Dee coaxed Seneya to follow her through the bustling kitchen past Kavin and a few others, who gave her respectful glances.

“How come everyone is acting like that but you?” Seneya asked curiously as they averted gazes and bowed their heads.

“Because Kael and I are friends. I’ve known him since Sael was knee-high.” Dee laughed, but the unanswered question still lingered. “I’ve busted my ass to keep him grounded these past years, but he’s royalty, and we honor him. Then again, you Cerraien are damn near royalty too! I’ve seen that man piss drunk and lower than dirt so many times and picked him up that I have no patience for posturing.”

Seneya found herself whisked into the dimming light of the sky outside and ushered across a coarse-graveled parking lot, then into an old country store tucked back behind and out of direct sight. Finally, Seneya walked up two short stairs over a creaking old porch.

Wicker chairs sat around a mismatched table outside, and a pile of cigarette butts overflowed from a bucket atop. Dee sighed with exasperation as she dusted flaking sage green lead paint off the door frame.

Lights shone dimly around the windows from within, but nothing could be seen through papered panes but a dim glow.

Dee knocked twice. An old metal sign advertising pepsodent toothpaste swayed gently in the breeze.

“Friend or foe?” an effeminate male voice from within spat back. His accent curled in a rich patois of southern melded with years of diction.

“If you don’t open up this door, it’s going to be foe, Willen!”

“Damnit, Auntie Dee!” The door swung open to reveal a tall boy, a hand taller than Seneya with bright silver eyes and dyed blonde hair of such a platinum quality that it could only have been cultivated. It did not match his rich brown brows or the fragile tilt of his face. His exasperation turned into weariness as he stared at Seneya.

“My lady?” He finally said with hesitation, catching Dee’s nod as he ushered them in.

“Where’s the gals? She needs a whole ass cleanup.” Dee guided Seneya far enough for the door to be shut and locked it behind her. The inside contrasted entirely from the outside. Rich white walls surrounded them with pearlescent molding. Framed paintings accented the walls with hues of silver brushed over the filagree of them. Long mirrors spaced the walls, and several gilded salon chairs sat around the room, one of which backed up to a sculpted white sink meant for washing hair in. Seneya was dirty and self-conscious as her cheeks tinged pink.

Willen glanced her up and down. Seneya realized that she was a myriad of contradictions, as the reactions were always a little skeptical or stunned. Finally, he bowed in a short motion and excused himself through the back door and through two others, quietly whispering sharp warning words.

Two nervous-looking women with over-styled hair peeked their way from in back. A small robin flitted through the open door and came to rest on the back of a barber’s chair near Seneya, and she stepped aside to avoid it. Some sort of tit joined it, canting its head. Seneya wasn’t a bird expert, but it was preciously small and chirped in a way that made her ears ring.

“Don’t mind our wards. They get curious around lords and ladies.”

“Wards?” Seneya stared at the birds nervously.

“Our birds….” Dee didn’t know if she quite understood how little Seneya knew.

“Oh. I wasn’t aware of what you called them.” A colorful little bluebird joined them, sitting on the chair to stare at her. It pecked at the tit and then was chased off by the robin.

Dee cautiously asked a question in a whisper. “You’re not Cerraien, are you?” She hesitated.

“I’m a half breed,” Seneya responded, hoping that answered her question. Dee seemed satisfied, and the two women exchanged nervous glances and short bows.

“We have a healing bath back there we keep running for certain things.” Dee patted Seneya’s shoulder, and they walked into the back rooms. Seneya found herself in a room gilded in soft blues with a step-in bath in the center, large enough to be a small pool. A folded set of towels sat on a table, and a basket full of very expensive-looking shampoos sat aside the tub with an elegant bamboo bath ladle.

“I don’t know if I need all this,” Seneya said hesitantly, waiting for them to tell her what to do and leave.

“Oh no, you don’t. I won’t have the female version of Kael running about this town. We’re going to scrub you down like a lady deserves,” Dee said as she ushered Seneya over to a small screen in the corner of the room to undress. Seneya didn’t know what to do but follow orders and took off her shoes, socks, shirt, and pants before folding them neatly in a pile. She stepped free of the screen, feeling a little silly as she placed the clothes neatly on a stand.

“All of it off, dear, and into the tub,” Dee said, puffing up with pride.

“This is Kiri,” Dee said, pointing to a sharp-faced girl with artificially red hair, cream-colored pressed linen pants, and a matching gathered brown top. “And that’s Lyn.” A short, dark-haired girl with severe eye makeup and golden eyes bowed her head towards Seneya. She had the same feeling as the tit bird, in the same strange way that Willen had felt like the bluebird.

Dee drew her eyes from the neatly folded clothes to the thin thing before her, the dark-rimmed sleepy green eyes and the long golden-red hair. Seneya wondered if she knew something Kael didn’t. In any case, Seneya glanced between the two women and reached a hand to her chest to tug at her bindings curiously. Seneya watched them bow their heads down in respect, turning away from her, and she fiddled with the ties until the top fell free of her in a few ravels. She wound it around her hand and placed it with her clothes, then did the same with her undergarment and all its parts.

She covered herself with her hands as best she could and slipped into the water.

Warm steam raised up to tickle her senses. A salty, herbal smell swam around her, and Seneya sank down to a lip inside the tub to curl into herself for cover.

“I’m going to pin your hair up, now,” Lyn said as she pulled Seneya’s braid to the side and froze with a strangled gasp. The braid fell back against her.

“Feather’s sake,” Kiri breathed, and Dee froze in her spot, eyes wide.

“This would be why Kael told us Creator’s oath silence….”

“You aren’t cerraien, girl.” Dee fanned at herself a little.

“I don’t actually know what Cerraien is.” Seneya bit her lip hesitantly.

“You’re Seraph!” Dee’s voice squeaked. Lyn and Kiri muttered back and forth, pulling themselves to the other side of the room.

“The tail?” Seneya had this urge to let hers out but refrained.

“Yes, the tail! I don’t even know what the rest of your markings are, though. I’d have never spoken to you the way I did if I knew. I am so sorry.” Dee bowed her head.

“For what? You’ve been nothing but kind.” Seneya tilted her head, brows furrowed. “If I upset you, I can go get dressed and just leave. I didn’t mean to upset anyone.”

“No!” Dee said, sputtering as she gestured for the other women.

“Seraphs are very special, and we have to treat them differently,” Kiri muttered, keeping her eyes averted as she moved to the edge of the tub.

“Seraphim ladies can call our birds. All seraphim can take our magic.” Dee said quietly.

“I didn’t mean to call your birds, and I don’t know how to take your magic.” Seneya stood and moved to step free of the water.

“Please, move back, sit. I apologize. It’s just shocking. There’s only a few Seraphim at a time and many thousands of Cerraien. We don’t see many of your kind at all, and most of us never see a single Seraph our entire lives, maybe one or two Cerraien.” Dee patted her shoulder comfortingly.

Seneya hesitantly moved to sit and tucked her chin down.

“If it’s all the same, I should probably just go back to Kael.”

“If that is what you wish, my Lady, then we shall not stop you,” Dee said miserably.

“I don’t know much or anything about all this stuff. I barely know what I am, and I don’t like being treated like a monster….” Seneya’s ikris twitched and a desire to run back to Kael’s cabin rose up within her. She stifled down her aura of confusion to the point that it hurt in her chest.

Dee braced herself for something and stood before shuffling to the edge where Seneya had tucked herself. She reached her arms out and tugged on Seneya, an insistent pull that she let guide her to a near float back in her seat.

“Nobody thinks you’re a monster. It’s just so easy to forget you’re a child. I told Kael that I’d get you cleaned up, and I intend to do that.” Dee petted over Seneya’s hair and shushed her quietly, much to the horror of the two women. “Now, I’m going to call the shots that you aren’t calling, and you have to answer my questions. Got it?”

Seneya nodded as Dee gestured her over. “Kiri, get over here and wash her damned hair.”

Dee knelt, splashed water soaking into her pair of faded grease-stained denim from working in the kitchen. She moved to sit and rolled her hems up to just above her knees. With a few short jerks, Dee had her shoes and socks off and tossed to the side. She scooted to the edge of the tub and plunged her feet in next to Seneya.

Seneya glanced over nervously and a presence sidled in behind her, reaching timid hands out to unbraid her hair. Kiri inspected her ends, pulled at her locks, and quietly went about her work. Lyn moved with quiet dignity as she brought the basket and bath ladle.

“Nothing scented on her.” Dee insisted, and Lyn gave her a skeptical look.

“I don’t mind,” Seneya spoke quietly.

“Pft! You will too! Here!” Dee reached over to the basket and pulled out a lilac-scented shampoo, flipping the lid to let Seneya have a smell. She pulled away and covered her nose.

“No, not that, thanks.” Seneya choked as Dee grabbed a hand towel to waft some fresh air to her.

“If you really were gelded. Everything’s going to smell and sound a lot stronger, I guess.” Dee gave her an encouraging smile as Kiri began to pour water over her head. It pelted off of Seneya’s hair in beading rivulets, much to her surprise.

“Just start with the shampoo Kiri, she’s probably got their oil in her hair.” Seneya nodded as Dee reached over to her hands and began to unlace the bands at her wrists. She plucked them off and set them aside carefully. Seneya’s glands glistened pink, as they should.

“Hmm.” Dee reached for one of the bands, gave it a sniff, and then held it out to Lyn and Kiri, who balked at Dee with hesitant horror.

“Vaguely floral, huh?” Dee said before putting the band to the side. Seneya’s cheeks went pink again.

Cold gel on warm hands met her head as Kiri scrubbed into her hair, working the ault free of it with scratching strokes.

“So, how long has Kael been hiding you from us?” Dee asked as the froth of the shampoo died down and turned a ruddy color in the water. Kiri added some more and went back to work.

“Two months.” Seneya shrugged. “Some of your kind brought me here. I was trying to get to him… I… just knew I had to be here.” Seneya didn’t want to talk about Sohken. The creature upset her at times, though she rarely heard but his voice.

“And your ikris, what tribes are you?”

“Phoenix, not sure the other half, supposedly.” Seneya shrugged.

Knowing expressions passed between the women. Their reverence didn’t change, so something about Seneya must have been obvious.

“And Kael’s been treating you ok, right?” Dee prodded carefully, and every question made Seneya a little more self-conscious. This last one made Seneya’s eyes brighten.

“Oh yeah!”

Dee watched carefully for something in her expression, a distant hint of anything.

“Kael doesn’t care about many people, and he’s ecstatic over you. I just have to worry because you’re so young, and he’s… well… he’s Kael.”

“Kael had a bondmate, so he’s no risk to me, right?” Seneya fidgeted.

Lyn had to stifle a snort of laughter as her face went crimson red. Finally, she stood and ran from the room. Kiri stopped scrubbing.

“That is certainly not what I meant, no, but… Kael is rough. He plays hard, doesn’t know his own strength and to a young woman….” Dee cleared her throat.

“What was so funny?” The scrubbing resumed at her head.

“The thought of Kael… Well, he’s Kael. He’s uhh… Kael…” Dee snickered.

“Do I have to order you to just say it?” Seneya twisted her lips a bit and knew that Dee stopped herself from saying something dirty.

“Kael was so in love with his bondmate that he’ll never move on. Also, he’s absolutely clueless when it comes to women. The things that man does not know could fill an entire book.” Then, it was Dee’s turn to go red-faced.

“Ah, yeah, no. As for rough, yes. I think he has to be for what I am. Has he thrown me off the roof a few times? Yes. That’s how I learned to fly. Has he harassed me to get my teeth filed down, so he doesn’t have to prepare food? Yes, but that’s how I’ve gotten by.” Seneya went on for a few more seconds, speaking of her training in combat, fires, and flight. Each moment that passed had Dee looking more and more unimpressed with Kael as a person.

“But he’s not been mean, right?” Dee cleared her throat a bit as Kiri tried to rinse her hair once more. Seneya sputtered a bit of water out of her mouth and watched with shame as the tub clouded.

“No. I’d leave if he was, I think,” she said, sure of it. Lyn returned apologetically, and Seneya didn’t bother to look at her and increase the chance of her being upset.

“That’s good, at least. And Kael lets you out when you want?” Dee had that tone that social workers adopted to make sure kids weren’t abused, and Seneya latched onto that mindset.

“I didn’t want to come out today, but he says I need to. Kael gives me whatever I need, consistently.” Seneya worked on making her tone seem a little firmer. A fine line existed between being firm and defensive, and Seneya could navigate that line.

“You sure? You look really thin,” Dee reached to take one of Seneya’s arms and held her hand. Her locks of hair spilled about her shoulders and over her freckled skin. Over Seneya’s shoulder lay a dark pattern of sparse freckles interrupted by a white scar stretched tight over her flesh, a little smaller than a credit card.

“This wasn’t done in the past two months; I can tell you. We can’t eat like you.” Seneya pulled her hand away gently and tucked it back to her chest.

“And what caused that?” Dee asked curiously because they weren’t easy to scar.

“Nothing in the last few months,” Seneya answered. Of course, if Kael didn’t want her asking, then Seneya shouldn’t answer.

Another douse of water, then another made it over her head in a slow drizzle. The shampoo took away layers of oil and dirt she hadn’t realized clung to her. Kiri wrung her hair out and started working on some conditioner, spreading it down and over her hair with gentle massaging circles from root to ends. Kiri seemed to be at home with hair, working over it.

She doused Seneya once more, letting her hair fall flat and limp over her body. She wished she could just have a bar of soap and a rag to finish everything else off. Unfortunately, there was only so much that her periodic creek baths could do for her, and shame crept over her cheeks.

Kiri twisted her hair in a final motion and wound it into a tight knot atop her head. The slender lines of her neck led to the expanse of her back, marked by her ikris in two spread wings.

“I’ve never seen them spread before. The other tribes only have tucked ikris,” Dee said.

Kiri, Lyn, and Dee stared with unease as they glanced back and forth to one another.

“I said I was a half breed.” Seneya fidgeted. “I don’t know anything else.”

“I guess.” Dee hesitated as the women glanced nervously at one another.

“I don’t have anything else to tell you. I’m as clueless as you.” Seneya put that ‘final’ tone in her voice once more and sighed with relief when they quieted.

Seneya drew up with a coaxing hand to stand as Lyn and Kiri brought soft cloths and soap to her body. Seneya tucked her hands across her chest and lower.

“This is how a lady is to be treated, dear,” Dee said as she stirred her feet in the water. Kiri and Lyn stayed quiet as they worked to scrub over her legs, waist, arms, being careful not to touch any of her ikris. Seneya noticed as she stood that the warmth and scent of the tub still lingered on her lightly. Soothing sensations roved over her skin, and the soreness she held from all of her training had ebbed.

A memory came to Seneya, darkness across her vision. A soft cloth traveled her body; a single light in the darkness flickered in a blurry halo highlighting the edges of only a few shapes nearest to it. Seneya turned her eyes to stare at her hands, the floor, everything cast in the dark.

“My lady needs to be dressed for this evening when your suitors come,” a sweet voice said, and Seneya became aware of her wings and tail being free. She didn’t recall them being out but flexed them up and out with open arms and vulnerable bareness. She had no shame then—no sense of impropriety.

Handmaidens. That’s what they were. Seneya knew this without seeing them, and they brought a cloth to dry her skin. The more coarse feel of the fabric traversed her body as a stiff comb began to play notes over its teeth through the tangles of her locks trailing the ground behind her.

My hair… Seneya reached behind her to feel the damp strands of them and wound thick coils of it up and over her arm, trying to determine the length of that which she couldn’t see.

They took her wrists in gentle tugs that seemed like gossamer over her skin, daubing a damp cloth over the oils of her wrist before spreading it over her body once more, a balm of her own scented Ault. She smelled different, not the spice and roses that she could smell on herself but a rich scent of something best described as ambrosia, honey, dried fruits, and rich balsam.

“My lady!” A new voice cried to her, and despite the darkness, the blindness, Seneya turned her head to the sound. “Your suitor has arrived. Please, cover yourself, my lady, so that I might show him in.”

“No need to show him in,” Seneya said, her voice a hollow husky thing, calm and impassive as a scent rich with bitterness, like cocoa. Nutty, and laced with an astringent note of citrus. “He’s already here.”

“My lady! Please! Cover yourself!” The girl at her side pleaded, and Seneya’s hand reached out to the top of her head. Humans were so short and fragile. She stroked her servant’s head.

“Am I not pleasant to look at lest I cover myself?” Foreign words from Seneya’s lips.

A male voice rang out in rich tones. “No. You are the mo—”