“Sorry for what? For scaring me? Or lying to me? Why am I here?”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“You did. You tricked me into thinking you’re… misunderstood, or something. But this is the real you, isn’t it? All naked and shit. Why did you even bother wearing clothes to begin with?”
“What?” And now he’s laughing at me.
“You wore clothes to make me feel more comfortable around you.” I don’t know why I feel so… lied to, but I do. Because Pell refused. Pell showed me the real him first. Then he showed me how he would be different to make me comfortable. Not the other way around.
But Tarq laughs again. Louder this time. “You think… oh. Oh, I get it. The clothes. No. It’s Fireday, Pie.”
“I don’t know what that means!”
“Monsters and people, Pie. It involves a degree of trust. We’re far more powerful, and cunning, and unpredictable. So we have Fireday to honor the queen’s power.”
I’ve got a really dumb look on my face, I just know it.
“We could,” Tarq continues, “simply take Vinca for ourselves, don’t you think?”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just shrug.
“We could,” Tarq reiterates. Minus the question mark. “So once a week we bow to her authority and show our true selves or”—he pauses. Maybe for dramatic effect, maybe just because his next words are dramatic—“we face the consequences.”
“You do this by being naked?”
“Yes. We remove the pretenses, work on our tasks all day and show up for her party as our true selves, and we bend the knee and pledge allegiance.”
“Every week? You have to do this every week?”
“She’s not very trusting.” Tarq sighs. “No royals are.”
“Well, that explains you, I guess.” My eyes are narrow when I deliver this dig. And Mad Pie is back, if only for a moment. I relax a little bit when I realize the fear is gone now and my heart is slowing down.
“All of us are bare today. And you”—this is a very insulting ‘you’—“you show up wearing the queen’s jacket, when you’re supposed to be bare, and flashing the queen’s ring, which you are not supposed to have!” He leans forward on his desk, palms flat on the dark wood. “Where did you get these things?”
“I told you. My tailor made the jacket for me. I didn’t know there were fashion rules here.”
“And your tailor is a monster?”
I nod. “Eyebrows. That’s what I call him. He’s been making me special clothes. I didn’t have any nymph clothes. I haven’t been a nymph very long, so…”
“I understand. But this jacket—the gold thread, the pastel blue—Pie!”
“What!”
“This is all illegal! And it’s Fireday!”
“Will someone please tell me what the hell Fireday is?”
His anger fades and turns into a snort. “She has a dragon, Pie. What the hell do you think Fireday means?”
I just blink at him. “She… it… fire day?”
He’s nodding. “You’re not allowed to wear those clothes. They are for royals. And if this monster of yours made these things, then he was a royal tailor. And he was banished.”
Well. This day has gone completely sideways and I’m not any kind of Vinca-monster expert or anything, but I see where this is going. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Forget him for a moment. We will come back to that. Did he give you that ring?”