plate of anchovies. It did seem to deaden the ache around my ocularis, at least.
“Well, we’ve got to start getting ready, or we’ll run the risk of being late,” she called from the kitchen as the clock struck ten. “Come into the bathroom, please.”
I followed her into the small half bath off the downstairs guest room. She had me sit on the toilet lid as she wiped the poultice off with a hot washcloth, then turned my head from side to side, frowning.
“Well, that helped a bit, but only a bit.” She poked my cheek. “The scar tissue is better, but these scaly patches really just don’t seem to want to go back to normal.”
“Do you think it’s some kind of curse?” I asked.
“It’s possible.” She wrung out the cloth. “Honestly, this is a bit beyond anything I’ve had to deal with as a healer.”
She glanced down at her watch. “We better start getting dressed. Please wash the rest of that off your face and then come up to the attic; I think I have a formal gown that will fit you.”
I did as she asked, and a few minutes later found her in the gigantic cedar closet she’d installed beneath the eaves.
“Hmm,” she said, shuffling through a rack of dresses and gowns. She pulled out a long strapless dress made of dark green satin with a poofy underskirt of black crinoline. “I think this would fit you. Here, try it on.”
I slipped out of my jeans, T-shirt, and sports bra and wriggled into the dress. Karen zipped me up. I had to do some gyrations and tugging to get the bodice comfortably into place, but it was indeed a passable fit. I hadn’t worn anything like that since Aunt Vicky talked me into going to the senior prom with some friends. The DJ mostly played a bunch of crappy love songs you couldn’t really dance to, so after a while we ditched and went to someone’s house. We played Texas hold ’em and got trashed on peach schnapps. I lost all my pocket money on a bad bluff and somehow ended up having to kiss a cheerleader named Brittany. She was too pretty and rich and stuck-up for me to have wanted to have anything to do with her normally, but I was drunk enough to feel like everybody in the room was made of awesome. At first I thought the two of us were just putting on a little show for the guys, but she got into it like she was trying to find the secret answers to our algebra final in my tonsils.
Over the next couple of weeks, she kept sending me text messages, asking me out. I told her as nicely as I could that I was straight, but she kept pestering me. After that, I began to suspect some kind of setup. You know the deal: she’d lure me to some seemingly private location, get me naked or close to it, and then somebody hiding in the bushes or closet would take a bunch of photos that would show up all over the Web five minutes later. Good times. So finally I just started replying to her texts with animated GIFs of volcanic porn cocks and she got the hint.
So anyhow, now I inevitably associate ball gowns with sickly sweet liquor and suspiciously enthusiastic cheerleaders. I suppose it could be worse.
“Do you think you’re going to come out of that bodice?” Mother Karen asked.
“If a troll runs up to me yelling, ‘Whoo boobies!’ and yanks the front, yes. Otherwise, no, the puppies are safely kenneled.”
Mother Karen laughed. “I doubt that would happen. Unseelies aren’t usually allowed into the tavern.” She paused, scrutinizing the outfit. “I can give you the other opera glove; that will look nice. I think I have some dark heels in your size—”
“Heels? Nuh-uh.”
She frowned. “Heels would look very pretty with this dress.”
“I am not wearing anything I can’t run in. This meet could be a big ol’ trap for all I know, and I want to be prepared.”
She looked over her shoe rack. “All my flats are too small, unless you want Cooper to resize them, and you can’t very well wear sneakers.”
“I’ll just wear the dragon boots. Nobody can say those aren’t expensive enough,” I pointed out.
She made a face, which I suppose was only natural since the last time she’d seen the boots, they’d been on the back porch tarred in dried devil ichor. “Those filthy things? They won’t