Silverblind (Ironskin) Read Free

like—the curse of her beauty-obsessed fey mother. Blond ringlets, even, delicate features, rosebud lips. She could put the ringlets in a bun—which she had—and put on severe black spectacles—which she hadn’t; she couldn’t afford such nonsense—and still she would look like a porcelain doll. She had several times tried to tease the ringlets apart in hopes they would turn into a wild mop, which she always thought would suit her better. But no matter what she tried, she woke up every morning with her hair in careful, silken curls. Even now they were intent on escaping the bun, falling down to form softening ringlets around her face.
    “And I you,” said Dorie. Her normal voice was high and dulcet, but through long practice she had trained herself to speak an octave lower than she should.
    He steepled his fingers. “Let’s cut right to the chase, Miss Rochart—Adora. May I call you Adora? Such a lovely name.”
    “I go by Dorie or Ms. Rochart,” she said, still smiling.
    “Ah yes, the diminutive. I understand—after all, I don’t make my friends call me Dr . Pearce all the time.” He smiled at his joke. “Well, then, Dorie, let’s have at it. I understand this is your third interview today?”
    “Yes,” she said. The laced fingers weren’t working as well as she had hoped. She sat firmly on one hand and gripped the leg of her chair with the other. It would be terribly bad form to make that porcelain cup of tea with the gold rim levitate off the desk and dump itself down his front. “I understood that information to be private?”
    “Oh, there are so few of us in this business, you understand. We are all old friends, all interested in what the new crop of graduates is doing.” He smiled paternally at her. “And your name came up several times over lunch today.”
    “Yes?”
    “Again, Adora—Dorie—let’s cut to the chase. My colleagues were most amused to tell me of the pretty young girl who thought she could slay basilisks.”
    “I see,” said Dorie. “Thank you for your time, then.” She began to rise before her hands would do something that would betray her fey heritage and have her thrown in jail—or worse.
    “No no, you misunderstand,” he said, and he came to take her shoulders and gently guide her back to the chair. “My colleagues are living in the past. They didn’t understand what an opportunity they had in front of them. But I understand.”
    “Yes?” Her heartbeat quickened. Was he on her side after all? A rosy future opened up once more. The Queen’s Lab—a stepping-stone to really do some good. So much knowledge had been lost since the Great War two decades ago, since people started staying away from the forest. Simple things like what to do with feywort and goldmoths and yellowbonnet. She could continue her research into the wild, fey-touched plants and animals of the forest—species were disappearing at an alarming rate, and that couldn’t be good for the fey or humans. And then, the last several times she’d been home, she’d hardly been able to find the fey in the woods behind her home. When she did, they were only thin drifts of blue.
    But Dorie could help the humans. She could help the fey.
    She was the perfect person to be the synthesis—and this was the perfect spot to do it. The Queen’s Lab was the most prominent research facility in the city. If she could get in here, she could solve things from the inside.
    Surely even Jane would approve of that.
    Dr. Pearce smiled, one hand still on her shoulder. “If you’ve met any of the young men who do field work for us, you know they grew up dreaming of facing down mythical monsters.” He gestured expansively, illustrating the young boys’ fervent imaginations. “Squaring off against the legendary basilisk, armed with only a mirror! Luring a copperhead hydra out of its lair, seizing it by the tail before it can twist around to bite you with its seven heads! Sneaking past a pair of steam-blowing silvertail