Chapter 43: The Moth in a Suit (and My New Assistant Has Glasses)
Chapter 43: The Moth in a Suit (and My New Assistant Has Glasses)
I frowned at the knock. I was almost certain it was Marrok because of how the knock sounded. It sounded polite and respectful—just like how Marrok sounded.
"Could that be Marrok?" I asked Rin.
She shrugged her shoulders but didn’t say anything more.
Vaelory, who had been hovering with the heavy jewelry, dropped it back in the box with a thud that echoed through the room.
I gave her a look, which she very stylishly ignored.
She cleared her throat, then spoke up. "I’ll go check who it is," she announced, clutching her skirts as she headed for the door.
Rin made a sound of disapproval. "If she keeps wearing clothes like that then she won’t survive in this realm."
I had to agree with Rin on that one.
Vaelory opened the door while I was rethinking all my life choices and who could possibly be at my door by five in the morning. I was also wondering if I should just get back to my bed—even if there were clothes around the room—when there was a sound like someone tripping over the catacombs that made me snap out of my thoughts.
I heard a thud followed by a little squeak and then silence.
My stomach lurched. I shot up from the vanity chair and ran, Rin strolling after me at a speed that suggested she was entirely unbothered by the sound we had just heard.
I reached the doorway and saw Vaelory lying there, hands still pointed at whatever stood at the opposite end of the doorway, eyes wide and slack in the manner of someone whose fainting had perfected itself into an art form.
Rin bent toward Vaelory, placed a finger just beneath her nose, then announced like it pained her to do so, "She’s still breathing. Weak-willed as ever."
I edged past Rin and forced my gaze forward. The creature in the doorway was the kind of thing that should not be allowed to wear a suit. A perfectly tailored suit, at that—midnight charcoal, subtle weave, jacket cut so sharp it might have been made with a scalpel. The trousers broke over shoes polished to a mirror shine. Both hands were, disturbingly, entirely human: pale, long-fingered, folded together with the restraint of a butler waiting to be spoken to.
But the face—of course the face—was the part that pinned me to the spot.
It was a moth’s face, soft and absurd and faintly ridiculous if it weren’t also unsettling. A fine dusting of pale scales covered cheek and brow in a way that caught the light into a soft halo. Two large, compound eyes dominated the front of his head.
Antennae arced elegantly from his brow, thin and graceful, twitching faintly as if listening to the room’s tiniest whispers. Behind him were wings—broad, patterned with faint moons and ash.
And because the universe loved nothing more than a proper punchline, especially when it came to me, perched on the bridge of that improbable face was a pair of spectacles.
For a moment I was absurdly relieved by the glasses, as if some part of me could not accept the idea of someone with a moth face unless it had been given the final, respectable touch of eyewear.
Rin waved at him like they were old friends. "You’re here," she chirped.
"I am. I have work to do, after all," he told Rin, then turned to me.
He bowed with the precise politeness of a man who had practiced the same line a thousand times. "My apologies for the intrusion," he said, sounding like a stern teacher.
"Um... who are you?" I asked him, frowning.
"Good morning, Your Highness. I am Morthen Vale. You may call me Morthen. I am your assistant. I apologize for not introducing myself earlier; I had assumed—quite incorrectly, it seems—that Marrok would have informed you of my arrival."
He smiled then, and the spectacles flashed.
"Assistant?" I echoed, because the word left my mouth before my brain could decide whether it wanted to be terrified or amused. "Assistant to who? Me?"
"Yes, my lady," he said, steady as carved stone. "There is much work to do in the castle, and you will need an assistant, especially since you are not yet used to most things in the realm. Hence why I am here."
What fucking work? I vaguely remembered something about an assistant. I think Marrok had said that yesterday... but what could I possibly be needing an assistant for? I’m the King’s fiancée.
"I like the new suit," Rin said approvingly. "It’s shiny."
"You cannot steal this one," Morthen told her sternly.
"I didn’t plan on it," Rin said back with an eye roll.
While they spoke, I just kept staring at Morthen—more specifically, at the spectacles on his face. They looked so out of place and made little sense to me. Was he wearing them because it was the fashion around here?
I shook my head at the thought. That wasn’t possible. If it were the fashion around here, I would know. I’d have seen it on numerous people.
"My lady, shall we—"
"Why are you wearing glasses?" I asked him.
Morthen’s compound eyes blinked in shock, and even I blinked in shock too, because I had not thought the question would pour out of me like that.
Sometimes my mouth moved faster than my brain. I should really learn to control it—especially because I was in the demon realm.
"I’m sorry?" Morthen said to me.
Well, since I’d already asked the question, I might as well satisfy my curiosity.
"I want to know why you are wearing glasses. It doesn’t fit your whole persona. At least not to me," I told him.
"My lady," he began. "I am not wearing them to fit my persona. I’m wearing them because I need them."
"Morthen can’t see anything without his glasses," Rin supplied.
Um... what the hell did I just hear?