Alizeh had learned by now that words had done too much damage to Miss Huda to be of any use. Three hours she’d listened quietly as the girl vented her frustrations, and now it was time to offer a prescription.
Alizeh procured a pair of scissors from her toolbelt, and, after asking the startled girl to stand very, very still, she sliced open the inseams of the massive, puffed sleeves. She cut loose the remaining collar of the gown, splitting it open from shoulder to shoulder. She used a seam ripper to carefully strip the ruffles laid overtop the bodice, and opened the central darts compressing the girl’s chest. Another few snips and she wrenched apart the pleated bustle, allowing the skirt to relax around the young woman’s hips. As carefully as she could with her bandaged fingers, Alizeh then proceeded to drape and fold and pin an entirely new silhouette for the girl.
Alizeh transformed the high, ruffled neckline into an unembellished boatneck. She refashioned the bodice, carefully refining the darts so they emphasized the narrowest point of the girl’s waist instead of restraining her bust, and reduced the monstrously puffed arms to simple, fitted bracelet sleeves. The skirt Alizeh draped more simply, adjusting the silk to flow around the young woman’s hips in a single clean wave instead of many tight flounces.
When she was finally done, she stood back.
Miss Huda clasped a hand over her mouth. “Oh,” she breathed. “Are you a witch?”
Alizeh smiled. “You need very little embellishment, miss. You can see here that I did nothing just now but remove the distractions from the gown.”
Miss Huda went a bit slack when the fight finally left her body. She studied herself now with a cautious optimism, first drawing her fingers down the lines of the gown, then carefully touching those same fingers to her face, to the slant of her cheekbone.
“I look so elegant,” Miss Huda said softly. “Nothing at all like a trussed walrus. What incomprehensible magic this is.”
“It’s not magic, I assure you,” Alizeh said to her. “You have always been elegant, miss. I’m only sorry you’ve been tortured into thinking otherwise for so long.”
Alizeh did not know what time it was when she finally left Follad Place, only that she was so exhausted she’d begun to feel dizzy. It had been at least an hour since the last time she’d checked the time, which meant that, if her calculations were correct, it was well past one o’clock in the morning. She would be spared only a handful of hours to sleep before the work bell tolled.
Her heart sank in her chest.
Alizeh forced her eyes open as she plodded along, even stopping to gently pinch her own cheeks when, in her fogginess, she thought she’d seen two moons in the sky.
She was carrying her carpet bag as carefully as possible in the bitter cold, for it now held Miss Huda’s green gown, which she’d promised to finish mending before tomorrow’s ball. Bahar, Miss Huda’s lady’s maid, would be arriving to retrieve the gown at eight o’clock, precisely one hour after Alizeh finished her shift.
She exhaled a sigh at that, staring for a moment at the icy plume her breath painted against the dark.
Alizeh had taken all of Miss Huda’s measurements; the five additional gowns were to be designed however Alizeh saw fit, as per the young woman’s instructions. This was both a boon and a burden, for while it gave Alizeh full artistic license, it also placed the whole of the sartorial responsibility on her shoulders.
Alizeh was at least grateful that the other gowns would not be due for another week. Already she couldn’t imagine how she’d manage all of tomorrow’s work in addition to finding something suitable for herself to wear to the ball, but she consoled herself with the reminder that what she wore would not matter, for no one would be looking at her anyway—and all the better.
It was just then that Alizeh heard an unusual sound.
It was unusual in that it was not a sound endemic to the night; it was more like the rasp of a kicked pebble, a skittering there and gone in a flash.
It was enough.
Sleep fled her brain as adrenaline moved through her body, heightening her senses. Alizeh dared not break her stride; dared not speed up or slow down. She acknowledged, quietly, that the sound could’ve been provoked by an animal. Or a large insect. She might’ve even blamed the wind except that there was no breeze.
There was in fact no evidence to support Alizeh’s sudden, chilling fear that she was being followed, none but a basic instinct that cost her nothing to take seriously. If she should appear foolish for overreacting, so be it.