Fire and Bone (Otherborn #1)(22)
The house is like a museum. There are artifacts from various eras and cultures in large glass cases along the halls and filling whole rooms. There’s even a room that looks like it’s entirely populated with old stone sarcophagi. I wonder if people really live in this house or if it’s just a place where they keep a collection of old stuff, like the Getty Villa. But then we finally pass what could be a den and walk through a real kitchen where a uniformed woman is chopping vegetables.
Aelia ignores the woman and leads me upstairs and down a long hall to her room—a vast space, the walls covered in images of . . . uh, herself: photographs, paintings, even mosaics. I have to bite my lip to keep back a derisive laugh. I don’t like to jump to conclusions about people, but this girl might be a narcissist. There’s a single eight-by-ten-inch watercolor of a pug near the window, the one sign she hasn’t reached Code Blue levels of navel-gazing.
The only piece of furniture in the room is a huge bed that looks larger than a king-size. Several of the throw pillows have her likeness on them too: her profile, a close-up of her wide eyes, even one of her lying half-naked on a golden couch on the beach, with the waves behind her. Wow.
She takes me through to a bathroom that could be a Roman bathhouse and shoves me into a large shower stall without ceremony. I toss the towel she gave me over the frosted-glass door, turn on the water, and wash off the soot and ash. It’s hard to believe I don’t have a single burn on me.
Once I’m done, Aelia hands me a slinky robe and takes me to what she says is her closet, but it looks more like a tiny mall. She studies my silk-covered body for a second—she’s obviously annoyed when I won’t disrobe and let her gawk at my naked self, but I need to retain at least a shred of dignity—then dresses me in ridiculously expensive-looking clothes from her nine-hundred-square-foot closet as she comments on my thin figure being great for movie roles and how she knows a guy who hires for body work if I’m interested.
I consider telling her I’d rather just find a way to get regular healthy meals so I don’t feel like a stick figure. But when she looks in the mirror and complains about her large hips and “massive ass,” I decide there’s no winning this discussion. Of course, there’s nothing massive about her. And considering all the images of herself in her room, I have to wonder if she’s fishing for compliments more than actually believing her own propaganda—in fact, I suspect she’s secretly insulting me, the way she keeps mentioning how she can see my bones. I just busy myself pretending to be amazed at a pair of pink sunglasses that are inlaid with what I think are real diamonds.
Aelia barely pauses to take a breath as she finishes dressing me and then takes me to a mirror, painting my face with layers of gunk before draping me in garish accessories. The whole time we’re at the vanity she’s chattering at me about a million pointless pieces of information. My favorite is how some girl named Astrid from the House of Cernunnos—which is apparently not a band but the name of another god’s family—was dating Faelan until she was adopted by the demi leader of that other House. And from what I can tell, Aelia really doesn’t like the girl. She claims Astrid is so full of herself because the girl thinks she’s some amazing style queen and badass hunter, but really she’s just an underling poser. Then Aelia proceeds to describe every dress that this Astrid has ever worn to every event, down to the last thread. She also goes on and on about some guy the girl’s dating, named Duncan, who apparently has “very big-name people in the music industry” on his payroll, and Astrid has him wrapped around her finger even though she’s totally just using him for his yacht.
Whoever this Astrid girl is, Aelia is obviously jealous.
“I mean, she’s an alfar, for Danu’s sake, right?” she asks me, as if I know what she’s talking about. “Who wants to suck face with a girl that tastes like a kale cleanse? I don’t know how Faelan did it all those years. Blech.”
I start to wonder if I’ve really entered a world of gods and goddesses or a live broadcast of TMZ.
The whole process lasts several hours, and I’m a little shocked when I see her fuzzy pink clock reading 5:00 p.m.
“Maybe we should go check on Faelan,” I say as she hands me a purple bag that matches my shoes. “I’m worried he’s not—”
“He’s fine,” she snaps. “Gods. If you’re hoping for some kind of romantic thing with the guy, you’re gonna be super disappointed.”
I just blink at her, feeling like she slapped me. The last thing I need is for this gossip queen rich bitch to hate me. “Okay, well, thanks for the clothes and all,” I say, trying to sound cheery, but I’m likely coming off as shrill. “I should probably go back to my room and, uh, start to clean up the place or something. I made a bit of a mess.” I think. I have no idea what I did, or if I did anything.
I do know that Astrid from the House of Cernunnos—not a band—gets her pubes waxed at Urban Blue in West Hollywood, though. So there’s that.
“Don’t be silly,” Aelia says, back to her casual voice. “My father will be here for dinner in an hour, and I’m sure your cottage is already fixed. No doubt it was finished hours ago.”
Fixed? What? “Are you joking?”
“You are slow, aren’t you? You slept in a furnace of your own making this morning, for goddess’s sake, and you didn’t get singed. Doesn’t that open your mind a little to the impossible being possible?”