"Miss?"
I raised my face from my hands.
Gale, our butler, hovered in the doorway. "Yes, Gale?"
"Cyril has asked for you."
"Oh. Of course. Thank you, Gale."
He hesitated. "Are you all right, miss?"
"I'm fine, Gale, thank you for asking. I'm just fatigued."
He nodded and left.
Cyril clutched a newspaper to his chest. He looked scared.
"What is it, Cyril?" I asked, my stomach dropping.
Wordlessly, he passed me the newspaper. The front page had an image of a Penglass dome with two streaks of light. The Penglass from the night before. Another, smaller photograph showed the glowing outline of a hand. My handprint. Did Mother suspect?
I read the article, which was from a less-reputable paper, the
Sicion Searcher.
It stated that a strange light from the Penglass had awoken the inhabitants of the tenement on the corner of Emerald and Silver Streets. They saw the light for only a few minutes before it mysteriously disappeared. An inhabitant of the tenement managed to take a photograph just before the light vanished. The constables had been alerted and scientists conducted tests on the dome this morning to ensure it was safe. The Constabulary had no official theories, but the
Sicion Searcher
had plenty. The Penglass Dome was an Alder vessel and had awoken to travel back to the stars. The Penglass around the city had finally grown unstable with time and could explode at any moment. The person or monster that had left the handprint and the streaks of light had set in motion events beyond the average citizen's control.
"Styx Cyril," I said, crumpling the newspaper in my lap. "Styx."
"They don't seem to have any leads."
"I think Mother will suspect, if she sees this. I told her we were in the Emerald Park last night."
"Why did you do that?"
"Well, I didn't bloody well know it'd be in the papers, now did I?"
"Keep your voice down," Cyril hissed.
My eyes darted toward the door. "What do we do?"
Cyril shrugged, and then winced in pain. "I don't know. Just try not to draw attention to ourselves. Hope Mother doesn't see this newspaper. And I'm afraid you probably shouldn't touch any more Penglass," he said regretfully.
"I know," I said, but my heart sank. Creating those trailing swirls of light had been one of the most amazing moments of my life. It had been frightening, but it had also felt almost
right.
Like I had been doing something I was always meant to do.
Cyril's features twisted in pain again. "Do you need more medicine?" I asked.
He nodded. I measured out a small spoonful of laudanum. Cyril grimaced as he drank it, despite the honey in its mixture. Soon his face relaxed. I sat with him, holding his unbroken hand, until he fell asleep.
I burned the newspaper in the fireplace.
"I am deathly ill. Terribly, dreadfully ill."
"Poppycock," my maid, Lia, said, hitting me on the head with a pillow. "Get yourself up."
"But I am…
dying!"
I had been reading in bed that afternoon and fallen asleep, the book open on my chest. The warm bed enveloped me; I did not want to leave it to go to the debutante ball.
I half-fell out of the bed onto the carpet, clutching my stomach. "I cannot move for the pain. Tell my brother I love him," I said, reaching out to her, my legs hopelessly tangled in the covers. Lia tugged the quilt so that I fell to the floor.
"Lo, I have perished," I said, my cheek resting against the rug.
"You should join the theatre, miss," Lia said. "What with all your carryings on."
I sat up, pushing my tangled hair out of my face. "Mother would
love
that. But please, tell Mother I am an inch away from death and I cannot possibly go to the ball tonight. I'll be sick all over the guests. That should do the trick."
"Don't be daft, Miss Iphigenia."
"Gene," I corrected her. Cyril seemed to be the only person in my life who actually called me by the name I liked.
"Do you realize what a thrashing I would get if anyone heard me calling you Gene, miss?" she said, as she always did.
I made a face at her and got out of bed. "Fine, but call me Gene in here."
"Of course, miss," she said with a small smile. "Come on, love. Your bath is ready."
"Please tell Mother I'm unwell," I begged, tossing my dressing robe and nightgown onto the bed. Lia was one of the few to know what I was. There was no way she could avoid doing so – she dressed me every day, and when I was little she used to bathe me. She was paid a handsome wage and swore never to tell anyone, not even the other household staff. She was fifteen years older than me and had always been kind.
"To what point and purpose, little miss?" Lia countered. "You've been preparing for this for weeks, and it'll be quite the embarrassment for your mother if you do not go at the last minute. And this will only be delaying the inevitable, miss – if not this ball, then the next. You might as well get it over with now."
I sighed. "You're right. I'm being childish."
She smiled. "Only a little. Go, and try to enjoy yourself. Your dress is beautiful and all your friends will be there. There will be food and dancing and flirting. It need not be so bad. I would have given my eye teeth to go to such a ball at your age." She winked. "I wouldn't say no to going now, neither!"
I laughed. "All right, then, we can swap. You can wear my dress and I'll stay at home."
"Nice try, love," she said, and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "It won't be so terrible, just you wait and see."
I hoped she was right.
And so I bathed and brushed and shaved and scented myself. All the while, I tried to stifle the feeling that it was like a holy animal from the rural parts of Byssia being pampered and perfumed before slaughter to the Chimaera demi-gods. I may have been feeling a little melodramatic.
Lia had laid all of my clothing on the bed and helped me into my petticoats and undershirt and slid the corset around my torso.
Lia grunted slightly as she pulled the stays. My ribs constricted and I clutched the bedpost.
I felt caged in a corset. The device did give me a bit of an illusion of a waist, I thought, looking at my body in the mirror of my dressing table. Lia slipped the dress over my head and it fell about me in a wave of blue fabric so pale it was almost white. I twisted my hips and the fabric settled into place and Lia fastened the dozens of tiny buttons on the back. The dress was lovely, with simple lines, the only decoration pink satin ribbons about the waist and the high neckline and the hem of the skirt. Mother and I had disagreed on every other dress I had tried on, but as soon as I had come out of the dressing room in the shop on Jade Street, we had both agreed it a success.
Lia plaited my hair into a crown about my head with more ribbon and tiny sprays of baby's breath. She left little curls about my face and another at the nape of my neck. I sat patiently as she powdered and painted my face in such a way that it did not look as though I was wearing cosmetics at all, which I did not see the point in. I stepped into heeled pink dancing slippers. A little strand of pearls about the neck and elbow-length gloves and a feather fan completed the look.
All dolled up to look like a girl and the illusion was fairly convincing.
I chewed the inside of my cheek as I waited to enter the ballroom. I kept clutching at the fabric of my skirt and fiddling with the ringlets of my hair. I felt like an imposter – like I was not meant to be here, about to parade in front of Sicion's highest society and declare myself ready for offers of marriage.
"This is so exciting," Anna Yew said next to me, smoothing down her dress. She looked pretty and tempting as a cupcake, and all eyes would slide past me and land on her and stay. That was fine by me. She flipped open a little mirror from her handbag and scrutinized her reflection, plucking an errant eyelash from her cheek and freshening her lip stain. I had not thought to bring a mirror, so I borrowed hers. I looked nervous.
The music started. In the past, all debutante balls took place in Imachara and young ladies were presented before the king or queen, who would kiss the young women on the forehead, blessing their new lives as women as opposed to girls. But as the current Princess Royal was only six years of age and the Steward, her uncle Ira Snakewood, had no interest in performing such a duty, smaller debutante balls were held in the larger cities – Imachara, Sicion, and Niral. I was glad for it – I did not think I would be able to handle a debutante ball three or four times the size of this. The murmur and chatter of the guests downstairs in the ballroom floated up to us: hundreds of lords and ladies and their sons and daughters, waiting for us.
The girls left the hallway one by one, their names called as they floated down the staircase to the music. When these girls had previously been announced at balls and other functions, they had been referred to as "miss." Now, they were "ladies."
"Lady Darla Hornbeam." Applause sounded as Darla descended the stairs in her pale golden dress.
"Lady Winifred Poplar."
"Lady Tara Cypress."
Name after name, pale dress after pale dress descended, until it was our turn. My stomach felt as though it would explode with nerves, the trapped birds and butterflies escaping from my stomach and fluttering about the room. I swallowed and pasted a smile on my face.
"Lady Anna Yew."
Anna flashed me a smile over her shoulder and gathered her pink skirts, holding her head high as she glided down the stairs.
"Lady Iphigenia Laurus." I straightened my shoulders and stepped into the bright light of the ballroom, making my way down the wide, marble stairs. The stone was slippery, and I feared falling. That would make quite an impression, and I imagined myself tumbling head over heels down the stairs, landing in an ungraceful heap of chiffon, ribbon, and lace. The smile that curled my mouth widened.
The lights of the golden glass globes blinded me from the upturned faces of the nobility below me. I reached the bottom of the stairs without mishap, and the matrons of each of the Twelve Trees of Nobility waited for me at the bottom to kiss my forehead and seal my new life as a woman: Lady Oak, Lady Hornbeam, Lady Cyprus, Lady Poplar, Lady Elm, Lady Ebony, Lady Balsa, Lady Redwood, Lady Ash, Lady Walnut, and Lady Cedar. Lady Snakewood, the queen's aunt, was not able to attend. Their kisses were as light as dried leaves whispering across my forehead. Everyone, including me, was solemn and grave as the fifteen sixteen-year-old daughters of their nobility marked their way into womanhood.
The girls gathered in an outward-facing circle toward the guests ringing the Beach Ballroom. In unison, we curtsied, and the nobility applauded. The glass globes brightened and the ball began.
Immediately, I gravitated toward the wall out of the way, wanting to people-watch before speaking to anyone. I still felt the echoes of the ceremony moments before. I knew it was only a ritual, but it had left me pensive. Was I now a woman? I still felt more like a boyish girl in a dress, out of place no matter how many jewels and silks I wore.
I had not been to the Beach Ballroom since last year. The building was extraordinary – octagonal in shape, with diamond-paned glass windows staring out at the ocean in full sunset, the stars just beginning to twinkle into existence. The wooden floor was polished to a glistening shine, though showed evidence of long use. The ballroom was built on stilts to keep it well above the fluctuating tides near an outcropping of Penglass. Some of the domes were too high, but the architects decided to work with the Penglass rather than trying to find a different spot, as the view was too perfect. And so around the edges of the dance floor, the tops of Penglass domes peeked. Dancers were already lounging against the smooth blue glass, looking like pixies visiting their fairy rings. A lavish buffet of delicacies lined one wall, and the small orchestra was in the opposite corner, the musicians hunched over their instruments as they played classical music. A massive chandelier made of tiny glass globes hung suspended from the ceiling, each globe colored with an element to make them shine in blue, pink, purple, and a dark orange to mirror the sunset.
Anna Yew was already flanked by two boys – Evan Redwood and Anthony Cedar. She laughed at something young Lord Cedar said, the diamonds in her ears flashing in the light, bringing attention to the column of her throat. I did not know when Anna had learned to enchant men so easily. I wondered if someone had taught her, or if it was simply something instinctual, some female part I had been born without.
Winifred Poplar and Tara Cypress meanwhile flirted with Cyril. Cyril responded just as easily to their talk, smiling down at them in a way that must have caused the girls' hearts to quicken. Anna had not been lying when she had told me that Cyril would be a good catch – others seemed to feel the same way. But Cyril politely extricated himself from their clutches when he spied Elizabeth Rowan, his intended. The Lord and Lady Rowan had already spoken to my parents – it was all but decided, and Cyril seemed besotted. He bowed low over Elizabeth's hand and led her to the buffet table, fetching her a glass of wine. I smiled to see their courtship.
Oswin sidled up next to me with a plate piled high with food.
"Heya, Genie," he said, mid-chew. "You hungry?"
"Hi, Oswin," I replied, eyeing the plate. "Absolutely starved." I stabbed a cheese-stuffed olive from his platter with a toothpick and ate it, the saltiness of the olives and sharpness of the cheese a delight. We made short work of the plate, using the toothpicks to skewer the small delicacies – salmon en croûte, roasted and pickled vegetables, rare and expensive sausages and cheeses, deviled eggs – so as not to dirty our gloved hands. When we finished, a servant came immediately to take the plate away. I felt better and more grounded with food in me, though now my stomach pressed even more unpleasantly against my corset.