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I do understand. I just hate when someone else wields power over me, so I’d rather wield it myself. Camilla has never been afraid of losing her way of life. I have no family to fall back on.
The arguing finally stops when Dante steps out at the courier’s to check for letters from home. Camilla and I take the carriage down another few streets, and we arrive at the tailor’s to pick up her new suit for the ball. Her fairies will put glamours atop, but she still wants a fashionable base.
“I’m thinking of glamouring wings,” she says, flexing at the panel of mirrors. The changing room in the back of the tailor’s is bigger than apartments I’ve squatted in. “Too much?”
“Probably.”
“Excellent. What are you wearing?”
“I’m not going to the ball.”
She pulls off her shirt and tries another, this one deep crimson. “The palace’s fairies will conjure up something nice for you.”
I grit my teeth. “That isn’t the problem.”
“You’re right. Theproblem,Violet Lune, is you’ve been cooped up in that tower. The Masked Menagerie is going to do double duty—getting Cyrus married and gettingyouout of your shell.”
“I don’t need to get out of my shell, other people need tocram themselves back into theirs.”
“You should figure out what dress you want, otherwise the fairies will decide on their own to drape you in enough taffeta and tassels to rival the ballroom curtains.” She poses at the mirror, then after ahmmunfastens another shirt button for an even lower neckline. “And I know you’re not allergic to their glamours, so you can’t use that excuse this time.”
“I’m still allergic to their dust!”
“So put a clothespin on your nose. Ooh, Lady Emmacine has a baby shower this afternoon. We should go. It’d be good practice for you to mingle.”
Accepting invitations to parties is a surefire way to spend four hours playing divine matchmaker to frisky aristocrats who think drinking wine is a hobby. “I’d sooner go toad-kissing.”
“See, that’s exactly the kind of thing you shouldn’t say to people,” she tuts. “You are pretty and clever, but you’re as charming as the backside of a mule, Violet, and that needs to change. It’s bad enough that people look at you like some common witch.”
I scowl. If it keeps these people away, maybe it’s a goodthing. I am common, I am a witch—it’s the truth. I want to be respected, not liked. I don’t want to be trying to impress people at all if I can help it.
Shirt hanging loose, Camilla peers out of the changing room to call for the tailor’s assistant, who rushes toward her red-faced, gesturing futilely at her to cover up. As Camilla sifts through fabrics for yet another outfit she wants commissioned, I tromp outside for fresh air.
The streets are busy; everyone’s shopping for the ball that will happen in two weeks. Golden-winged fairies flit overhead like daytime stars; a drunk one splats into a freshly washed window.
The Lord of the Sixth strolls by with his family. “Back in my day, we didn’t have such a wealth of ambrosia that everyone had a fairy on hand,” I hear him tell his daughter. “We put on powder and arsenic like everyone else.”
I consider buying a tartlet from a street vendor before remembering the mountains of dessert in the palace. I go sit on the carriage’s steps instead. As I do, passersby slowly turn toward something up the street, and my own eyes follow.
What in thestars?
Dusty pastel blobs are rumbling toward us, taking the shapes of dresses and waving handkerchiefs. There’s shrieking. One lone figure sprints ahead of the mob, the collar of his shirt blown open by the wind and his legs pumping as if his life depends on it. I nearly choke on spit when I see his face.
It’s Cyrus.
Running from a stampede of his admirers.
His guards clang far behind, slowed down by the weightof their armor. Bystanders are stumbling out of the way. A fewjoin in.But why—
“A PRIVATE DATE FOR WHOEVER PLUCKS THE FLOWER FROM HIM!” someone hollers.
Ah—Cyrus is close enough now that I can see the pink bloom pinned to his breast, bobbing along as he flees. He probably tried to be playful and make a little competition, except it got out of hand.
“THROW US THE FLOWER!”
“THROW USYOUR SHIRT!”
To put it lightly.
