Into the Wildewood by Gillian Summers Read Free Book Online

crew were getting custom boots. She tried to keep her jealousy from showing.
    Lady Annie looked up and smiled. “Keelie, nice to see you again. I cut your boots this morning. Told you I’d get busy. Are you here to pick up a costume?”
    “Yes, I’ve got a job.” Keelie hoped she sounded normal.
    “Oh, so the little Round Ear has come to work like the peasant she naturally is.” Elia’s voice carried over those of the elven girls, who shushed her, giggling.
    Keelie imagined the seamstress choking Elia with a roll of lace and smiled. “Who are you supposed to be? And working, too, I might add.” She would have added “Pointy Ear,” but she’d promised Dad that she wouldn’t give away the elven secret, no matter what the elf girls did. Besides, Elia would take it as a compliment.
    “I’m the Princess of this Faire.” Elia flounced her silk skirts. “And it’s scarcely work. More like pleasure.”
    Her little clones twittered like birdbrains.
    “I play Princess Eleanor of Angouleme, Prince John’s betrothed.” She picked at her full skirts and preened.
    Keelie was unimpressed. “What a boring job. You get to watch everyone else have fun. You don’t even get to ride a horse. I heard that Tarl the Muck and Mire man is playing Prince John. Isn’t that great?” She smiled inwardly, knowing exactly what vain and self-important Elia thought of Tarl.
    Elia stamped her foot and swung around, accidentally clipping her elbow across the seamstress’ jaw. The seamstress shouted “Ow!” and dropped her scissors, which landed sharp-end-down in the toe of an elven girl’s slippered foot.
    “You oaf, you’ve cut me!” the girl shrieked. She slipped out of her shoe, hitting one of the other elf girls in the chest with her flailing gestures. That really had to hurt, Keelie thought. The elf girl’s feet were narrow and white, and in dire need of a pedicure.
    Another of the snooty crew nearly swooned when she saw the scissors. “You’re going to lose your foot.”
    “Shut up, I am not!” the elf girl shouted back fearfully.
    “Quiet down, girls. You sound like fishwives.” Finch glared at them. She had a sad-looking fuzzy purple suit with glittery scales draped over her left arm, and a bottle of Febreze in her hamlike fist.
    With her free hand, she pulled the scissors out of the girl’s slipper and handed them to the red-cheeked seamstress. With every move, glitter from the costume’s scales rained on the floor.
    Elia’s shoes got a liberal dose of it, and she wiped her shoe on the ottoman as if the glitter were dog poop.
    “You need to fire her.” Elia parked her pale fists on her hips. “If she’s going around maiming people with scissors, then she shouldn’t be working in here. She’s a klutz, and I don’t want her near me. And while you’re at it, fire Keliel Heartwood. Wherever she goes she brings curses. See what just happened? It was her fault.”
    The other girls started murmuring to each other, looking like an angry mini-mob of elven fashion divas.
    Finch’s eyes flashed, and her lips pursed. “Princess, plug the cakehole!” Her last word echoed around the room.
    The elf girls were stunned into silence.
    Finch shoved the stinky dragon suit toward Keelie. “Here. Wear this, and wear lots of deodorant, because it’s going to be hot tomorrow. I’ve used an entire bottle of Febreze; that’s the best we can do.”
    The red-headed elven girl wrinkled her nose. “Eww, that’s the suit that nasty Vernerd wore last year.”
    One of the other elf girls backed away. “Verminous Vernerd was the squire who spread head lice around the jousters. He got demoted to dragon after that.”
    Keelie stared at the deflated dragon suit. Demoted ? Lice ?
    Elia plunked her hands on her hips again. “Then that suit could still be infected with lice.” She motioned with her hand. “Keep away from me, peasant girl.”
    Finch growled. “Lice don’t live more than forty eight hours without a host, and I