stretched.
“Not anymore.” He grinned as he strode in, placing his load on a side table, safely away from my work. “I thought you must’ve lost track of time. Everyone else is eating lunch.”
“What? No, it can’t—”
But the pocket watch dangling in front of my nose agreed with him.
“Huh. Well…” I shook my head and set down my work before scrubbing my dry eyes.
He busied himself, shifting the armchairs so they faced each other with a low table in between.
“You don’t need to fuss around me or”—I rubbed the back of my neck—“serve me. That’s not… you’re a fae lord, you shouldn’t be doing this.”
He shrugged from where he was crouched, placing plates of cheese, bread, salad, and cold cuts of meat on the table. “To serve is… it means something different to us than it does humans, I think.” He patted the chair.
There was a danger of him coming and feeding me if I didn’t obey, so I went and sat as directed.
