Page 46 of My Faire Lady

“I thought you didn’t believe in those kinds of things.” She bends over and scoops the chainmail from the floor, setting it in a heap on the table.

“That was before something tried to kill me.”

She scoffs and steps closer, scooping up the measuring tape that flew from my pocket. “Are you sure you weren’t just trying to get closer to me?”

My stomach clenches. She smirks, pressing the measuring tape into my hand.

I wrap my fingers around it and scoff. “That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“Sure, it wasn’t.” Her eyes sparkle, and she turns away from me, heading toward the tri-fold mirror in the back corner of the room.

I spare a glance over my shoulder, into the main shoppe, and lock eyes with Kelsey at the register. She lifts a brow, and I shake my head. She, at least, would agree with the ghost theory, but the last thing I need her doing is antagonizing a spirit.

“Let’s get this over with,” Scarlet says. “I have some ghosts to speak with after we’re done.”

Grinding my teeth, I cross the room and unravel the tape, meeting her reflection in the mirror. “You don’t have to make fun of me.”

Her eyes soften. “If there were anything within this faire that would actually hurt you, Lottie, I would take care of it. I promise.”

My heart flips over itself, careening against the back of my ribs. Shifting out of her line of sight, I hide the blush rushing into my face and wrap the tape around her waist.

I jot down the number and move on to her bust and hips, avoiding her eyes in the mirror. “Thank you for catching me.”

“It wasn’t the first time, and I have a feeling it won’t be the last.”

Her tone coaxes a smile from me, and I circle to her front, stepping on the end of the tape as I lift the other end to the crown of her head. “What were you going to say? Before we fell?”

I write down the final measurement and tuck it into a drawer beside the sewing machine, tallying the hours I’ll spend hunched over the needle. The portfolio and frontrunner piece are due in two week, so I’ll have to spend every free minute working on it.

Scarlet steps from the mirror and presses her fingers against the sharp tips of the Valkyrie wings on her helmet. A silence fills the cramped space, and I turn away, thinking she won’t respond. Perhaps it’s best if the words go unsaid; if I never know.

“I need your help with something else,” she says—quiet, as if she’s unsure.

I face her. She chews on the inside of her cheek as she digs into her back pocket and produces a folded piece of paper.

She spreads it out on the table and flattens out the edges. “I found an old scroll in one of the buildings, but it’s written in a code that I can’t translate. I thought maybe you could take a look at it.”

“Me?” I furrow my brow. “Why?”

There’s a pause to her words, then, “Just a hunch.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and something in the set of her lips promises she won’t.

I sidle up beside her, and our arms brush as I study the paper. “Is this the original?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to risk losing it, so I made a copy.”

The symbols printed on the paper are blurry—fuzzy at the edges, yet clear enough for me to make out the blackbird at the top of the page. “Isn’t that the same as the necklace you wear?”

Pinching the charm between her fingers, she nods. “Now you see why I want to translate it. I think it might be from my mother. Or grandmother.”

“But why would it be in code?”

A swallow, as if she’s battling how much to tell me. “I have no idea.”

I study her face—the way she bites down on the inside of her cheek. It’s not my place to overstep.

I drag my fingers over the dozens of symbols sprinkled over the page. None of them repeat, and there’s no obvious patterns.