Page 55

I had lived in rags for the better part of my life at this point. Rags were bordering on an overstatement, actually, since even the most worn material was quickly commandeered by those bigger and stronger. There had been nights I’d wished more strongly for fresh, soft, dresses than I had food.

And I would happily have agreed to never wear anything but those rags again if it meant I didn’t have to endure one more minute of this dress fitting.

Between Amalthea’s exacting sense of aesthetics and standing half-naked while two vampires worked to mold the tarps to me, tension had every muscle in my body on the brink of cramping .

“No, that’s not quite right,” Amalthea murmured to the seamstress for what must have been the tenth time since we’d arrived.

The seamstress obliged and moved the bodice a sliver higher.

It was three days after I’d first come here with Amalthea.

Three days since I’d been cornered by Titus.

Three days since I’d kissed Raphael in the blood den.

Now, I was standing on a raised platform like a mannequin.

Amalthea went back and forth over hemlines and skirt designs and sleeve shapes and everything else I’d never wanted to know about with the vampiress shop owner and head seamstress, Bertha.

At my feet, another vampire was pinning the skirt in place.

I’d soaked the fabric of my back with how much I was sweating, but I endured it.

Apparently there were no human dressmakers to help.

Thea is here . I repeated those three words over and over again like a spell.

Thea is here, Thea is here . She wouldn’t let anything happen.

And maybe I wanted to prove Titus wrong. To prove myself wrong.

When Amalthea had proposed dress shopping… it wasn’t that I wanted for clothing by any stretch, but I hadn’t wanted to disappoint her. Friendship was a foreign thing for me. The closest I’d come was a relationship with my half-brother, but that had been secret.

“Maybe a jot lower,” Amalthea mused, and once again the shift was adjusted. “Sam, what do you think? ”

I thought I’d rather skip whatever event this dress was intended for, but that would hurt Thea’s feelings. Instead I said, “I’ll defer to you.” Because I couldn’t tell the difference between this position and any of the past dozen.

The witch nodded.

A sharp pain hit my calf. “Ouch!”

“Oh, my lady, I’m… sorry…” The seamstress pinning my legs trailed off, seeming transfixed. She’d accidentally stuck me with a pin.

She was still, in the way only vampires could be, staring at the spot of blood that had spilled onto the fabric.

I was frozen like a rabbit that had realized it was all too close to a hungry kobold.

“Be more careful,” Amalthea snapped. Her tone was harsher than I’d ever heard, but already the tingle of magic lit around me, the slight pain disappearing. In her hand was a now-blank card that must have contained the healing magic. She’d activated it almost immediately.

“Oh, my lady, I am so, so sorry,” the vampire at my knees stammered. “It was an accident, I swear. Please don’t tell the king!”

Bertha pushed the girl away. “My sincere apologies, Lady Samara. I assure you, I do not tolerate this sloppiness in my shop. I’ll see that the girl is dealt with.”

I stiffened at the tone in the seamstress’s voice. “What do you mean by that? ”

“A proper beating, I assure you. Something that will make an impression no matter the immortal healing. And of course, I’ll pull out her fangs.”

I stared at Bertha and her certainty faded a fraction. “I can pull the fangs out again if that’s not to your satisfaction. Or would you like to administer a beating of your own as well?”

For a moment, I was so angry I was struck still. Always with this brutal, barbaric form of justice. When the shop owner parted her lips again to add whatever else to the girl’s unending list of punishment, I found my voice.

“You won’t be doing any of that.”

The girl cringed.

“Of course, Lady Samara, I didn’t mean to imply I would take away this privilege from King Raphael. If he prefers to take his justice personally, I would never dream of interfering.”

Whatever the girl thought Raphael would do, it had her shaking. After what I’d seen in his court, I understood why. I’d never seen a vampire so afraid, not even Janessa when Raphael had ordered her lover’s death. I thought of them as fearsome, near all-powerful creatures.

But looking at her peering up at me with beseeching eyes, lip quivering, all I could think was that I had no doubt looked the same way at Nelson more times than I cared to remember.

“To be clear,” I said slowly, “in your view, justice for mistakenly pricking my skin with one of the several hundred pins currently wrapped around me warrants beating and mutilation.” Before I could be misinterpreted again, I added, “Or worse. To you, that’s fairness?”

Bertha clearly had no safe way to answer. She thought I wanted retribution, so she’d piled on as many horrors as she could manage. Telling me she wouldn’t do anything went against all she knew.

“Of course, I am responsible for my staff.” Her voice was considerably quieter now. “I will also submit myself to the will of the king. Even if he wishes to flay me—”

I winced because my back still bore the scars of those memories.

I cut her off: “None of that is going to happen. It was an accident. What’s your name?” I asked the girl.

“J-Josephine,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Josephine apologized. Amalthea healed me. That’s all there is to it.

There will be no beating, no defanging, no firing, no flaying.

Is that understood?” I wasn’t sure where this imperious tone had come from.

Gods knew I’d never spoken for myself that way, but seeing Josephine…

I straightened my spine as I stared at the shopkeeper.

“Of course,” the shopkeeper said with considerably less enthusiasm than what she’d used to describe the punishment.

I’d have been more skeptical, but vampires couldn’t lie.

“What are you all ogling at?” Amalthea snapped.

I turned and saw every vampire was staring at me with that same stillness, the scent of my blood drawing their attention.

I hadn’t noticed, being so focused on the girl.

“It’s as though you ladies have never smelled blood before.

Go to a blood den and stop acting like fools. ”

The onlookers collectively turned away at Amalthea’s command.

I wanted to go home, but I had a point to prove. “Josephine, would you mind finishing pinning the hemline?”

Josephine’s head bobbed up and down with vampiric speed. “At once, my lady!”

As much as I wanted to leave, I wouldn’t let the shop owner blame Josephine for us leaving sooner than planned. I cast Amalthea a look to try to gauge what she thought of how I’d handled it, if I’d overstepped, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“It will be magnificent,” the shopkeeper assured me when the draping was finished.

I dipped my head in acknowledgment and finally stepped off the platform.

Despite my brave front, I hadn’t wanted vampire fingers on my skin any longer.

I went behind the curtain and pulled on my dress from before.

When I returned, a trio of vampire nobles tittered on the edges, eyeing me.

I looked from them to Amalthea, who heaved a beleaguered sigh before slightly turning her body towards them while still maintaining eye contact with me. “Ladies, surely you have better things to do than blatantly gossip all day. ”

“Perhaps we only wanted to get a glimpse at the fashion the king’s Chosen has selected,” one vampiress retorted.

“Perhaps,” Amalthea echoed.

Perhaps was an easy enough way around their inability to lie.

“I’m sure it’s nothing more interesting than any other ballgown,” I said, coming to Amalthea’s side. It was a little dismissive of Bertha, but I wasn’t exactly feeling charitable.

“Is that not the gown she will wear for the Tri-Lunar Eclipse?” the same vampire said. She responded to Thea, not me, however.

The term… I’d heard it before. At the first ball. The vampire that had clung a little too closely to Raphael had mentioned the same event. Amalthea cut the conversation off by hooking my arm with hers and leading us from the shop. Once we had gone half a block, I finally asked her for details.

“Why is everyone so focused on me attending the Tri-Lunar Eclipse?”

Thea wove us expertly through the crowded streets. It was the middle of the night, which was effectively midday for vampires. “ Who is everyone? Those ninnies?”

Okay, everyone was an exaggeration. But I spoke to hardly any vampires, and twice now it had come up. “Them, others,” I said vaguely. “It seems important.”

“It is,” Thea admitted slowly, still shepherding me along.

“It’s a rare event. Eclipses hold particular significance in vampire culture, and the tri-lunar one is rare enough it’s seen as quite the event.

There’s a whole assortment of customs, speeches given, and so on.

Honestly, I think the vampires just want something to make a fuss about given their overly long lives. ”

It sounded like any other ball. But there was something a little too casual about her explanation. “That doesn’t explain why they’re so focused on me specifically,” I pressed.

Thea didn’t seem to want to answer based on the long pause before she spoke again. “As I said, there are customs. And one of them revolves around the king drinking from his Chosen. There’s a whole lot to do with the symbol of power, prosperity, and on and on.”

I stopped in the middle of the street, feet suddenly rooted in the spot. Thea halted abruptly with me since we still had our arms linked. “Raphael intends to drink from me? At this ceremony?”

“It is the custom,” Amalthea said, voice carefully neutral. “Besides, being bitten isn’t unpleasant, is it?”