AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty
Alike in That Way
Alys's glamour came in a small, clear jar etched with vines and flower buds, and this told Clare that however much Alys might have left the physical realm of the privilege she obviously came from, she had not left its means or its suppliers behind. Only those who catered to the wealthy would see the necessity of putting an expensive item into equally expensive packaging.
On the one hand, it irked her. The frivolous, stupid beauty of a container when she’d spent her entire life starving. On the other hand, she loved it. Because it was something simple and pretty and nice, and it made her feel that way too. Because, having spent so much of her life surrounded by ugly, broken things, the jar was precisely the type of trivial luxury she aspired to.
People with abundance seemed to think the miserably poor should want only for food and shelter and should, if such things were provided, never want for anything more, because they were so much better off than they had previously been. But the basic necessities of food and shelter were but the lowest rung of human decency, and if obtaining them was a necessity of great relief, they alone did not make a person feel wholly human. They certainly did not cause others to view a person as fully human. Luxuries—the ability to have something that was not strictly necessary for one’s continued existence—were what made people feel human. The access to excessive luxury, to frivolous waste, was—however morally reprehensible one might consider such activity—what made others view a person as better than them, even if they abhorred the person for it.
Clare could withstand abhorrence. She had been hated for the depths of her poverty in a poverty-stricken place. Even the poor hated the poor, because they needed someone to view as lower than themselves, and so they chose the easiest target in close proximity and struck. But if there was no escaping being hated, Clare had every intention of being hated for lush excess rather than abject want. Because she was tired of being considered less.
So she gazed upon the pretty etchings on the glass until, rather than thinking of the waste—the pointlessness—of them, she saw only the beauty. Because she was never going back, and a pretty jar was only the start.
She applied the paste with calloused fingers, covering the scars that crisscrossed nearly the whole of her back. She didn’t bother with the ones that were lower—they wouldn’t show.
As the cream soaked into her skin, she found this benefit of wealth one she could appreciate without trying. She had worn a glamour once before and, though it had done its job, it had been a harsh, abrasive thing to apply to the skin, tingling and irritating. This glamour came in a smooth cream. It smelled of honeysuckle and vanilla, and its application felt more like a balm meant to sooth and moisturize the skin than one meant to conceal atrocities. By the time Clare had covered the entirety of her back, Alys's “one month supply” was almost empty.
Clare considered the remaining contents. They were not enough to cover her back again, and since she was likely to be under much more scrutiny tonight than she had been under the previous one, she supposed the rest of her might as well look as flawless as her back. She scooped the remainder out and dotted it over the plethora of long-healed-over cuts and burns that littered her arms.
She finished and surveyed the results of her work, the room’s mirror reflecting skin that was beautiful and flawless. She hated the sight of it. Each scar, each flaw, was a memory. None were pleasant, but she never focused on how they had been made, only on the fact that she had survived them. Were she a man, she could bear them proudly and people would respect that she had survived them, that she continued to live. She would be considered strong. But she was a woman, and people cringed from women’s scars. Society held that women were supposed to be soft and delicate—unblemished—and horrified by what scars they did possess. When they were not, people did not quite know what to do with them.
Battle Armor was draped across her bed. She gathered the dress and pulled it on. The silk slid over her like water, delicate as a spider’s web, smooth as the kiss of a soft breeze. As it settled, that little sliver of magic she’d felt in its threads settled as well, molding the dress to her, tightening and loosening where it needed to, until the end result was a creation that looked as if it had been tailored to her.
The dress did its name justice. Was it Chalen’s magic that made Clare feel powerful in this moment, or was it a different kind of magic? The magic of cunningly cut fabrics placed together just-so. The way they could tell a story and project an image that made their wearer feel as if they belonged in the same level of society the clothing did.
She was still observing the startling effect when Alys entered the room. The door had made no sound when the woman opened it, and Alys moved quietly, but no amount of quiet could fool someone whose life had continually depended on the ability to sense a person’s mood before seeing them. There was a presence, a heaviness, that people carried with them, and it was something that, once one was attuned to it, could not be disguised no matter how silent a person became.
“Hello, Alys,” she said without turning.
“Hello, Clare,” Alys answered, matching Clare tone for tone, as she had in their very first introduction.
“I trust you are pleased with the glamour, as I can’t see a possible thing you would be wanting to hide.”
“That,” Clare turned to face Alys, “was the idea.”
“Your back, then?”
“Or perhaps my arms?” Clare held them out, close enough that Alys would catch the delicate scent of the glamour on them. “Or my chest.” Clare traced her finger across the exposed flesh above the low neckline of the dress.
Alys's eyes narrowed. The expression seemed to be as close to a frown as the woman would allow herself. “Did you really waste glamour on all of your bared skin simply so that I would not know where you glamoured?”
Clare shrugged. It was a delicate, perfect mimicry of the way Alys performed the action. “If you tell me who you are, I will happily tell you the answer to your question.”
“The secret is not worth that much.”
“I assure you, it is worth much more.”
Another might have taken Clare’s words as an invitation to casual flirtation. Alys narrowed her eyes in consideration. “You find me interesting because of my secrets. Take care that I do not start to find you interesting for yours. You might find you dislike the attention.”
“The threat hardly holds the same weight. Your secrets are knowable. Mine are not. But if you wish to try, I do enjoy a good game.”
Alys shook her head. “You may not have been born to the court, but you certainly are inclined toward it. Now we simply have to make you look the part.” She pointed at the chair before Clare’s vanity. “Sit.”
Clare did, letting Alys settle a small cape around her shoulders to protect the dress from any stray cosmetics.
“I do hope you are not prone to headaches,” Alys said sweetly.
For the next hour, Clare was uncertain whether this “hope” had been uttered in reference to the amount of brushing and twisting and pinning her hair underwent, or in reference to the unending stream of information that came out of Alys's mouth.
