" Miss Kate!” Kiernan exclaimed, pointing. “What happened to your toes?”
“What?” I glanced down, half expecting to see a leech or a cut or some other trauma, but there was nothing odd. “What are you talking about?”
“Your toenails. They’re all red—it looks like blood!”
“Oh,” I laughed. “That’s just nail polish. It’s chipped off in a few places.”
“It looks like paint.” Kiernan sniffed disapprovingly.
I sighed. This was one of the anachronisms that Katherine would probably have caught as I prepared to leave. Did young women paint their nails in the 1890s? Had nail polish even been invented yet? I had no clue.
“Well, it is paint, sort of,” I said.
“Me mom says…” He shook his head and fell silent.
“What does your mom say, Kiernan?” He didn’t answer. “No, really, I won’t be angry. What does she say?”
“She says only whores wear paint,” he said, staring down at the grass. “They usually wear it on their faces, though. I never even heard of painted toes. "
― Rysa Walker , Timebound (The Chronos Files, #1)