Page 54

Mira Morgenstern’s worst quality was also her best one, depending on the circumstances.

Some days, hell was hammering at your door and you were about to piss yourself in fear.

Others, you’d won a bet, had a spectacular night at the tavern, and woke up marvelously well-rested.

Either way, Mira did not give one singular shit about your feelings.

This was how Kat found herself settled primly at her centurion’s side on a cushioned bench, watching as Bodhi, Daya, Celia, and Faye made themselves comfortable on the couches in the middle of the tailor’s suite.

From the glimpse she’d caught of herself in a mirror at the entrance, she knew her eyes were red-rimmed. Mira hadn’t asked.

“If we’re not careful, they’ll mistake us for the valets,” Kat muttered under her breath.

“The tailors have received the prince’s instructions,” Mira muttered back.

The centurion was looking far better than she had just a few days prior, after the Lesser Lord’s attack, but she still moved with a stiffness that betrayed how recently the healers had stitched her back together.

“He wants his Aureans presentable for the ball,” she continued.

“I tried to impress on him that Mobbert would be far better at this sort of thing, but he insisted we join his companions for a proper fitting and instructed us to bill the damages to his own account.”

From the look of this place, the damages would be significant.

The salon where they’d been settled was grand and elegant, with high arching ceilings and angelic figures sculpted into the moldings that lined the walls.

The rest of the Third Century would be issued fine dress uniforms for the parade and ball, but those would be mass-produced in a range of sizes that would encompass the needs of the unit.

Whatever fine craftsmanship they produced in these halls would cost months of Kat’s wages.

She’d thought herself acclimated to wealth by all the time she’d spent with the highborns on the road campaign, but now she realized she’d only ever been sticking her toes in the water.

Ifshe was to go through with the only serious option left to improve her prospects, she’d have to accept this plunge.

“You’re going to have to tell me what the order of operations is here,” Kat muttered to her centurion under her breath.

“Well, first there will be treats and tea,” Mira said, nodding to a young girl who’d emerged from the shop’s rear with a set of tiered trays.

“As Faye would tell you, it’s part of good hosting and better business according to the Codex.

Next, they’ll bring out the racks and let us browse for cuts and colors.

Once they’ve put together an idea of our preferences, the head tailor will guide us through our options and whatever alterations might be necessary to have the garments ready by the end of the week. ”

“Something tells me I might need quite a few,” Kat said.

Mira snorted. “You and me both.” She caught Kat’s incredulous look and flexed her shoulders subtly, smothering a wince as she strained the fabric of the loose shirtsleeves she wore.

“Most tailors don’t style for a muscled body, no matter how large or small.

House Morgenstern keeps a particular artisan on retainer because they’re one of the few in the capital that dedicates a portion of their line to high-ranking soldiers. ”

“Then why didn’t we go to them?”

“Why indeed,” Mira said with a dark look at the Aureans, who had fallen onto the tea service like a pack of wild dogs. “Apparently this tailor owes the Ranjan aristocracy a favor or two.”

“They need discounts?” Kat asked.

“They do not,” Mira replied. “But calling in a favor has its own weight among the upper houses.”

Kat’s memory reeled for any past favors she might have promised to any of the highborns. She wasn’t comforted by the blank she was drawing, but before she could begin to fret in earnest, the young girl approached with her bounty of baked goods.

“Beg your pardon, my ladies,” she said in a trembling voice. She couldn’t be more than ten. “There isn’t a table, but if you’d like…” The girl held the tiered trays up in front of them.

Kat leaned forward eagerly, scoping out the offerings.

She’d never seen such a variety of pastries outside the windows of the inner-city bakeries, and the delicate aroma that washed over her was nigh impossible to parse—a wave of buttery, sugary, fruit-tinged excellence.

She was almost afraid to lay her fingers over some of the finer confections, and instead narrowed her evaluation to the sturdier-looking scones.

One was flecked with strawberry bits. She nearly reached for it, then hesitated and instead laid claim to the adjacent scone dusted in shaved orange peels.

As Kat had been making her choice, the serving girl’s eyes hadn’t moved from the token that hung around her neck. “Thank you,” Kat said gently, and the girl jolted. “Do you like Aurean magic?”

The girl’s gaze flicked nervously to Mira, who was wholly occupied with the fruit tart she’d grabbed. She nodded once, decisively.

Kat slid her free hand under her token and held it out to the end of its chain.

“Let me take that off your hands, and you hold on to this for me,” she said, laying the scone down in her lap so she could relieve the girl of her burden.

The kid’s eyes went wide, but the hand she held out was eager and her tiny fingers closed over the gold.

It was the most natural alignment Kat had ever fallen into.

Pure artistry, loosed from somewhere deep within her, the angels invited along for the ride.

Not even the thought of Mira looking on could tense her up, and she released a long, slow breath as warm light speared from the little girl’s grasp.

The kid let out a soft oh, an eager grin spreading across her lips.

She leaned in close enough that Kat tamped down the light just in case she was in danger of burning the poor girl’s eyes out.

There was a rightness to this—to the ease with which she’d melted away any hint of the girl’s prior timidity.

If she didn’t have places to be and royal balls to attend, she could have done this all day.

Maybe this was how her mother had felt every time she made the shadows dance on the walls.

“Katrien,” Mira said firmly, and Kat stiffened, snuffing her light. “Let’s not take too much more of the young lady’s time. Thank you, miss,” her centurion added as the girl let Kat’s token slip from her grasp and took back her serving trays.

The prince’s companions waited until the girl had scurried out of the room to make their thoughts known. “You shouldn’t taunt them like that,” Celia said idly.

“Don’t be a bitch,” Daya snorted.

Celia rolled her eyes. Kat got the sense both that very little on this continent could keep Celia from bitchiness, and that Celia wouldn’t have it any other way. “I just mean that it’s cruel, dangling what they can’t have in front of their faces.”

Kat let the undefined “they” go unchallenged, but only barely. “I thought it might brighten her day,” she offered.

“I’m sure it did,” Faye interjected. “And it was very kind of you. I think the rest of us have been reared with a sense of…let’s call it responsibility.”

“I was going to say class, ” Daya chimedin.

“Now who’s being a bitch?” Celia sniffed.

As the two of them fell into the old, comfortable rhythm of a squabbling match, Faye beckoned to Kat, then patted the space on the couch next to her. “This is your first time at an establishment like this, is it not? It’s only polite that we show you the ropes.”

Kat caught Mira’s eye, but her centurion only jerked her chin the way Mira tended to when she couldn’t be bothered to verbalize what would otherwise be a direct order.

Kat nodded, downed her scone in a single bite that left little room to enjoy the subtleties of the orange flavoring, and crossed the salon to settle herself carefully on the couch next to Faye.

“What cut were you thinking?” Bodhi said from her left, leaning in eagerly to place his elbows on his knees.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about cuts,” Kat replied. “I’m not even that handy with a sword,” she added, which got enough light chuckles to be worthwhile.

“In the Vayan courts, many Telrusians have taken up a fusion of styles I could see looking quite magnificent on your figure,” Bodhi said.

“It’s a more billowy silhouette, which can be read as an attempt to take up more space than you’re owed, but in a case such as yours, I believe it would be justified. ”

Faye had already summoned the tailor. An assistant whisked into the salon with a rack of colorful vestments, all of them just as billowy as promised.

Kat tamped down the heat in her cheeks as she rose to peruse them.

She should have been more delicate with the pastries—she barely felt worthy of running her fingers over the fine fabrics.

Pulling out a dress that caught her eye immediately clarified Bodhi’s statement.

The garment was pleated such that its folds swelled out from the loose band that gathered them at the waist, and the bodice drooped generously from the collar.

An outer jacket went over the whole ensemble with wide, flowing sleeves.

The cut would certainly work on her, though the jacket on the rack would be lucky if it survived an encounter with the broadness of her shoulders and the hem would call it a good day if it could make it to her knees.

“It’s nice,” she said. “I just think it’s a bit small.”

“You’ll never know until you—” Bodhi started.

Kat held the dress up against her body for emphasis.

“—I see what you mean,” he concluded.

“Maybe we start from what fits and then go from there,” Faye suggested.