I am not surprised. I understand longing for ears like hers. I feel like I have spent half my life wanting them, with their delicate, furred points.
What I do not say is this: No one could touch those ears and believe they were made by anything other than nature. Heather is either lying to Vivi or lying to herself.
“I don’t want her to be afraid of me,” Vivi says.
I think of Sophie, and I am sure Vivi is thinking of her, too, pockets full of stones. Sophie at the bottom of the sea. Perhaps she is not so unaffected by what happens as she wants to seem.
From downstairs, I hear Taryn’s voice. “They’re here! Our dresses! Come look!”
Slipping off my bed, Vivi smiles at me. “At least we had an adventure. And now we’re going to have another one.”
I let her go ahead, as I need to cover my bandaged hand with a glove before I follow her down the stairs. I press a button, ripped from a coat, over the wound to divert direct pressure. Now I have to hope that the bulge on my palm isn’t too noticeable.
Our gowns have been spread out over three chairs and a sofa in Oriana’s salon. Madoc is patiently listening to her rhapsodize over the perfection of their garments. Her ball gown is the exact pink of her eyes, deepening to red, and seems to be made of enormous petals that spread into a train. The fabric of Taryn’s is gorgeous, the cut of her mantua and stomacher perfect. Beside them is Oak’s sweet little suit of clothes, and there are a doublet and cape for Madoc in his favorite shade of crusted-blood red. Vivi holds up her silvery gray dress, with its tattered edges, sparing a smile for me.
Across the room, I see my gown. Taryn gasps when I lift it up.
“That’s not what you ordered,” she says, accusatory. As though somehow I have deliberately deceived her.
It’s true that the dress I am holding is not the one that Brambleweft sketched for me. It’s something else entirely, something that reminds me of the mad, amazing garments that Locke’s mother’s closet was stuffed with. An ombré ball gown, its color deepening from white near my throat, through palest blue to deepest indigo at my feet. Over that is stitched the stark outlines of trees, the way I see them from my window as dusk is falling. The seamstress has even sewn on little crystal beads to represent stars.
This is a dress I could never have imagined, one so perfect that for a moment, looking at it, I can think of nothing but its beauty.
“I—I don’t think this is mine,” I say. “Taryn’s right. It doesn’t look anything like the sketches.”
“It’s still lovely,” Oriana says consolingly, as though I am displeased. “And it had your name pinned to it.”
I am glad no one is making me give it back. I do not know why I was given such a dress, but if there’s any way I can fit into it, I will.
Madoc raises his brows. “We will all look magnificent.” When he walks past, departing the salon, he ruffles my hair. In moments like these, it is almost possible to think there is no river of spilled blood between us all.
Oriana claps her hands together. “Girls, come here for a moment. Attend me.”
We three arrange ourselves on the couch beside her, waiting, puzzled.
“Tomorrow, you will be among the Gentry from many different Courts. You’ve been under Madoc’s protection, but that protection will be unknown to most of the Folk in attendance. You must not allow yourselves to be lured into making bargains or promises that can be used against you. And, above all, give no insult that might excuse a trespass of hospitality. Do not be foolish, and do not put yourself in anyone’s power.”
“We are never foolish,” Taryn says, a blatant lie if ever there was one.
Oriana makes a pained face. “I would keep you from the revels, but Madoc has specifically instructed that you participate in them. So heed my advice. Be careful, and perhaps you will find ways to be pleasing.”