The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 113: My One True Wish

"Me?" Lodia's voice came out as a squeak.

If you didn't know her, you'd have thought that she'd just been informed that, yes, indeed, she really was being summoned for her execution this time.

Anthea really wasn't that scary. At all scary.

The servant inclined his head. "Yes, Miss Koh. If you would follow me, please?"

"But I don't.... I can't...."

Her father gave her a pat on the arm that did nothing to fix her horrified rictus. "Thou wilt do just fine."

"Ssshe sssaid ssshe likes your embroidery, right?" Bobo reminded her. "I'll bet ssshe wants to compliment you!"

If anything, Lodia's expression grew even more petrified, so much so that Dusty pulled his nose out of his bowl to advise, "Just don't slobber on her hair and you'll be fine."

As he dove back into his green mango salad, Floridiana shoved at his withers. "You do realize she's not a horse, right? Humans don't slobber."

Dusty braced his hooves, ignored her, and kept grazing.

"Well," said Rohanus, a humorous smile was playing on his lips, as if he were recalling a fond memory. "Not after they grow up, anyway."

Naturally, none of this was doing a single gods-cursed thing to calm down the girl, and at this rate, she was going to botch her job interview with Anthea and ruin all my plans for her. Although I'd planned to perch here next to Bobo and congratulate myself on the firefly performances, the world never gave me time for myself. Sigh.

But duty (to my own karma total) called.

I fluttered up to Lodia's shoulder, careful not to snag the fabric of her best gown. (After all, I was capable of controlling where my claws went, when I felt like it.) Don't worry. I'll be right here with you.

"Oh, but you.... And she.... Does she know...?" Lodia darted a glance at the servant, anxious about letting slip what I really was.

After that eavesdropping session with the sparrow and butterfly spirits, I could have assured her that whatever the Lychee Grove Earth Court higher-ups knew, their servants did. And indeed, the servant carefully blanked his face.

She knows. Don't worry. Let's not keep her waiting.

Somehow, Lodia managed to get out of her chair without knocking it over, stumble to the head table without tripping over her own slippers, and execute a reasonably steady bow before Anthea. I didn't even have to flap my wings that many times to stay balanced on her shoulder.

"Little Lodia! Look at thee! All grown up! The last time I saw thee, thou wert this big!" Anthea repeated the gesture she'd made earlier, holding her hands about a foot apart to indicate Lodia's size.

The girl, at least, seemed confident that the distance referred to the head-to-toe length of a human infant rather than the width of an adult human torso. In such a faint voice that it nearly vanished into the evening breeze, she murmured, "Thank you for remembering me, my lady."

Speak up. She doesn't bite, I whispered at the same time that Anthea brayed, "Speak up! I don't bite!"

Most of the time, I added into Lodia's ear, just for accuracy's sake.

Accuracy, in this case, didn't comfort her.

"Our mutual friend delivered a sample of thy work to me! A most exquisite mirror cover!" Anthea inspected Lodia from the dangling bits on her silver headdress to the toes of her embroidered slippers. "As it so happens, my Junior Wardrobe Mistress died of a fever last moon – 'tis unfortunate, humans get sick so easily, you all need better constitutions! – and my Head Wardrobe Mistress is in dire need of an assistant." She assessed Lodia's outfit once more. "Yep, thou'lt do. Yep." And she heaved such a smug sigh that you'd think she'd just singlehandedly retaken the Wilds.