I jumped off the bed, heading toward Ryland’s sweater that lay across the foot. I grabbed it and went to tug off the yellow shirt that Ilyan had dressed me in. My blush deepened and melted into an embarrassed anger at the thought of what state I had been in after the bath and exactly what I was wearing now. I froze for only a moment before removing the shirt and tugging on one of Wyn’s band shirts that had been laid out next to Ryland’s sweater. I pulled the shirt and sweater on, keeping a close ear on the argument going on in the bathroom, just in case someone walked in on me. I glanced around for my pants, my heart dropping at finding nothing, not even the pajama pants I had worn last night. I guess I would have to stay in the plaid shorts I had been dressed in a bit longer.
I tugged the sweater down in hopes of hiding what I could only assume were Ilyan’s boxers. I pushed down my anger at being left to sleep here and thrown into such a situation; after all, how hard would it have been to just walk me down the hall?
I turned to make my escape just as Ovailia burst through the bathroom door, still yelling something angrily in Czech. She was followed close behind by Ilyan who was soaking wet with soap in his hair and a white towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist. The sight of him supercharged my agitation, bringing the level of buzzing on my skin to new heights. I looked back and forth from him to Ovailia, who yelled angrily. Ilyan rebutted something before Ovailia stormed out, slamming the door behind her. Ilyan exhaled angrily before turning to me.
“Pants are in the closet.” His accent was thick, and it took me a moment to register exactly what he had said. He waved his hand toward a door on the opposite end of the room before turning back to the bathroom. I immediately decided to forgo the pants and continue with my original plan to track down Wyn.
“Oh, and Joclyn,” his head poked out from behind the bathroom door, “don’t go anywhere.”
I fumed angrily at him before he closed the door to go back to his shower. I rubbed my arms abrasively in the hopes of lessening the buzzing. It seemed to be working a bit, the motion also calming my heart rate. I breathed deeply as I made my way toward the closet, the buzzing now only a hum. My anger and frustration had never reacted this way, but then, I wasn’t sure I had ever been so emotionally charged before.
Ilyan’s closet was a strange place. It was as large as the bathroom, with clothes stacked floor to ceiling. There was little rhyme or reason to it, and it took me a bit to locate pants among the heaps of clothes. I dug through the stacks of designer jeans, grateful that none of these would fit just right. I wasn’t in any mood to be noticed by a large group of people quite yet. I chose one of the only pairs that didn’t have the perfectly placed tears that Ilyan favored, pulling them on over the shorts.
Finding a belt in the mess was surprisingly more difficult than locating pants. I held the pants around me as I searched through drawers and boxes that were littered around the large space. I carefully lifted a sheet that covered one section of the wall and stopped short.
Behind the curtain was a perfectly organized wall of clothes. Each piece of clothing hung on its own hanger, covered with a clear protective bag. On its own, it would have been surprising, given the lack of organization among the rest of the clothes.
It wasn’t just that though; at first, I thought they were costumes. Each shirt was longer and would probably fall to the knee on an average-sized man. Given the lengths and the style, I would almost call them tunics. The light colored garments were cut from fabrics that I could automatically tell where expensive. I fought the urge to remove the bags and run my hands over the soft silks, touch the fine jewels and golden ropes that adorned each one.
I hungrily ran my eyes over the glittering stones, the deep colored embroidery. The sleeves on each piece were exaggerated, but I couldn’t tell by how much, given how loosely they hung on the hangers. Claudius, Macbeth, Lear, Romeo. I could see these on-stage in a million different plays, but they weren’t fake, like costumes; they were shockingly real.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” I jumped at Ilyan’s voice, my hand clutching my chest.
“You scared me!” I spun to him and balked. While now soap-free, he was still only dressed in a towel. I inhaled sharply and stepped away, hoping he hadn’t noticed my reaction. His chest was strong and thick with sinewy muscles, but that wasn’t why I had reacted. The skin across his chest was criss-crossed with hundreds of raised scars, like he had been whipped.
I shook my head and looked away. My skin buzzed as my agitation returned, coming in full force again. I wasn’t as mad as I should have been to see him dressed in only a towel.
“Sorry, but you were looking at my private collection; you kind of deserved it,” he chuckled.
“Private collection?” I let the sheet fall over the clothes again. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. They are not a secret after all. I wear them to council.” He handed me a belt he had removed from under a pile of undershirts; I would have never found it.
“Council? You mean the meeting you had yesterday?”
“Yes, it is an official meeting, so I have to look the part.” He grinned, but it looked more like a grimace.
“You mean, like King?”
His face fell. He turned from me and grabbed a few items of clothing off the many disorganized piles.
“Not ‘like’, Joclyn, just King.” He gave me a sad, little smile and disappeared behind a partition I hadn’t noticed due to the large amount of clothes draped over it.