.
The main thing I needed from my lodgings was right inside the suite, unlike most inns. The luxury suites on the third floor included spacious baths, made from polished cedar, and the magic-enhanced plumbing filled the tub quite fast. Well, they weren’t Pendor House spacious, but they were big enough to fit two or three people comfortably.
The inn was a giant square surrounding an inner courtyard, and the bath had a window that overlooked it. Naturally, I kept the curtains closed, but I left the window slid open. Sure enough, within minutes, after I had finished slipping out of my gown and shoes, while I was scrubbing myself on the bench next to the tub, a certain little pixie appeared, yanking the drapes open triumphantly.
“Big Sis! Kiki’s back!”
“Hello, Kiki,” I answered while I checked the water temp. The plumbing was actually delivering warm water at a comfortable temperature. “Please close those before someone sees me.”
She looked puzzled by my words, but pulled the curtains closed once more.
While Kiki dove in and began swimming laps, I began using the big ladle to rinse myself. Yep, this was bathing Japanese style. At the time, I didn’t know if that was just normal for Relador, or specific to this hotel. I learned later that it was normal. And that they have hot spring baths, too.
I slid into the tub, and Kiki took up her resting spot again. Right in the middle of the valley with her back to my chest.
“Big Sis needs water?”
“That’s right,” I nodded. “My grandmother is a naiad, so I need lots of Water mana.”
“Hmm… Oh! Lady of the Lake!”
Was that actually my grandmother’s title? I was beginning to wonder.
“That’s my grandmother. That reminds me, why are you scared to go to her lake, Kiki?”
“Kiki not scared! Kiki just… not allowed.”
“Why?”
“Kiki trick. Lady mad.”
I remembered my great grandfather saying he doubted she was still mad, and then I remembered both Kiki and Grandmother were thousands of years old. Could she be remembering something from centuries ago?
# # #
I knocked on Serera’s door with a little trepidation in my heart, but this wasn’t something I could skip. Serera’s need to keep an eye on both of us meant the three of us had to stick together, and I needed to go out.
The door opened on its own. Yup, just like in a fantasy movie. It unlatched and swung open, while Serera stayed seated on a cushion on the floor on the far side of the sitting room, doing sword maintenance. She smiled and invited me in.
Sure enough, the door closed behind me on its own, too, and for a moment I worried I had just stepped into the tiger’s lair, but she didn’t stop her work or resume her flirting. She just nodded me toward a chair.
She had removed her armor and now wore a raiment that looked a lot like the dresses I had seen some local mortals wearing. It vaguely resembled a dirndl.
“I rang for some tea a while ago,” she said while working the blade across her whetstone. “Shall I ask for an extra service?”
I wondered if she knew there were leaves and a magic tool to provide hot water, right there in the room.
“That would be good,” I said as I sat. “Thank you.”
A bell nearby rang itself, and after a bit, a voice came back. “Room Service.”
It was a magic intercom. I decided that the hotel’s owner almost had to be a transmigrator. I wondered if I would meet them eventually. Serera completed the negotiations while continuing her work.
After they finished, I realized something. “Ah… may I borrow your maintenance kit when you finish?”
“Certainly,” she answered with a smile. “Although I borrowed it from the inn. But I will let them know I passed it over to you.”
“I just give it back to room service?”
She nodded. “That’s correct.”
You have my gratitude, My Lady, Durandal stated. I didn’t answer, because I was right in front of Serera, but I gave a slight nod that he might be able to take as a reply.
“Is that what you came here to discuss?” she wondered.
“No. I need to go outside for a few things.” Although I had just crossed sword maintenance supplies off my list.
“A few things?”
“It’s embarrassing to talk about.”
Serera grew a puzzled frown as she polished her blade with a chamois rag.
“I need underwear,” I admitted. I wasn’t going to find a customized chemise with built-in support cups and a hole for my wings, but I at least wanted panties. I had been going commando a little too long.
She gave a laugh. “Ah, yes. You need clothes in mortal territory. You’re too young to do a raiment, right?”
“My mother says my growth so far has matched a true fairy’s schedule, so I’m probably fifteen or twenty years away from that.”
She nodded. “Well, I learned to do mortal clothing with my raiment centuries ago, so I wouldn’t know where to shop. We can ask the front desk clerk. Is that all you need?”
I colored a bit, then said, “No. I… also need to find a courtesan.”
“A… courtesan?” She looked a bit perplexed. Her blade slid home into its scabbard and she began returning the various tools to the wooden caddy.
“All the flying has taxed my reserve of stable mana,” I explained. “I’m half-vampire, as you know. I need mortal blood from time to time, to replenish my reserve.”
Understanding lit up. She clapped her hands together. “Oh! You mean a prostitute!”
I colored a bit– in the Atian upper class, ‘prostitute’ is a dirty word, and Tiana’s sensibilities tended to overcome me at times like that– but I nodded.
“I normally hire women when I need blood.”
She nodded. “I’ve heard that vampires do that. But you don’t need to go out for that. The inn will arrange it for you.”
I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
With a laugh at my dumbfounded expression, she noted, “Upper class inns always keep a list of reliable girls. It’s not unusual for a VIP to request to have their bed warmed. Just make sure they know what you need her for so it isn’t a surprise to the girl.”
I was at least ninety percent confident that wouldn’t hold true on Earth, but I had no way to be certain.
As I wasn’t responding, she tipped her head. “Is there something the matter, child?”
Once I figured out how to ask what I was wondering, I said, “Why would you know about such a thing?”
She gave a bright laugh. “I was once lectured rather severely by the concierge of this very inn, after seducing one too many of their maids.”
I gave out a slight cough in surprise.
It was a subject Tiana never really confronted about her mother’s race, but at this point, I finally stopped denying it. Fairies were definitively bisexual, each and ever one of them, and promiscuous to a degree Tiana had avoided admitting. I hoped Owen had stamina and a strong heart. Although Dana’s stray comment that one time suggested to me that Mother wasn’t holding back when it came to other women.
Yeah, I know. Grandmother had directly told me Mother had been the queen’s lover.
“I… see,” I responded. “So I just… who do I ask?”
With a puzzled frown and another tip of the head, she said, “Well, Room Service, of course. Ring the bell and they’ll answer.”
“I just tell whoever’s on the other end?”
“Of course. Oh, don’t be surprised if one of the maids comes to your room anyway. Some of them do double-duty.”
My eyes probably bugged a little, because she laughed again. “That’s how I got in trouble. I seduced one who was supposed to receive money for it.”
Then, with a mock pout, she added, “They made me pay the girl and tip extra! Can you imagine?”
I seriously had no idea how to respond to that.
“We shall find a clothing shop before we get dinner together,” she declared. “Oh, Lady Feraen will have to come along with us, of course.”
I frowned. “Is that… actually necessary?”
Serera grew serious, then closed her eyes. I felt a formation form under all of us, and a chantless wind spell begin. It was definitely [Realm of Silence].
“Your Highness, I apologize for beginning the magic before asking,” Serera stated with a bow of the head. She began rolling up the cloth she had been using to protect the carpet from the honing oil.
“It’s fine,” I said. “My mother uses the same spell. Why did you need it?”
“It’s about Lady Feraen, Your Highness. I’m concerned about her. She secluded herself last night and used a [Far Voice] spell. She also used [Realm of Silence], so I do not know the contents of her conversation, only what magic she cast.”
“That’s… awfully high level magic, isn’t it?” I answered, gawking a little. “Layering two multi-level spells like that.”
“Oh, I’m sure she was using a magic item for one of them, if not both,” Serera said, then grew a wry smile. “She could manage [Realm of Silence], but I doubt that child is capable of [Far Voice] on her own, or can maintain two spells. She’s just barely four centuries old, Your Highness.”
Four centuries was still a ‘child’ in this woman’s mind… I forced myself to not shake my head.
“She probably called her lord,” I said. “It’s reasonable. She was leading a squadron of air cavalry and suddenly disappeared. She would need to report her whereabouts.”
Serera pursed her lips and nodded. “That’s what I thought as well, until those women ambushed us at the Council Hall. Someone pulled together a ‘court’ made up entirely of families that voted to expel you, and they were ready when we arrived. The warning to rig a jury against you had to have come from her.”
After a moment to apply some royal knights training to analyse the situation, I noted, “It could have been someone else. That Miröen fellow, for example.”
She smiled and gave a small laugh. “I am not at liberty to tell you why, but I truly doubt that, Your Highness. I don’t know his view of you, but he’s not one to engage in underhanded tactics.”
I wasn’t sure how to interpret that. The man had popped in out of the blue, scanned me with some mysterious tool, and not explained a thing. I was frankly very suspicious of him.
But she probably knew the man and I didn’t. All I knew was how the lesser fairies were all fan-girling him so hard. Although that fact made me wonder if Serera’s judgment of him might also be skewed in his favor.
“Would those women really hold a trial on me?” I wondered.
She laughed. “They certainly intended to, Your Highness. You said exactly the right thing, though. I was surprised a baby chick like you understood the law, but you were correct. Nobles cannot try Royalty. Now they have to figure out an alternative. I wish I knew what their plan was.”
“I told you what I believe Parna is trying to do.”
“Yes,” Serera nodded, “And if they are allied with him as it appears, it would indeed explain why they want to stop you from seeing the King. It is possible someone within the nobility believes that having Cullen on Orestania’s throne would be better.”
“Why?” I asked, exasperated. “Don’t they know what he did?”
“He ran an illegal slaving ring that was kidnapping free citizens and selling them abroad, correct?”
“And he killed his father, as well!” I declared. “When King Stanley discovered what he was doing! It was just sheer luck that Owen had the investigation reports and allies in the Royal Knights! If he hadn’t been able to show the evidence to the Privy Council before they crowned Cullen, we would have a murderer and crime lord for a king now!”
These were all events that happened years before Tiana was born, when Owen was barely a teenager. It had been a pretty gutsy thing for him to do, as a thirteen-year-old concubine’s child, standing up against a brother twenty years older than him like that.
Serera finished packing the main, stood and presented me with the kit. After I accepted it, she asked, “Your Highness, are you under the misimpression that fairies would care about such things?”
I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Mortals are always killing and enslaving each other. Especially humans. It never stops. Why should we care?”
Having no idea how to respond, I just blinked at her again.
“The only part of this I care about now is that they are mistreating my friend’s daughter.”
“Your friend?”
With a wink, she said, “Don’t tell Lady Feraen that I know your mother. I need to remain ‘neutral’. Shall we go fetch her now? I know a lovely restaurant built on piers over the lake. We’ll have their roast duck for dinner. They serve lovely fresh-caught fish as well.”
