Crown of Moonlight (Court of Midnight and Deception #2) - K.M. Shea Page 0,49
a brilliant taste. “Wow. Indigo, these are just wow.” I closed my eyes. “You win forever with these. Wow!”
I finished my donut and shook my head. “Okay, sorry Skye. I’ll be serious now.”
A slight smile played on Skye’s lips. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Have a donut—they’re filled with Indigo’s love for me.”
Indigo rolled her eyes, but Skye took a misshapen cake donut that had so much glaze on it, it looked almost waxy.
“That’s a Gollum donut,” Indigo said.
Skye nodded—even though I doubted she knew what Indigo was talking about—then she bit into it and hummed. “Indigo, this is delicious.”
“Yeah, yeah, suckups. I’ll make you more donuts even if you don’t flatter me.” Indigo took a blueberry donut hole when I offered the plate to her. “But I’ll tell my mom—the base recipe is my grandma’s.”
“Bless your grandma.” I licked my lips and eyed another donut. “Okay. Focusing. There’s a portrait gallery of all the dead royals, and you want me to get a portrait to match.”
“It’s tradition,” Skye said.
“How surprising.” I clutched my plate of donuts to my stomach and stood up. “Let’s go tour it, shall we?”
“Right now?” Indigo asked.
“No time like the present.”
Skye was already trotting off ahead of us, opening the door for me, leading the way away from my private study and down the hall. “I thought you might be interested in seeing it. I have an appointment scheduled with an artist this afternoon, but I imagine you’ll want time to think it over.”
“What’s the deal with the portrait?” I asked. “Why do you have them when cameras have been around for a while. Wait, let me guess—”
“It’s tradition,” Skye, Indigo, and I said together.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I helped myself to another donut—this time I tried a Gollum. “But what’s the point?”
“To record the leaders of our Court,” Skye said. “It’s useful for history, and in some ways it can be a lesson to the Night Court itself not to judge our monarchs based on their images, but rather what they did for us.”
“Oh really?” I followed her around a corner, through an archway I vaguely remembered—yes, even though the massive mansion was mine and I knew my way around it, I didn’t remember every single room. My schedule was too packed for me to stroll around and admire it, and there was no way I was exploring the place in the middle of the night. Lone girl going through a house filled with magic? No way—I’d seen that movie before!
The archway opened up into a large, sunny chamber. The walls were covered in a beautiful fern green wallpaper and decorated with light gray baroque swirls. I spotted the requisite tea equipment—every room in my mansion had to have at least one tea set or teacup, apparently.
The portrait gallery had a glass case of tea implements that looked like they belonged in a Japanese tea ceremony. There were several shallow, off white bowls that each had a brush of blue glaze on their sides—I was guessing those were the teacups. A bamboo tea whisk and an ivory tea scoop were set off to the side with a beautiful lacquered box and a square of white linen.
The tea implements were a stark sort of beauty compared to the overwhelming walls upon walls of painted portraits.
Starting at about chest height and reaching high up to the ceiling were dozens and dozens of portraits of long-dead fae monarchs.
All of them were solemn faced—though they kind of looked like they sat on a thumbtack—and more beautiful and perfect than I’m sure the monarchs were when they were alive.
Perfect skin, flawless hair—what, am I supposed to think they’re elves?
I frowned as I studied the portraits, looking at a few familiar faces from paintings that had been showcased in my history textbooks. “Are they out of order?” I asked.
Skye linked her hands behind her back. “Yes. They’ve been arranged in the order of, how to say it delicately…”
“Popularity,” Indigo bluntly said. “That’s why they stuck Queen Nyte all the way at the top up there.” She pointed to one of the enormous portraits that was in the top row—barely viewable because it was up so high and there was a glare from the lighting.
“Hah—that is hilarious!” I turned in a slow circle, taking the gallery in.
The room didn’t connect to any other chambers, and besides the portraits, the tea stuff, a few benches, and several palm-tree type plants placed strategically around the space in giant pots there was nothing in the room.