“Oh,” Dora said. “That is very kind of you, my lord. Thank you.” She tugged the dress back over her head. It took more than a bit of effort to make it lay correctly without a maid’s help—but within a few moments, she was at least presentable again.
“I played a part in wrecking the dress in the first place,” Elias said, with a hint of annoyance.
“In a way, I think that you were fated to wreck the dress,” Dora told him helpfully. “Perhaps we should both blame the mirror instead.”
Elias scowled. “This is why I hate divination,” he muttered. His eyes flickered towards the leather sheath that still dangled over Dora’s chest, with the two finger loops of her embroidery scissors sticking out of it. “Your... scissors are still visible,” Elias murmured at her. He sounded half-perplexed by the idea, as though he were trying to decide whether scissors ought to be considered scandalous or not.
“Oh.” Dora glanced down and tucked the scissors down the front of her stays once more. For some reason, this seemed to relax the magician. He stowed his wand and gestured towards the bench.
“Sit,” Elias told her. “I need to have a proper look at you, now that I know what afflicts you.”
Dora sat down on the bench obediently, giving him a curious look. “Do you know what afflicts me?” she asked. “I wonder.”
Elias came around the bench to stand in front of her. His golden eyes studied her in a penetrating manner, as though he were examining beneath the surface of her skin. Dora closed her arms over her chest, distantly uncomfortable beneath his gaze in a way that she had not been before, even while dressed in her underthings.
“Your cousin tells me that you are faerie-cursed,” Elias said finally. “I will admit, I avoid the Fair Folk as much as possible, and I have never seen someone who was faerie-cursed before. Still... I should have seen that there was something off about you.”
Dora frowned. Vanessa’s interest in the Lord Sorcier suddenly made an awful amount of sense. The moment I was gone from the room, she must have cornered him and spilled everything, Dora thought. “Vanessa should not have told you that,” she said. “Our whole family might be ruined if it were to get out.”
“I have no interest in ruining your family,” Elias replied absently. He continued to study Dora with a focussed consideration. “I have much interest in investigating the strange and unnatural.”
The words strange and unnatural added themselves to the small pile of miseries at the back of Dora’s mind. But she forced herself to straighten and put down her arms. “Will you swear it then?” she asked him. “You’ll swear not to tell anyone else what’s happened to me?”
“Oaths are dangerous to a magician, and I do not make them lightly,” Elias told her. “So I will not swear to that. But I will swear that I currently have no intention of bringing you harm. That shall have to suffice.” His gaze came to rest on her face, and his lips turned down into a frown. “Your eyes were not always different colours, I assume? The grey one drained of colour after the elf got hold of you?”
Dora looked away. “Yes,” she said. “That’s correct.”
“I have had reason to study the spiritual humours lately,” Elias told her. “I wonder if the elf might have drained you of one of them.” He reached up to rub at his chin. “Would it be fair to say that your emotions and cognitive abilities are out of balance, Miss Ettings?”
Dora nodded slowly. She was still uncomfortable with the idea of trusting the Lord Sorcier with such a terrible secret—but now that Vanessa had revealed her situation, the only reasonable thing left to do was probably to humour him. “I do not feel things the way that others do,” Dora said. “There is little difference between my dreams and my reality. I can sometimes exert myself to act more normal, but it is difficult, and I do not think I ever get it quite right.”
Elias nodded thoughtfully. “I have not seen you scared or angry even once,” he said. “You didn’t so much as flinch when I came up behind you in the magic shop.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “But you know when you ought to be scared or angry, don’t you? You responded tartly when I called you a dog. There must be some shred of real emotion left to you, even if it is deeply buried.”
Dora considered that logically. “...there is, I think,” she said, with faint surprise. “I have often thought that I am capable of... of emotions with a long tail. I am not sure if that makes sense. I do not feel the shock of fear, but I can feel dread—I was scared of the image in the mirror, after thinking on it for a while. And while you do not enrage me, per se, I am vexed when I think of the way that you treat others.”
Elias smiled sharply at that. “Alas,” he said. “Such long-tailed vexation will not drive you away—so it is rather useless to me.” He stepped back from her again. “Have you felt happiness at all, Miss Ettings? Even the sort with a long tail?”
Dora settled her chin into her hand. “I don’t know what happiness ought to feel like anymore,” she said. “It is the most elusive feeling of all, I think. But... I feel at peace when I am near Vanessa. She is like a warm lantern to me. I think it must be because she loves me so obviously. When I am around her, I do not need to pretend to be something I am not.”
Elias tapped at his cheek thoughtfully. “How intriguing,” he murmured. “Well! This shall require more investigation than I can manage in a single night. I shall have to arrange
