She’s carrying the satchel I readied ahead of time and wearing the Reigenbach servant uniform we hid under her cloak. “Sorry, miss, just looking for my mistress’s earring,” she calls as I walk in, then double-takes. “Ugh. I’ll never get used to that.”
“You’d better,” I say tersely. I unclasp the pearls and hand them over. “Put those on last.”
We trade dresses, and then we both dig in the satchel, me for paste and gauze to cover my ruby teardrop, and her for face powders and the fake ruby. It wasn’t as hard as I expected to find a bit of red glass in the right shape, because myaccessoryhas become a full-blown trend for anyone who can afford it. There are certainly no shortage of imitators tonight.
It doesn’t take Gisele long to replicate my cosmetics, and once she’s done, I use my pinkie to rub powder off a patch below her right eye. Then I drop a bead of glue on the red glass, hold her chin in one hand, and press the teardrop on with the other.
“Hold still,” I tell her. “It needs to set.”
Gisele closes her eyes, fingers knotting in the undone bodice laces; the seams will split if she tries to lace it before the pearls cut her down. I see a nervous flush rising up her neck. “How . . . how big is the crowd?”
“Hundred people, maybe? Half the wedding guests haven’t arrived yet. I already did most of the talking, you’ll just have to dance and smile and nod. Adalbrecht is being fussy about Emeric, but just laugh it off and he’ll settle down.”
She lets out a breath. “Then . . . I think I can do this for twenty-five minutes. Thirty at most.”
“If it takes longer than that, we’ve got bigger problems.” I let go of the false ruby, and it stays put. “There. Now put on the pearls. They help with the hair.”
I realize my mistake as soon as the pearls are on. The image they produce is the same no matter the wearer, but how they get her there is the opposite of me, narrowing Gisele’s shoulders, carving out curves instead of adding them, even taking an inch or two off her height. Dame von Falbirg must have asked for this specific form when she bought the enchantment. I never said anything to Gisele about it, but it’s eerily close to the older portraits of the dame as a younger woman.
Those portraits don’t have a charm that makes me want to forgive them, oblige them, on sight, though. The pearls do.
For nearly four years, there’s been a rotten kind of simmer in my blood when it comes to Gisele. It’s been there so long, I don’t know who I am without it. But the moment those pearls clasp around her neck, I remember how happy I was to serve her.
I turn away, fingernails digging into my palms. “You can do your own hair.”
Then I yank one more servant uniform from the satchel, toss it onto a chair, and get out before I indulge anything so dangerous as forgiveness.
A black cat yowls by the door, blinking red eyes at me. I only hold the door open long enough for Ragne to slip in, then continue on my way back to the ballroom.
My scalp stings as I braid my own hair a little too tight.
Emeric’s affixed himself to the wall near the closest exit, studying a penny-sized pewter coin in his palm. I’m sure that’s doing nothing helpful for Adalbrecht’s paranoia.
I duck out of sight before he spots me. The last thing Adalbrecht needs to see is Emeric leaving the ball early and Gisele showing up minutes later, breathless and rumpled like she’s fresh from a rendezvous with a besotted junior prefect.
Something about that thought makes me unsettled. I don’t know why. And I don’twantto.
I don’t have to wait long for Gisele to arrive, Ragne one step behind her in her own servant uniform, hair neatly tucked into a bun and red eyes darkened to brown. We’ve coached her on her role: If anyone asks, she’s Gisele’s handmaiden and is not to leave her side.
Once they walk in, Emeric ducks out, heading down the hall. I fall into step behind him, only to realize as his head swivels that he doesn’t know I’m there. We make it almost to the vestibule before he stops and fishes the pewter coin out of his pocket.
I whisper, “Boo.”
I didn’t know it was possible to make a vertical leap all the way onto a staircase landing, but Emeric proves me wrong.
After he’s done swearing at me, I observe, “You know an awful lot of big-boy no-no words for a man of the gods.”
“You are an absoluteterror,” he snaps. “At this point I’m frankly amazed nothing else cursed you before now.”
I shrug. “Who’s to say they haven’t tried? Come on, we’ve got half an hour at most.”
He grumbles but follows me to a tapestry tastefully obscuring a doorway that blends right into the masonry. It leads us into the servant corridors, where it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim. The torches are spaced farther than in the normal halls, just sufficient to navigate by and no more.
Emeric catches my shoulder. His voice drops to a whisper. “Wait—do you hear—”
“We’re not alone,” I tell him, heading down the narrow passage. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What do you mean, we’re not—”
