I’ve been here an hour, I thought, blankly.
I’ve been here an hour, and look what I’ve seen.
What will I see next?
“Don’t turn around,” Ray said conversationally, sitting beside me.
He no longer appeared terrified, and in fact, seemed unusually calm.
“Why?”
“We landed in a river and we’re about to fall over a great bloody waterfall.”
I looked over my shoulder. He was right. “Faerie is . . . unpredictable,” I commented, not sure what to say under the circumstances.
“That’s one word for it,” he agreed, as the current took us.
This time, I was the one who screamed.
Chapter Eight
Dory, Cairo
I woke up—again—in a strange bed—again—although the sheets smelled of butterscotch, so I wasn’t too worried. I’d never told my lover that he reminded me of my favorite candy and couldn’t now because he was gone. Maybe off explaining to Hassani why we’d switched rooms.
And torched his rug.
And scandalized his servants.
Or, knowing Louis-Cesare, who had the aristocrat’s disdain for explaining anything, he hadn’t so much as mentioned it.
Yeah, that was absolutely what he’d do, I thought, grinning slightly and getting out of bed. I padded over to the bathroom, which was huge and luxurious. Because Hassani might have the reputation of a scholarly monk, but he didn’t live like it.
I eyed the stone pool—that was the only word for it—that took pride of place in the center of the room and easily fit two. It would probably fit ten, but we’d hadn’t had ten this past week, when we’d thoroughly enjoyed the one in our old suite. I thought that was just as well. Ten Louis-Cesares would probably kill me.
I opted for a shower this morning because it was quicker, then got out, dried off, and ran a comb through my hair. The Svarestri had almost scalped me on the left side of my bangs, so I parted the hair on the right to hide it, and decided it would do. This whole goodwill tour had required me to seriously up my game, not just wardrobe-wise but makeup-and-hair-wise as well. But today I was working, and I intended to look like it.
Fortunately, my luggage had been transferred over and placed just inside the foyer of the suite, and I’d remembered to pack some normal looking clothes. Black jeans, a matching t-shirt, and a pair of scuffed boots and I was feeling much better. Throw a leather jacket over this lot, and I might look like myself for the first time in weeks.
I smirked at a pair of four-inch pumps, and dropped the lid on them with finality.
Not today, assholes.
Not today.
I was zipping up the bag when I noticed that, while my luggage had been brought over, Louis-Cesare’s hadn’t. The set of soft brown calfskin was nowhere to be seen, not even the matching alligator toiletry bag I’d bought him for his birthday, because he used more shit on his hair than I did. I wondered if Hassani was trying to separate us after our wild night, before we corrupted the Children.
Good luck with that, I thought, and flung open the door.
And met the man himself on my way out of the suite.
He was dressed more like an Arab sheik today than an Egyptian, in snowy white robes and a black and white keffiyeh tied into a turban. In fact, he was neither nationality, being Persian by birth, although he’d studied in Egypt as a young man. But I guess that, these days, he needed to appeal to larger audience and so had expanded the wardrobe.
He bowed as elegantly as if he’d expected to be almost run over, and maybe he had. With vamp hearing, not much surprises them. Although my outfit seemed to, maybe because it wasn’t some sort of fetish wear.
I’d never trust my uncle Radu to pick out my wardrobe again.
However, it probably wouldn’t have mattered what I wore. I’d gotten the impression that Hassani viewed me less as a person and more as a kink of Louis-Cesare’s. And, from his perspective, the evidence was on his side.