Chapter 128: The Help

I’ll be honest, I’d assumed "palace attendant" was an honorary title.

Up until now, the only duty I’d ever performed was following Serena into the confessional for "prayer." So when I reported to the palace the next morning, I was expecting tea. Maybe some cake. Maybe a nice chair.

Instead, Dame Brask met me at the servants’ entrance and dropped a crate of fabric samples into my arms.

"You’re late," she said.

"What? It’s seven in the morning!"

"Lady Frostfall’s other attendants arrive at six." She looked me up and down, from my ears to my tail, and her mouth puckered. "I asked for a proper lady’s maid. Somehow, I was given a fox."

"I-I’m a very good fox!"

"Second floor, east wing. Do not drop anything. Do not shed on the silk."

I quickly found out "palace attendant" meant carrying things.

For the next two hours, I carried fabric samples up the stairs. I carried a tea service down the stairs. I carried a rolled-up carpet that Dame Brask decided was the wrong shade of cream, then I carried it back. Every time I passed her, she corrected my posture, my walk, or the angle of my fucking ears.

[I saved the Queen’s life! I killed an assassin with a cake knife! Why am I hauling carpets!?]

By the third trip, I had my answer. Nobody here knew any of that. As far as Dame Brask was concerned, I was a servant who had been hired by mistake.

Finally, she marched me into the fitting room.

Serena was standing on a low platform in front of a tall mirror, wearing a half-finished white gown covered in pins. There were dark circles under her eyes.

Then she spotted me in the mirror, and her eyes narrowed.

"You. Fox."

"Yes, my lady!"

"These shoes pinch." She kicked one silver slipper off the platform. It bounced off my knee. "Bring me another pair."

I stared at her. Serena stared back at me in the mirror. The corner of her mouth twitched upward, just a little.

[Wait a second...]

Serena had just figured out that she could order me around in front of everyone, and she was enjoying it.

I nearly cried with relief. This was the real Serena, the one who called me "mutt" and kicked me under tables. In other words, she was still in there.

"Right away, my lady!"

I sprinted down to the wardrobe and came back with a pair of white heels. Serena took one look at them.

"Too tall. Do you want me towering over the prince at the altar?"

"No, my lady!"

I ran back down and returned with flat satin shoes.

"Too plain. Are you trying to embarrass me in front of the entire court?"

"Never, my lady!"

By the time I came back with the third pair, I was out of breath with my tail puffed up to twice its size. Serena slipped them on. She turned her ankle back and forth in the mirror, then lifted her chin.

"Acceptable," she said. "Barely."

"Shall I fetch you a fourth pair, my lady!?" I asked happily.

"Don’t push your luck."

The door swung open.

"There she is! My favorite little fox!"

Hex strode in wearing her uniform, with her bandaged arm in a sling. She walked straight past Dame Brask and stopped right in front of me, close enough that I could smell her perfume.

"I’ve been hearing all about you," Hex purred. She ran her fingertips slowly down my arm, from my shoulder to my wrist. "Running up and down the stairs all morning for my little sister. How sweet. If she ever gets tired of you, you know where my room is."

"H-Hex!? Not in front of..."

Up on the platform, Serena’s nose twitched.

Then it twitched again. She turned her head toward us. Her eyes went from Hex’s hand on my arm, up to my face.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

Serena was secretly half-wolf, with a nose far better than any human’s. In other words, she could smell her sister all over me.

[She knows!!! She definitely knows!]

Serena didn’t say a word. She only watched me in the mirror, with her lips pressed into a thin line.

Hex didn’t notice a thing. She let go of my arm and turned to Dame Brask.

"Oh, I nearly forgot why I came! The Church has sent over the new chaplain who’ll officiate the sealing. He arrived this morning, and he’d like to meet the bride before the Winter Ball."

The Church of Lux. That was the same Church that had sent Pryce to stab the Queen.

[Oh?]

I raised an eyebrow.

---

As soon as Hex left, Serena clapped her hands once.

"Everyone out. I need a moment alone with my attendant."

Dame Brask paused in the doorway. She pointed one bony finger at the gown.

"That silk came from across the sea, my lady. It took four months to weave. If I find a single stain on it, I will have someone’s head." Her eyes slid to me. "I imagine we both know whose."

The door clicked shut.

I didn’t waste a second. I marched right up to the platform.

"Serena, about the engagement! We need to talk about this! If you don’t want to marry Aldric, there has to be some kind of loophole, or..."

Serena grabbed me by the collar and yanked me down onto my knees in front of her.

"You talk too much."

"I’m serious! This is your whole life we’re talking ab... mmph!?"

She’d hiked up the front of the gown with one hand. Then she shoved her cock straight into my mouth.

"Who told you to use your mouth that way!?" she hissed. "It belongs around my cock!!!"

I tried to answer. That was a mistake. She grabbed both of my ears and pushed deeper, until I was choking on her.

Then something stabbed me in the cheek.

"Mmmph!"

It was a pin. The whole skirt was covered in them. Every time I moved my head, another one jabbed me in the face, the neck, or the ear.

"Stop squirming," Serena growled. "You’ll tear the hem."

I braced my hands on her hips. That was another mistake, because her hips were covered in pins too. I yelped around her cock. Serena only gripped my ears tighter, rolling her hips faster.

Then I remembered Dame Brask.

A single stain.

My eyes went wide. I looked up at Serena, at the four months of foreign silk bunched in her fist, at the very obvious problem that was about to happen in my mouth.

[If she gets one drop on that dress, I’m dead! Brask will execute me in the courtyard!]

I sealed my lips around her as tight as I possibly could.

Serena’s breath hitched. Her thighs started to shake. With one last hard thrust, she came down my throat. I swallowed every single drop.

She let go of my ears. I fell back onto the carpet, gasping.

"You..." Serena was flushed all the way to her collarbones. "You will never bring that up again. Understood?"

"Y-yes, my lady..."

Then she looked down at her gown, and all the color drained out of her face.

The white silk was covered in orange fur.

There were strands on the hem. There were tufts in the pinned lace. There was a whole fluffy clump stuck to the front of the skirt, right where my face had been.

"Kohaku."

"I can fix it! I can fix it!"

We got down on our hands and knees and started picking it off, one strand at a time.

It was slow. Each hair had to come out from between the threads without pulling the weave. Serena worked in tense silence, plucking hairs and flicking them onto the carpet. I worked beside her, sweating.

After ten minutes, she’d cleared the front of the skirt. Then she looked up. Three new hairs drifted down from my tail and landed right in the middle of the clean patch.

"Stop shedding."

"I’m trying!"

"Then try harder!"

I was nervous, so I kept shedding. Apparently, this was a thing? I had no idea. Serena kept picking. By the time we’d cleared the bodice, her eye was twitching.

Then footsteps came down the hall outside.

They were slow and soft. Through the gap under the door, I saw the hem of a long white robe pass by. A deep, calm voice was murmuring a prayer.

Serena sat up straight on her knees.

She’d stopped picking fur. Her hand had moved to the center of her chest, and her face had gone pale.

"Serena?"

"I feel..." She frowned. "Odd. Cold. Like I’m going to be sick."

The footsteps faded down the corridor.

I stared at her hand on her chest. That was where Dawnlight had gone when it bonded to her.

Then I remembered.

When I was fifteen, I’d given Dawnlight a special ability. Its bearer could sense evil. It was supposed to let Lily dramatically shout "That man is wicked!" whenever the plot needed it. It was the most cliché thing I’d ever written.

Lily didn’t have Dawnlight anymore. Serena did.

In other words, the man who was going to officiate Serena’s wedding had just set off the sword’s evil detector.