“Clothes?” she asked, still dressed in her waitress uniform, her dark hair in a messy bun atop her head. “You want clothes?”
“I’ll give you some money,” Sadhbh said, nodding in Caley’s direction. “Take our new friend here shopping and get her some outfits.”
“I just worked a double!” Caley whined, and paused when Arlo whipped her a violent look.
“When the president’s old lady asks you to do something, you say yes ma’am, and hop to it,” he snarled and his sister sighed, tucking a few loose strands of hair back with her blue painted fingernails.
“Yes, sir,” she said, but there was a hint of sarcasm in the way she said sir that I liked. “Alright, Gardien du Voile, why don’t you, um, clean up a bit and I’ll take you out?”
I nodded and rose to my feet, glancing over at Amelie.
“Would you like to come, too?” I asked, because I had vague memories of girlfriends and shopping and … my brain was craving something that resembled normalcy, whatever that was anymore. I couldn’t decide if shopping for clothes was normal … if fucking a horned god was normal … or if they both were.
What I did know was that I had a whole eternity of secrets to unravel and no surefire way to go about it except …
Except maybe one …
Arlo and Reece were too hotheaded to be of any use today, so I tagged along with le Gardien to a small boutique at the edge of the swamp. It was a trashy little place on the outside, but the clothes sold inside weren’t so bad. And anyway, it was the only shop this far outside the city limits. We could’ve driven into town, but ten minutes in Caley’s car and Ciarah was already starting to feel sick from the effects of the iron.
One positive of growing up in the modern world, most of us alive now had twice—if not three times—the tolerance to iron that our ancestors did. But Le Gardien du Voile? Even if her soul was young and fragile, her body was ancient and used to the old ways. Iron was poison; iron killed.
I stood outside on the porch, next to an old man in a rocking chair who was singing old blues songs and smoking a tobacco pipe. He was blind, his eyes milky and white, but I sensed the power in him. I didn’t know what he was, but I was keeping an eye on him, just in case. Although he did seem more inclined to stay draped in his old chair, watching a sunny day in the bayou that he couldn’t see.
“Hello.” Ciarah spoke from beside me and I startled. How had she just snuck up on me so quietly? When I glanced down though, it wasn't me she was speaking to.
The old man paused in his song and his head tilted in Ciarah's general direction.
“Who dat?” he asked, his milky eyes staring out at nothing between our heads.
“What are you?” The living goddess beside me spoke with genuine curiosity, ignoring the man's rhetorical question. Undoubtedly if I could smell the power on him, so too could she. His old blind man routine wasn't fooling anyone here.
“Dat be a verra rude question for an ol' man, cher.” He hedged Ciarah's question like a pro, so he had to be some form of faerie. “Come see, girl.” His gnarled fingers beckoned Ciarah closer to him.
An unfamiliar surge of concern swept through me as she took a step closer, and my hand closed over her thin arm to prevent her moving toward the strange fae.
“Kill,” she murmured, glancing up at me through those lush black eyelashes of hers.“I'm fine.”
Gently, she detached my hand from her arm and bent down close to the ‘old’ man.
This girl, this waif-like damaged creature, she was my goddess. My Gardien du Voile. When she gave an order, we had no choice but to follow her wishes.
Although she had not ordered me to back off, the implication was there and I had no desire to feel whatever Donal had when he dared question her.
Before my eyes, the unknown fae creature engaged Le Gardien in a rapid whispered conversation, none of which I was able to pick up on despite my fae hearing.
“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” she finally said in a normal volume, as she straightened and held out her hand for the man to shake. “I better go back inside before Caley and Amelie pick out too many racy outfits.” She smiled at me then, an open, excited smile that transformed her whole face, and I swear to the Veil, my heart straight stopped.
I wasn't all together sure how long I stood there with that same dumbstruck expression on my face after Ciarah disappeared back into the store, but my trance was broken by the coughing laughter of the old man fae.
“Seigneur de L'hiver,” he nodded to me in greeting, and I shifted uncomfortably.
“Not yet,” I ground out from behind clenched teeth.“She has not yet named a Lord of Winter.”
“Ah, but soon. ?a c’est bon. The wheel be turnin' once more, an' we must all decide if we want on, or off.” He peered at me with those milky eyes. “Best you be on, boi.”
Trying my best not to snarl at the man, I nodded tightly. “Je connais. I know.”
“Word o' warnin' then, Seigneur de L'hiver.” The man drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair in a staccato rhythm. “Dem dat held her all deese long years. Dey ain't gonna give her up wit'out a fight, y'hear?”
The conviction in his words made me narrow my eyes in suspicion. “Do you know something?”
“Ol' Blue know a great many thing. On dis, you can trust. Trouble is a'comin' and dat girl be it's target.” The man, Old Blue, shook his head and clicked his tongue, and I found it increasingly difficult not to rip his riddle-filled head clean off his shoulders with my bare hands.
My teeth creaked as I ground them together. Hard. “Do you have any advice?” I asked, as politely as I could possibly manage.
“Only one thing y'can do, boi. Get dat girl her thoughts back. Quick smart, y'hear?” Old Blue sighed heavily and rapped his walking cane on the wooden slats beneath our feet. “What's dat over dere?” he asked, gesturing with his stick at something behind me.
Turning toward where he was pointing, I saw nothing but cypress trees.
“What's what …?” I started to ask, but quickly realized I’d just fallen for the oldest trick in the book. When I turned back to the storefront once more, not a trace of Old Blue remained except the gentle sway of his recently vacated seat.
Almost as though I'd imagined the whole damn thing.
My skin tingled with the intensity of Killian's glare as he entered the little boutique, but I didn't turn to look. Instead I cooed and nodded in the way that seemed socially appropriate for when another girl tried on a cute outfit. Or, that's what I was guessing based on my observations of Caley and Amelie.
Whether it was yet another sinkhole in my personality and memory, or whether none of the manifestations of me had really been into shopping, it didn't matter. I was a quick study, and could learn how to act by emulating others.
“Gardien,” Killian's lightly accented voice growled in my ear, and his huge hand closed over my upper arm once more.