Hair to the Throne Page 5

  "It didn't," Sestin said. "I've spent decades helping it recover."

  She gaped at him, fish-like, for a few moments, before managing, "You're the one who's been taking care of it? Abeille didn't know. Do you do it secretly or—"

  "Top secret," Sestin said, grinning at her too-widely. "The prince doesn't need to know I've been reviving old projects of hers." He tapped his nose, then Merle's, with a fingertip. "But I'll trust you with that secret. Just be sure you keep it quiet. So what did you want to talk about?"

  Right. Shit. I have to get back on track. She wrinkled her nose, trying to get rid of the feeling of his finger on its tip. "It's about me and Abeille," she said, and heard it come out bizarrely intense. Like that was the end of the statement, instead of an introduction.

  Sestin tilted his head, seeming surprised, then folded his arms behind his back in some kind of mock parade rest. She strongly suspected it was some kind of teasing for her tone. "Okay," he said affably. "What about you two?"

  "You saw that we already knew each other," Merle said. "I mean, I don't think you were planning on saying anything anyway, but please be careful to not tell anyone about it. Abeille is really worried about what the prince might do if she knew that two old friends had ended up being roommates together."

  "What'll you do for me in return?" Sestin asked, smiling brightly.

  Merle's mouth fell open and her stomach dropped. Somehow, she hadn't seen the question coming. Sestin had been so accommodating, so easy-going, that she hadn't thought it would become a barter. He'd even told her his secrets! But he was still a demon—of course he'd want something. And a cubant, too, so there was only one thing he'd want that she'd have—

  "Just kidding," Sestin said. "Oh, don't look like that, Merle. You've been so disgusted at the thought of sleeping with me every time it's occurred to you that I couldn't help but tease you a little."

  She felt her cheeks grow warm. "Wh—you—!"

  "I do fine for myself, Merle. I don't need to steal from someone. Let alone someone who's pleading desperately for my help," he said lightly. "If I wanted to get you, I'd seduce you. And then I'd look rather different right now, given what I've felt of your tastes."

  Her heart had started beating again. "Ugh!" she burst out. "I was talking seriously, you jerk!"

  "And I wasn't," he said, grinning at her. He reached over to her but just ruffled her hair, his lips pursed and horizontally-slit eyes glittering at her. "But I will now. I think Abeille is probably right about the danger."

  Merle had believed her, or had thought she had, but somehow hearing it from an actual demon was more demoralizing. "It's really unsafe, huh?" she muttered, still sulky.

  "Vehr is not a kind prince," Sestin said. True to his promise to take this seriously, his smile was fading into a much more solemn expression, brows furrowed. "She very much enjoys watching people's reactions to being put into very uncomfortable situations. I'm not really someone who gets pleasure from that myself, and I don't want to give her any satisfaction."

  Relief washed over her, and Merle exhaled heavily. "Kind of weird to hear that from a cubant. That you don't want to satisfy someone, I mean."

  "Hah," Sestin said, without actually laughing. "I suppose she's made an odd cubant out of me."

  He was genuinely looking troubled now, corners of his lips tight, horizontal pupils focused on a flower a little ahead and to the side of him instead of looking at Merle. Merle thought longingly of just turning and going back to the lift now that he seemed on board with not telling Vehr anything, but it didn't seem fair to do that. Not while Sestin was clearly upset.

  "Can I… ask?" she muttered finally. "What's going on with you? With you and her, I mean. I saw what she did when you brought me in, obviously…"

  "Oh. That," he said, and sighed, putting a smile on that seemed even less real than his usual fare. "Nothing too complicated there. She doesn't have a lot of cubants in her court, you may have noticed."

  Merle had absolutely failed to pay any attention to what types of demons she had or hadn't seen when she'd been in Vehr's presence, and had kept mostly to human floors since. "Yeah, for sure."

  "There's a reason for that. Vehr likes to leash her courtiers," Sestin said, brows creasing a little and eyes dimming. "Princes have a lot of power, especially over their own courts. I'd been a young cubant when I came here, and was trying to curry favor and influence, like one does. The details don't matter, since this was a long time ago, but suffice to say that I did a favor for her as a visitor to her fiefdom and requested a knighthood in return. Titles carry power with them," he added, as if realizing how little she knew about how demons actually worked rather than just knowing what they did to people. "Calling myself a knight to another demon—along with the power boost to back it up—is pulling rank, which I can certainly do now. She granted me that title, but in return for that power, she pushed my other powers down."

  Well, that means jack all. "Uh," she said.

  "Not making sense? Let me put it another way," he said. "She can't cut off my natural abilities entirely. No demon can do that to another, because who we are and what we do are tied. She can't stop me from shifting shape or absorbing energy through sex any more than, say, a cubant prince could prevent a watcher from growing a new eye every hundred years. But any energy that comes out of me to influence others, the prince pushes back in. I can sense other people's lust and desires, but I couldn't, for example, make someone want me by letting my aura out over them."

  That was definitely something she'd experienced from cubants before. They were very good at sensing what you wanted, being that, and then making you want them. They exuded lust like some people reeked of perfume. "Oh," Merle said. That actually just sounds like Vehr's evened the playing field. "Too bad."

  "Very sympathetic," Sestin said, "Thanks."

  She hadn't meant it to show, though. She stammered, "No, well, I mean—"

  "Like I said before, I do fine," he said, still a bit flatly. "I can still seduce people the normal way, and I'd rather be a knight than untitled entirely." After a moment, he relaxed. He reached out and ruffled Merle's hair again, as if she actually had been sympathetic. "I've got no reason to run out of the range of her influence. But she knows I resent this trade and that's why you saw that show of princely power. She thought I was cozying up to her to get my restriction removed."

  Merle shrugged his hand off and looked up at him. "Were you?"

  "Not at all," he said, and smiled. "Is that all? We can go back to the lift."

  "Uh, yeah," she said. "Out of curiosity…"

  "Hm?"

  "You said a prince couldn't stop a watcher from growing eyes because that's their natural power. But what could they stop a watcher from doing?" she asked. "I don't know what abilities watchers even have that they can use on others, I mean. What do watchers even do?"

  Sestin laughed, visibly surprised by the question. "They can cut off someone's senses. Leave them deaf, mute, blind, insensible. But the degree and number of senses they can block depends on the watcher's age."

  "I thought you said that most of them weren't powerful," Merle said. "That sounds pretty damn scary to me."

  "I said that most of them are kept weak because they start with only two places to store power," Sestin said, "and other demons pluck those out while they're still young. None of us want to be insensible. She likes punishing me, but if she cut off my senses as punishment, I'd die."

  Of course he would. As a cubant, he relied on touch to live. "Yikes."

  "Yeah," he agreed, escorting her back onto the lift. "Yikes."

  *~*~*

  "Merle," Abeille said into the silence, abrupt and awkward, "can I ask you to… I mean, would you be willing to… to do my hair?"

  It was about a week since Merle talked to Sestin, and about five since she'd come here—not like she was counting or anything. She hadn't offered in that time, hadn't wanted to presume or make Abeille think she'd prefer it to be short again, but had been wo
ndering if, hoping that, Abeille would ask for Merle to be useful to her.

  "I would love to," Merle said without hesitation. "Just let me know what you want."

  Belette looked up from the nest she'd made for herself out of bedding on the floor. "If it's okay, me next?" She'd been drawing what looked like a picture of Sestin, and Merle absolutely didn't want to ask.

  Merle shrugged. "Sure. Back home, me and the others practiced on each other all the time. No harm keeping in touch."

  Abeille scooted closer to Merle on the bunk, smiling a little, head bowed. "I don't want a lot cut off," she said. "But I've been getting a lot of split ends. I don't think it'd be so fuzzy if it had a bit of a trim. And I also would like to put it up? I was going to go work in the forge later today, and I mean… Usually, I just tie it back, but…"

  "But it's getting really long and having it up and off your neck will be a lot more comfortable."

  "And a lot less likely to catch fire," Abeille agreed.

  "I would love to," Merle repeated, fervently. This time, her throat caught a little on the word love, and she cleared it, hoping it wasn't too obvious.

  The last thing she wanted to do was make Abeille feel awkward. So much of their friendship was just finding itself again, stunted and full of memories and only just being watered enough with companionship to grow. Sure, she'd admired Abeille for a long time, and that flutter in her chest had only gotten more demanding when she'd learned that Abeille was a girl.

  But her crush was one-sided. Abeille had valued their friendship, Abeille had never even implied she was thinking of dating her, Abeille had a lot to deal with on her own in life. They'd wanted to stay together, be together, run away together, but Abeille had never given any sign she wanted it to be romantic, so Merle had done her best to not do so either.

  The chance of getting to dig her fingers into Abeille's hair and play with it for a while without that being in any way strange…

  It's really damn appealing.

  "Anyway," Merle said, and was pleased to hear her voice come out totally normal and professional, "we won't want to do it here, or you'll be picking hair out of your bedding for weeks. Let's do it over by the dresser. That way you'll have the mirror too."

  They made their way around Belette's nest to it and Abeille sat, smiling with a sort of peace in the expression that Merle was happy to see. It looked like she was her old self again. At least for now.

  "I'll do the trim first," Merle said. "Then I'll braid it up for you."

  "Sounds good."

  An hour into it, with brown hair trimmings littering the ground around the chair and Merle's fingers wound deep into Abeille's hair, Merle guiltily luxuriating in the feeling of Abeille's soft hair, the door opened without warning.

  The demon on the other side looked to be made of stone or crystal, wearing armored livery. All three of them turned at once, alarm on their faces, suddenly tense. That relaxation vanished from Abeille's expression like it had never been there, and what was in its place, stiff and cold, was actually alarming.

  "Merle," the demon said, in a voice like gravel grinding. "The prince calls for you."

  "I'll just," Merle began, stammering. "I'm almost done—"

  "You would leave the prince waiting?"

  "Go," Abeille said. "You got one braid up already anyway. I can do the other."

  "But—"

  Abeille grabbed her arm, forcing her hand away from her hair. It was rough and hurt; Merle exhaled unsteadily through her teeth.

  "Go," Abeille hissed.

  Merle went.

  Chapter Six

  The demon led her back to Vehr's hall the same way she'd come—taking the lift up, going across to the other lift, then going back down again. Merle didn't want to talk to the guard, so she didn't say anything, and fortunately, the disinterest seemed mutual.

  The situation in the hall was much the same as when Merle had first entered: a cluttered, parlor-like throne room, with Vehr in the center like a long, thin spider, what was left of her hair winding around the room. Other demons, Vehr's courtiers, were around too.

  Now aware of how Vehr treated them, Merle glanced around with a curious eye. It was hard to read their body language—she'd never quite gotten used to the wide array of demon types, even spending her entire life around them, because they'd never deign to spend so much time with a mere human who existed only to serve them.

  But there was a tension in the room that she'd noticed before, and she wondered how much of that was actually resentment. What had Vehr done to them? What little ways had she restricted their freedom for her own entertainment and control?

  "Merle," Vehr said softly.

  Merle's attention jumped back abruptly. She dropped into a curtsy at once. "Your highness," she said. "You called for me?"

  "I wish for your service," Vehr agreed, tone, as before, almost impossible to read. Distant and almost curious. "I am glad you were easily found."

  Merle thought briefly about what it might have been like if she had made Vehr wait for her to finish with Abeille's hair. If they'd been doing her hair in private instead of in their room, the soldier may not have found them, and she could have finished.

  Vehr would have been bored. Whatever whim had crossed her mind would have been left to rot, and what sort of mood would Merle have been facing when she finally arrived?

  I don't think that'd have gone well for me. Or for Abeille, either.

  Merle was beginning to understand why the other humans mostly stuck to their rooms, rarely wandering the halls the way Merle tended to, pretty much only going out when they'd been in long enough to go a little stir crazy. It was far preferable to attracting attention.

  Although Vehr hadn't asked a question, she seemed to be waiting for an answer. Merle said, a bit awkwardly with the effort to remain completely polite, "Your highness, this slave doesn't understand. The back of your hair can't have regrown to the point where you would need it cut."

  "It has not," Vehr said. "But I would like you to do something interesting with what's left. Not a cut."

  "Oh," Merle said. She curtsied deeper. "Then, if your highness wills it, I will style your hair. Do you have any preferences?"

  "I'm sure you'll think of something," Vehr said.

  Which wasn't an answer to the question, but wasn't an atypical way of responding either. Merle rose from her curtsy at the implicit permission, moving around behind Vehr again and starting to unwind the length of her hair's fishtail from the furniture in the room.

  Merle resented the feeling of this hair in her hands. It was perfectly good hair, and she'd handled many, many ones harder to touch, technically—from plain old damaged hair to inhuman hair with fine thorns along each strand. This hair was fine and silky, an unusual color, in incredible quality when one considered how long it had been since these remaining long strands had been cut.

  But it felt wrong, immediately compared to Abeille's hair. Abeille's was thick and had a faint curl to it. Abeille's hair had the warmth of where it had been lying against her body. Abeille's hair had the faint scent of sweat in it from how she worked in the forge.

  It wasn't this perfect perfumed delicate… thing. I'd been thinking of it as a spiderweb, but, she thought a bit viciously, it's more like cobwebs. No life to it at all. Just disuse.

  Still. It was her job. It was what she had to do.

  All Merle could do was serve.

  When she'd gathered it up from the furniture, she wrapped long coils of it around her hands, separating it. She found herself moving to do what she'd been doing with Abeille's: braiding it, then pinning it up.

  She forced herself to work towards making it a fancier braid, though, planning to pin it up in loops and whorls. Something befitting of royalty.

  "Merle."

  She almost jumped when Vehr spoke suddenly. "Yes—your highness?"

  "How have you been finding it here?"

  Now that was a dangerous question. Lies rose as easy answers to something as b
latant a trap as that. "It's lovely here," Merle said. "Outside, one always has to worry about food and money and what would happen if we offended even the lowliest of demons. It does seem like we're taken care of here."

  "Mm." Vehr's head had fallen forward a little while Merle worked, but that hardly meant Merle was safe to stop schooling her expression. The eye on the back of Vehr's neck was watching her, heavy-lidded. "Have you had any problems? With demons here."

  "No, your highness. None at all."

  "None have been spending their time on you which would be better spent elsewhere?"

  Sestin, Merle thought. She's talking about Sestin.

  "No, your highness," she said. "It's been very quiet." And then, spurred on by her lie, wanting to deepen it and make it stronger, "I'd actually say it was too quiet, actually."

  The eye on the back of Vehr's neck flicked up to Merle's face, the sleepiness of her eyelid gone as it widened to look at her. Merle forced herself to look at her own hands as she braided and pinned, not at Vehr's eye.

  "Is that so," Vehr murmured softly.

  "I'm used to working a lot more," Merle said. Then, quickly, "I mean, I'm doing that right now, of course. But if you have courtiers who need their hair cut or styled, or if you want to see my work on anyone else, I'd be happy to…"

  Vehr said, "You're bored."

  Somehow this conversation felt like it had become very unpleasant very quickly. "I wouldn't say that," Merle said. She began to separate out an equal number of locks to braid on the other side.

  She wondered if Abeille had managed to repeat what Merle had done on her own hair, or if it looked different on one side, or if she'd even just left it down. Or tied it back as she normally did, one half braided, the other side pulled over her shoulder as she worked.

  "You are," Vehr said. "I see. That's no good."

  "I'm simply adjusting," Merle said awkwardly. "As I said, I'm used to doing this all day. There are lots of demons in the city who want something done for them—"

  "I understand," Vehr said. Her tone did seem understanding. "It must feel strange to have idle hands for so long."