Devourer of Men: A Captain Hook, Crocodile, and Wendy Darling Reimagining by Nikki St. Crowe

Author:Nikki St. Crowe [Crowe, Nikki St.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackwell House LLC
Published: 2024-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HOOK

After dozing the afternoon, I’m roused from bed by a mustached servant knocking on my door. He’s dressed in court livery and informs me I’m to report to the court tailor. When I come out into the hallway, Roc is nowhere to be found and when I ask the servant when he will join us, he says the Crocodile’s appointment isn’t until much later.

I try not to let this disappoint me, but somehow it does.

The servant takes me down a series of hallways, then down the main staircase where it spills out to the mezzanine. From there, we cross into the opposite wing of the castle and finally he deposits me at the arched door of the tailor.

With a bow, and a farewell, the servant is gone.

The door is slightly ajar so I give it a push and peer inside. “Hello?”

There are several wooden dress forms in the receiving room, all holding up dresses in silk and chiffon.

“Hello?” I call again and a man appears in a second doorway at the back of the room. He’s wearing a gold brocade vest over a white shirt with lace trimmed around the sleeve cuffs. There is a pinched appearance to his face, as if his god made him, then pressed his cheeks together.

“I heard you the first time!” he says.

“Apologies.” I give him a bow. “I wasn’t sure if anyone was here.”

The man comes over, his gaze immediately assessing my body.

“Hmm.” His eyes narrow and he brings one hand to his chin as if in deep thought. His fingernails are cut short, his fingertips callused, likely from hours and hours of sewing by hand.

“Narrow shoulders. Broad chest.” He clucks his tongue. “You’re not well-proportioned.”

“And who decides?”

He tilts his head, gazing up at me. “Well then.” A tape measure appears in his hand and he unravels it with a snap. “Arms up.”

I do as he instructs and he measures my chest.

“I’m not a magician, you’ll know. I can’t pull a suit out of thin air, so I have to source something from the royal closet. Proportions mean everything in a fitting, do they not?”

“Well, I’m not sure⁠—”

“They do!” He measures my waist next, then my hips. “What’s your inseam?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Hmm,” he says again and then steps back. “I’d consider you a deep winter.”

“A what?”

He murmurs to himself and then disappears through the door where he first appeared.

I follow him, stopping just over the threshold.

It’s hard to fathom the size of this inner closet from the receiving room. It’s like opening a clam shell and finding the vastness of the ocean inside.

The closet is twice the size of my ballroom back in Neverland. There are rows and rows of clothing racks, then dressers, then shelves, then more racks. Suits and dresses and coats and tunics as far as the eye can see.

The man flips through several hangers.

“Deep winter,” he says, pulling out a navy blue suit and then deciding against it. “That’s your color palette. You stick to deep winter colors and you’ll always look stunning.

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