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“Nonsense.” Bastian throws his cloak onto the chair, setting it rocking. “You and Mari are used to sharing a room. Just think of it as scooting your mattresses together.”
In his drunken stupor a few nights before, he’d proclaimed his feelings for me to the others, but now he’s acting like it’s a big secret. I’ll never understand the male species.
“If we hang around here too long, I’ll fall into a serious depression.” Grayson unfolds a piece of paper from his pocket. “I snatched this on the way in.”
It’s too dark in the room for me to read what he’s holding up.
“You’re not seriously thinking about going to a dance?” Evie wrinkles her nose, falls onto her bed, and spreads out her arms. “We’ve got to stay here and talk strategy.”
“That’s what tomorrow’s for.” Grayson walks over to a broken mirror on the wall and combs his fingers through his hair. “Tonight, we have fun.”
As a teenager in Avren, I’d attend Council-sponsored dances. Chaperones measured the distance between dancers with a bejeweled stick. Rumors flew about how Lady Raven spied on us to determine matches. I always saw it as a chance to show off my latest creation. At the last dance I attended, I wore a deep-blue satin dress, cinched at the waist with a skirt that flowed to the floor. Black lace accented the skirt and the top of the bodice. My dance card was full, mostly with Flynn. There was no doubt in my mind that the Council would match such a handsome couple.
Until one became an orphan before her eighteenth birthday.
“It might give us a chance to blow off some steam.” Bastian lounges on the rolled-out mattress, propped up on his elbows with his ankles crossed.
From her place on the mattress, Evie raises a hand, then drops it to her thigh as she considers Bastian through narrowed eyes. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Levi sits down on our bed, drawing his lip between his teeth before signing, “The people of Tenny Rocks always throw the best parties.”
Evie scowls, sits up, and goes to the door. “And the three of you always gang up on me. Come on, Mari.”
Without a word, I look at the men, each nodding their approval as I follow Evie out the door.
She’s already at the bottom of the stairs, removing a small pouch from her cloak. It’s beaded with the image of a single red rose. “I should have enough credits saved up from my job to do this whole dance thing properly.”
I look up the stairs and back at Evie. “But I thought…”
“That we were going to take a walk and talk shit about the boys?” She shoves her pouch back into her pocket and tosses her hair over her shoulder. “We can still do that, but you’re also going to need a dress for tonight.”
The relationship between Evie and Grayson is stranger than mine with Bastian. I follow her out the front door of the inn, taking two steps to each of her long strides. She’s a woman on a mission.
There’s an excitement in the air that’s palpable as we walk to the dress shop. The River Walk must be a big deal around here. Men and women intermingle in the streets, talking and flirting. Joyful music weaves throughout the square as workers hang brightly colored decorations above. It is nothing like the stiff-backed, high-collared, classical dances in Avren.
We enter a shop bursting at the seams with women. Colorful dresses line the aisles, where patrons of every shape and size hold them up for their friends to appraise. The claustrophobic atmosphere, along with the vast array of merchandise, makes me dizzy. It’s so different from spending months selecting material, designing, and creating my own dress.
Evie rifles through a rack of dresses, occasionally pulling one out and scrunching her nose at it. When she holds a shorter cream-colored dress with no sleeves up, a slow smile crosses her lips. “Bastian will love it.” She fingers the loose brown belt and turns the dress around. The material hangs so low, there might as well be no back to it at all. “It has the whole ‘elven warrior’ vibe.”
My eyes widen. “That’s for me?”
“Who else is dressing to impress Bastian?” She rolls her eyes in typical Evie fashion. “If we can find boots to match…” Her eyes dart to the shoe portion of the shop.
“What are you going to wear?” I push the dresses to the side to look at a lovely deep-green, full-length velvet dress, perfect for her. “What do you think of this one?”
“Really, Mari?” She checks the price tag on the cream dress. “We’ll have to go to another store to find the boots.”
“Aren’t you going to get a dress?” I tug on her sleeve, slightly put out that our bonding time has turned into a setup. “There’s a lot of dresses here that will look great on you.”
Giving a curt smile to the woman at the counter, Evie lays my dress down. “I don’t do dresses. Gray knows this.”
My skin flushes with a rush of heat. At the dance, I won’t be the only woman in a dress, but I will be the only one among the Kindred Few—a dress that reveals almost my entire back down to my bottom. The thought of being the center of attention for Bastian, Levi, and even Grayson is mortifying.
I remain silent as we walk through the streets of Tenny Rocks, looking for a shoe shop. Evie stops to ask for directions from the owner of a bookstore. Then we’re on our way again, taking a stone staircase down to the riverfront.
A wooden platform spans the water. Workers hang similar decorations to the ones in the square above the dance floor, attaching them to trees on either side of the river. Unlit torches line the banks, ready to add a romantic ambience to the festive event.
“She said the shoe store is to the right about a block.” Evie doesn’t look twice at the River Walk setup, but I can’t look away. It’s so different from Avren’s stuffy events and stirs something deep inside of me.
