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“You're going to be sore after,” she says, handing me a tiny glass vial of white crystals. Salt. “Bathe in this if you bleed too much. It helps.”

One of the women who gave me my bath leans in, more daring, and adds, “If he lets you ride him, rock forward on your knees. Don’t just lie there like a corpse.”

My mouth goes dry. “What…what if I don’t know how?”

They all pause.

“You’ll figure it out fast,” the woman at my feet says. “Or he’ll teach you.”

“Or punish you,” Regina mutters from behind me. She runs a brush through the ponytail, making the hair shiny and curl at the end, then sprays a light oil over the top.

“He already has,” I admit, catching her dark eyes with mine. “He put me in the cage.”

She pauses. “The one under the bed?”

“Yes.” My heart hammers, not out of fear, but possible camaraderie. “Did he lock you in there too?”

“Not the King. It was one of my Barons,” she says. “He got jealous once that I was flirting with someone else. Thought it would teach me a lesson.”

“Did it?”

“Yes and no. I was committed to my Barons so that was pointless, but I realized that he was projecting his betrayal and disloyalty on me. He was the one cheating–”

“With another woman?” I blurt.

“God, no. With anotherking. He was working for Ashby behind the Baron King’s back. Caused a lot of trouble and ultimately cost him his life.” She shakes her head. “I saw the signs, I just couldn’t place them. He was paranoid, accusatory. He’d flip everything back on me or the other Barons, act like we were the ones at fault.”

“I killed Armand,” I admit. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. “He caught me in the Hunt and despite the King’s strict directions he tried to rape me.”

Her lips twist, impressed. “Seems like you have better instincts than I do.”

I shrug. “Maybe. He wasn’t trying to hide it…”

‘You never should have run and once you did, you never should have stopped.’

His words slam back into me, the threats he made right before I slit his throat. It was like he knew me. Or knewofme.

“The King rewards loyalty,” Regina says, drawing me out of that dark place. “You did him a favor.”

She lifts up a piece of black netting–a veil, held together with a shiny black bow.

“Isn’t that a little childish?” I ask, thinking of how offended the Barons were at my schoolgirl outfit.

“He’ll like it,” she assures me, pinning the oversized black satin into place at the back of my head. It’s huge, sticking out from both sides of my head. “It makes you look young.”

“I am young,” I note.

She meets my eyes in the mirror. “Exactly.”

Daddy, she had called him the night of the Hunt. She’s his true Daughter of Darkness. I’m his burden.

I want to ask her how to make him like me, to accept me, but I remember the advice given to me in the glass jar and decide not to. I already know. Regardless, she’s already moved on, and I’m directed into another room where I see it: the dress.

It’s spread across the table like a shroud. Black satin, boned corset, lace sleeves so tight they feel like a second skin. Carefully, I touch the soft satin, fingering the tag sewn into the back.

Jaded Society

“Did Adeline pick this out?” I’d half expected the dress to be a glaring white, maybe with tiny roses around the edge.