The Faceless Woman by Emma Hamm (i love reading .txt) 📕

against the duchess’s waist, guiding her every step of the way. He wore love on his being the same way as the duchess had described Aisling. The duke never took his eyes off his wife.

“Your mask?” Bran asked as he followed them. “That’s new.”

“It is.”

“The last time I saw you, you were sporting six sets of arms.”

“I grew tired of having so many limbs. Everyone expected me to do six times the amount of work.”

“Sound reasoning.”

The duke snorted. “I wasn’t fond of it.”

They paused in front of a red door, handprints decorating the edges where hundreds of small goblins had held it open for the duke and duchess. Bran hesitated, allowing them to enter their domain first. He wouldn’t put it past them to hide an assassin, just to see the expression on Bran’s face.

Inside, a small fire crackled in a gilded hearth. Worn, plush furniture awaited them in a room filled with golden ornaments and red wallpaper. It was a room fit for royalty, and as such was surprising to Bran to see in the duchess’s home. She liked the aesthetic of dying things.

“This is a strange room to find in your home,” he observed. “I thought you despised bright colors.”

The duchess gestured for him to take a seat. “We all change, Unseelie. Even you.”

She had him there. He couldn’t say her castle had changed without admitting he was a different man than the one who’d wandered these halls all those years ago. A shame, because he dearly loved to criticize the Duchess of Dusk.

Shaking his head, he sank onto the loveseat and extended his arm along the back. “A story for a safe night was the deal I believe?”

They sat down across from him, the duke’s hand never far from hers. The duchess smiled and asked, “Tea?”

“I don’t trust you not the poison it.”

“Silly. I’m not going to poison you before the story.” She reached forward and hooked a finger through the handle of a teapot on the small table before them. “I’ll poison you afterwards.”

“Then by all means, pour away.”

While she played house, the duke watched him through the slanted eyes of his mask. Bran recognized the look. He was being measured, tried, and slowly stripped of all his shields. He pitied the man who forgot how talented Bran was at hiding his emotions and inner secrets.

The duchess held out a small teacup, the porcelain cracked but still holding the steaming tea. He took it with a frown.

“Are you in the habit of trying to make your house guests comfortable now?” he asked.

“Only those I want something from.” She passed a cup to her husband. “Or perhaps the ones who want something from me.”

“I want nothing from you. We were merely passing through when your personal guard accosted us. You really should be kinder to travelers,” he said sarcastically.

She leveled him with an unimpressed look. “We all know why you’re here Bran.”

He hoped she didn’t, or this was going to be harder than he thought. Keeping his face still as a midnight pool, he dipped a finger into the steaming water and muttered a quiet spell. When it darkened to a deep black, proving the tea wouldn’t harm him, he took a sip.

“Enlighten me then, duchess. I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.” He kept his tone purposefully calm and collected.

“You want my heart.”

Bran choked, spitting tea back into the cup. “Excuse me?”

“Not everyone is as foolish as you seem to think.” She smiled. “I’m not going to make it easy for you to steal my heart.”

He didn’t have to dance around words anymore. She knew he wouldn’t lie, nor would he try to convince her of anything other than the truth. Bran licked his lips and stilled his bouncing knee.

Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “I would be disappointed if you made it easy for me.”

“Good. Now that all that madness is cleared up…” She leaned forward and set her teacup back on the table with a clack. “Who is this woman you’ve brought into my kingdom, and why can’t I see her face?”

“I don’t know the answer to either of those questions,” he replied honestly. “She’s a secretive little thing. I was traveling by a small human town and paused to watch them burn a witch. Somehow, she saw me through my glamour and flung a binding curse at me hard enough to scar.”

He rubbed a hand over his chest, although the mark no longer ached. The memory didn’t make him angry now. It filled his lungs with fire of an entirely different kind.

The duchess chuckled. “She cursed you?”

“And threatened to do more than that.”

“This creature is intimidating indeed. Cursing a faerie prince is a death sentence for most.”

“She didn’t know I was a prince.”

“But she saw through your glamour?” The duchess tapped a finger against her chin. “Stranger and stranger. I’ve never heard of a witch who could do that.”

“Neither have I.” And it still bothered him. Lorcan had alluded she wasn’t human, but she couldn’t possibly be a faerie. He’d know. She couldn’t be that good of a liar.

The duke caught his wife’s gaze, humming under his breath. “We have met something like that before, although it was a strange meeting and I couldn’t guess what the creature was.”

“Oh really? Do share.”

“He was human, but more. A cousin of mine met him as a child, saw how talented the boy was in sculpting and art, and brought him back to the Otherworld. They tried to teach him magic, but he had no talent for it. In the end, they cut off his hands and replaced them with a faerie’s so that he might create the work they so desired.”

It was an unsettling thought, although Bran had heard of such things before. “How long did he remain in the Otherworld?”

“Long enough to cause quite the dramatics within the family he’d stayed with. Foolish mortals should never fall in love with faeries.”

“You think she’s human then? Otherworld touched, so perhaps a little more