I suppose. What might take a human two days likely takes an elf an hour.
I must have exhausted the conversation, because Rinni doesn’t say anything further.
Behind a doorway is a sitting area that connects with yet another sitting area. We pass through open doorway after open doorway in a seemingly endless string of rooms with no obvious purpose but to exist. After the fifth or sixth room, there’s a hallway with a stairway at the end. We ascend three flights and come to a wide landing with only one door.
“These are your apartments.”
Rinni opens the door and I blink into the light that floods the room. The ceilings are the height of the first and second floor of my family’s brownstone, and rows of windows line the back wall. Rinni waits as I do a quick round of exploration of the main room and attached bedroom—a closet larger than the attic I made my room back home, a bathroom bigger than my shop, and a bed that could easily sleep five.
“Why is everything giant?” I ask, reemerging into the empty main room from the bedroom.
“Giant?” She arches her eyebrows.
“The doors are large, the ceilings are towering, what furniture there is takes up more space than a small carriage.”
“Everything is appropriately sized for a castle. You’ll grow accustomed to it. And if there’s furniture you don’t like, then you can procure a new piece. The queen usually furnishes her apartments with what she chooses. Eldas has decreed that you will have full access to the royal purse strings to order anything that will make your stay here more comfortable.”
That’s unexpectedly nice of him. Yet, at the same time, I don’t want his money. It was hard enough to take Capton’s charity and that was from people I spent my whole life with—from people I swore an oath to help and heal for my entire life in gratitude. Moreover, I’m wary of any gifts that might have caveats. And money from the Elf King must have a thousand strings attached.
I miss my shop already, and earning my own money…what little money it was, since I did most of my work for free to pay back the investment Capton made in me.
“That explains why it’s so empty.” I look around, wondering what Alice chose.
“We’ve delayed enough; come, we have to dress you for the king.”
“Dress me?”
“You may have married King Eldas in those rags, but you will certainly not sit on the redwood throne in them.” Her words ooze disgust.
“Excuse me?” I look down at what I’m wearing. “My clothes are practical.”
“For a peasant, perhaps. But now you are a queen and you will dress like it, even if you do not act like it.”
After an hour of being poked, prodded, and pulled at, I’m something that Rinni deems “suitable.”
I stare in the mirror that leans against one of the corners of the bedroom. A strand of pearls—longer than I am tall—is wrapped around my neck. Rinni made an attempt to tame the knots and waves of my hair into submission and failed. My dress is cut from a fine silk the color of autumn leaves; the boning in its top keeps my back rail-straight. I don’t usually wear warm colors because of my hair. But seeing me now, I look fierce.
At least until I look at my eyes.
Beneath them are dark shadows that have never been there before. I lean toward the mirror to get a better look. They’re the same hazel color they’ve always been, but a hollowness has taken up residence where I imagine determination used to be.
“Who are you?” I murmur to the woman staring back at me. I don’t know this woman whose dress is more put together than her life. I’m accustomed to having things under control. I’ve always had a plan—from childhood to academy.
Now…I’ve gained a castle and a crown I never asked for and lost everything I ever wanted.
Be strong, I insist to myself as I stare into the streaks of green in my hazel eyes. I have to try and make the best of this. I’ll find something I can do here, some purpose. Even if I wanted to escape—no, don’t even think it, Luella.
“Here.” Rinni emerges from the closet after a long period of rummaging. I straighten away from the mirror. She holds a crown of gilded redwood leaves in her hands that she settles on my brow. “Now you at least look like a queen. You could even fool the court if