“That’s true,” she says, pulling out a red dress now and comparing it to the yellow. “But it’s not every day a non-dead mortal girl comes waltzing into Tuonela, especially one who can fight nearly as good as I can. It was like you were trained by Vipunen yourself. But of course you weren’t…” she squints at me, “were you?”
“I don’t even know who this Vipunen is,” I explain.
“Didn’t think so. It’s an honor to be trained by him. But play your cards right, and soon you will be. No queen can live here being untrained, especially with all the rumors about an uprising. You have to be ready when the Old Gods resurface to take the throne.”
She thrusts the red dress out and holds it against me, studying me like a fine arts student scrutinizing a painting. “This was mine once, but I never wore it. You’re a bit thicker than I am, nothing to take personally, I know you mortal women take offense to body stuff, but I think you’ll look good in it.”
I’m not taking offense to what she said, I’m stuck on the other thing. “This uprising…the Old Gods are going to resurface and take the throne? As in your father’s throne?”
She nods and then places the dress in my hands. It’s deceptively heavy with many layers. “Hopefully I won’t be here when that happens,” she says.
“And where are you going to be?”
“In your old world,” she says with a dreamy grin. “I want to live among the mortal boys for the rest of eternity, have fun in all the wonderful cities, eat all the delicious foods, and drive all the cars. Except I can’t go now. I ferry the dead. It’s my role, and though Tuonen, my brother, can handle it, it wouldn’t be fair to expect him to do it all the time. But if you married my father, maybe I wouldn’t be missed.”
Arms up, Raila commands me, taking the dress from my hands.
I absently hand it over and raise my hands, my towel dropping to the floor.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I tell Lovia as Raila slips the dress over my head. It smells like heady perfume, gardenia maybe. “But I think you’re getting ahead of yourself here. I’m your father’s prisoner. He let my father go and took me instead. What he has planned might not be to marry me.”
It might be to have his way with me, then place a bare hand on me and send me off to Oblivion.
Lovia thinks that over for a moment. “Well, maybe. But there’s something to be said for looking on the bright side, isn’t there? Now, that dress is darling on you. Really. Let’s figure out what to do with this hair of yours. It’s nearly as long as mine.”
While she picks up an ebony comb from the vanity table, Raila starts to do up the corset at the back of the dress.
“Really?” I say, looking at Lovia expectantly as Raila cinches me in. “You’ve been to my world and yet you’re wearing corsets down here?”
She motions to her Grecian-style gown. “As you can tell, I am not. But my father is particular about his women looking a certain way. Unless you’re a mermaid.” She laughs at that and Raila joins in and I’m remembering Bell again, hiding in her fish tank and watching this whole thing. Surely Lovia will remember that she’s there? Then again, she did say she has a bad memory.
I hold my breath in worry, wondering if Lovia will remember and maybe take Bell away from me. But Lovia just takes the comb and starts going through my hair.
“Wish I had a blow-dryer,” she pouts, braiding my hair. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, but we don’t have electricity here. We have starstones and they can power things, but they’re quite rare. Luckily, I can create fire winds.”
“Create what now?”
Suddenly Lovia opens her arms, flames immediately appearing on her skin, then a giant gust of hot wind seems to flow right out of her and onto me.
My eyes pinch shut. I think I scream. It’s hard to tell when you’re being blown away and nearly engulfed by a fire.
Eventually though, the blowing stops and I dare to open my eyes. Both Lovia and Raila are staring at me. I can’t see Raila’s face, of course, but I assume she looks as amused as Lovia does.
“Magic,” Lovia explains, shaking out her wrists. “I can control fire. My mother is part-demon, so she passed that onto me. My brother can control ice, but he doesn’t do anything interesting with it except play hockey with Deadhands.”
Raila comes over to me and starts undoing my braids. To my surprise, my hair is completely dry. And very shiny. Guess that conditioner does the job.
“Come here,” Lovia says, grabbing me by the arms and leading me to the vanity desk. She sits me down and stands behind me. I look into a mirror that looks like a haunted mirror if I ever saw one. For a moment I think it might be because I don’t recognize myself in it.