“First things first- we need to get you into proper garments. Follow me.”

  The Stag started up the walkway and I followed him in stumbling steps, staring around all the while at my miraculous surroundings. What are korrigans? I wondered. How does the palace float? Is it all part of the Stag’s magic? What is there to do here?

  Cervis led me across dizzying bridges and rooms that seemed to hover and glow golden starlight. Little golden flickers, at first I thought they were lightning-bugs, drifted around us, lighting the rooms; it took seeing over a dozen of them to realize they were tiny stars. Cervis didn’t react at all to these things- not to the room with floating books swirling around, not to the table on which food appeared as we entered the room, not to the hovering orbs of light spinning around us- and it made me wonder what all he had seen that these things were commonplace. I had never known much of my mother’s faye heritage, and now wished I had studied it more.

  “This will be your suite.”

  We had reached the easternmost tower. The floor and walls in this room were the same lavender marble that composed the rest of the palace, and the furnishings were all a snowy white wood, with blankets of violet silk and indigo velvet. More floating books existed here, and the hovering lights drifted lazily up and down a staircase that spiraled around the walls of the tower, to a hidden top floor.

  “You will find there is no bed,” Cervis continued. “I am sorry for that. When this place was made, it was intentionally crafted so that only one bed may exist. The idea was that I would always be alone. Before I ventured out to seek a companion, I tried to remedy this, but to no avail. When you have need of anything, ring the bell on that table and one of the Lights will lead you to it. Be cautious in your exploring. A wardrobe is upstairs; please make use of it and get those rags out of here.”

  There was something pleasantly rusty about his voice the more I heard it, but his disdain for my choice in clothing had me a bit miffed. Cervis turned and strode out of the archway leading into the tower, and as he vanished from sight I collapsed onto a chaise of cornflower blue silk. A long sigh whisked out of me. It could be much worse- we could be living in a den in the forest- but the idea of living in a world full of danger and adventure, with no power to explore it, was already maddening. However, I would have to save my complaints for later. I had plenty to do before letting myself sulk.

  Though as I traipsed up the staircase, I remembered I would be here for the rest of my life- and no one had said I had to be pleasing and amiable. I was essentially a prisoner, and it would do no true harm to take a few days to roil in apathy. That’s what trapped maidens do, right? They sit in their finely gilded cages and complain that gold is not enough without the world to supplement it. I had thought the damsels in those stories unappreciative, for they had thrice as much in one drawer as I’d had in my whole life- but now, it seemed, I understood them. What good was gold without freedom?

  My mood darkened further when I reached the top floor. A spinning wheel sat next to a stool and a basket of fabrics, thread, and so on. Besides that, all that existed in the room was a wardrobe. One of the Lights came to hover next to me, emitting a faint song, as I approached the ashen wardrobe. Inside, to my dismay, there were only fine dresses.

  The gowns were immaculate, to be sure- a golden silk piece embroidered with patterns of stars and leaves, a silver stretch of flowery lace, a pale rosy pink dress detailed with light blue snowflakes painted across its skirt. But I had stopped wearing dresses years ago, and had never looked back. Cervis would have to deal with my patchy rags a bit longer.

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  I trotted downstairs, the Light struggling to keep up behind me, and took the bell he pointed out from a small end table and rang it. Its shrill, trembling music filled the tower and a cluster of Lights fluttered in front of me.

  “I need mens’ clothing,” I said. “Those frilly gowns will do me no good.”

  The Lights all swarmed around each other, babbling in faint high notes, as if uncertain what to do next. The one that had followed me upstairs now hovered lightly around my shoulder, seeming to avoid the horde ahead. I waited, arms crossed, for the Lights to point me to my new clothing, and they suddenly all darted to the staircases and moved in a wave pattern upward. I followed them back upstairs, and as I reached the top floor again they had all gathered around the spinning wheel and the basket. I groaned; tailoring had never been a talent of mine. Liddie was an expert, but I was hardly an amateur.

  I turned to the Lights again. “There are countless books here- surely one of them talks about sewing?”

  The Lights babbled as they had done downstairs and shot for the staircase once more. I turned to the one still hiding behind my shoulder.

  “Do you have a name or anything?”

  It went completely silent.

  “I’m going to accept that as a ‘no,’” I said. “Shall I name you?”

  It bobbed up and down as if nodding.

  “Hmm. I’ll have to think of a proper name for you. Till then, continue on with me. You may have that shoulder, if you’d like.”

  It flashed brighter and then followed me downstairs as the other Lights led me to the book I needed. I grabbed the bell before following them, and then we journeyed across more bridges, curving staircases, drifting walkways, and mystical rooms. There would be plenty here to keep me distracted from my loneliness, for a long time, anyway.

  The Lights led me to the room of floating books again and they swarmed around a particular tower, all bobbing up and down and chirping excitedly. I walked over to them and scanned the book titles, and then grinned.

  “Aha! Here we are.” I withdrew a particular book from the middle of the stack, and the top half floated off in one direction. “The Tailoring Guide for the Helpless. Precisely me!”

  I walked off to find my own way back to my tower, and ended up circling the palace and coming to stand on a balcony at the north end. I pursed my lips, looking out at the sky. “Well, this isn’t right.”

  The Light that stayed by my shoulder chirped, and I smiled over at it.

  “Guess I’ll have to try again! To the east- but I thought I was going east.”

  I started off once more, now skirting the outside edges, and came to a large room with an oval-shaped bed in the middle. It was piled high with blankets and pillows, and a shimmering silver canopy hung over it. Paintings lined the walls of this room, depicting pastel landscapes that moved- rippling lakes and whispering reeds, billowing clouds coursing past the heads of mountains, waves kissing the shore of a black-sand beach, and so on. More books floated around the walls, but these all had strange symbols and runes painted across their covers. A few were laid open on a desk, and the language seemed to swim before my eyes, making no sense at all. Paintings on the page displayed ghastly scenes- the dissection of a frog, a potion that erupted into flames when spilled, and worse. Then I noticed a leatherbound journal, sinew wound tightly around it, sitting next to the books and candles and odd reagents on the desk.

  I reached for the journal and untied the sinew; it fell willingly onto the desk. But who had written it? Stags cannot write.

  Before I could open it, however, a voice startled me into dropping it: “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”