A Little Night Muse(7)

                The handmaid peered at her. “Is this your first foray to the                     sunlit world, child?”

                The sunlit world. The name sent chills across Adelyn’s skin.                     She clutched her veils around her, but the spider silk felt as light and                     revealing as...well, spider silk. “My first exile, yes.”

                EveStar smiled vaguely. “Such an adventure.” The handmaid’s                     ethereal golden beauty was rightly called timeless. She was one of the few to                     endure the Iron Age and the brutal court battles that spawned the steel-born                         phae. The Queen kept her as a reminder of a lost                     era. And maybe as a warning. None of the iron-born left the phaedrealii. Ever.

                Adelyn’s burst of envy at EveStar’s pristine silk slippers was                     eclipsed only by her desire to stay in the court too. “I am hunting a Hunter who                     will likely slaughter me.”

                The handmaid clicked her tongue. “Why, I’ve heard a dozen phae have chased after the runaways, never to return.                     And now a musetta sweet as yourself is cavorting                     with a dark Hunter? How times have changed.” The soft gold of her eyes glinted                     with something much harder, something angry.

                Unease twisted in Adelyn’s belly. Rumors of insanity haunted                     the iron-born. Some whispered the handmaid pierced herself with iron to burn off                     the cold guilt that so many had perished when she had not. “Nothing really                     changes here,” Adelyn soothed. “Which is just as it should be.”

                “Maybe you should change,                     considering,” EveStar shot back.

                Adelyn stiffened in shock. “You know better than most, the                         phae were devastated in the last upheaval. These                     fugitives can’t risk revealing us again.”

                The handmaid’s vague smile returned. “Change yourself? Is that                     what I said? Ah, words are slippery as serpents. I meant, be sure to change your                     glamour, child, lest yet another human sees you and falls in love.”

                Adelyn winced at the reminder. Damn her eyes for inspiring that                     odious ode. And damn her pointless preoccupation with pretty slippers that kept                     her from asking the handmaid about the sunlit world. After all, EveStar had                     walked among humans back when the phae had been                     known and feared and revered. Now she never left the phaedrealii; how was Adelyn, small and steel-born, supposed to                     survive?