Page 29 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

“Ignore her,” the face-changer says. “You can call me Carver.”

A beat. “Vesper.”

“Sit.” She gestures, and I take a seat on the edge of a crate in front of the mirror. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” Her voice is soft, girlish.

“What can you do?” I ask.

She smiles. “Anything and everything. But you don’t need to trust my word. Trust your eyes. Look at me.”

A girl sweet as honey, with rose-petal lips, softly blushing cheeks, a pink tinge to the tip of her nose. She looks at her hands, her movements timid and gentle, and her long dark eyelashes sweep over high, rounded cheekbones. Her dark hair falls in sweet curls, and a heavy fringe covers her forehead, drawing attention to her huge eyes. She holds herself still, her posture radiating shyness.

She looks far too innocent to belong to the fifth. Far too sweet to be capable of anything besides sipping tea and frolicking through gardens.

I wouldn’t know what to do with a face like that.

Her eyes flick up to my face, and in them I see a wry intelligence. Her posture suddenly loosens, and the demure frown widens into a lazy smirk. The illusion—for that’s what it was—is broken. The doll face comes alive, and suddenly a real girl stands before me. She has the same sweet features, but without the stillness and the act of shyness, the aura of innocence is gone.

It’s a lesson. The doll is a mask, an act, created by careful attention to detail. Part carefully coiffed hair and meticulous face-paint, part posture and expression.

“Looking like this has a lot of uses. People underestimate me, and I can go where I like. You wouldn’t believe what people are willing to tell this face.” This voice is different from the one she used before.

“You mean the color.” I gesture at her rose-colored lips. “And the act?”

“That’s just the edge of the stormcloud, love. My art involves a lot of skill and a little ikonomancy. I wasn’t born with cheeks quite so high, nor eyes so big, nor lips so”—she smacks her lips—“luscious.”

She leans against a stack of crates, waiting for me to say something.

“Impressive.” And a little unsettling. Who is she, really?

Who could I be?

She winks at me. “Let’s take a look at you.”

Carver moves to stand behind me, meeting my eyes through the mirror. She runs her hands through my hair. “Like a third-ringer, you said? We can go for the look they love so much. Unless you have any specific requests?”

I drop my gaze from her eyes to meet my own. Pa’s eyes, Ma’s lips. My heart twinges at the thought of the traces of them disappearing from my face. But the change will only be temporary, until I’ve got Pa back. He’ll know how to set me right.

I shake my head.

Carver gets down to business. “You’re not the type that cries over hair, are you?”

My lips quirk. Even if I was, I’m all out of tears. “No.”

She pulls a pair of scissors out of a case and begins to work. I watch my hair fall. The same inky black as Ma’s hair. A tiny pang of loss surprises me, makes me sick. This is the least I can sacrifice.

My hair has always been long, stretching halfway down my back. She cuts it down to a little past my shoulders and trims a few locks so they fall in my eyes.

“Now we’ll change the shape of your face, just a smidgen.” She goes to a crate, the only one padlocked, and undoes the lock. She brings back something bundled in cloth. “Anything you ever wished was different? The ikon will hold stronger if it’s a face you can easily accept as yours, if we alter something you’ve already thought to change. But the flesh remembers, and the ikon will only hold so long—it’s tied to your self-image.”

I find myself thinking not of my face but the faces of the cursed, the past and present inhabitants of Amma’s. There had been one girl, Gelsomina, who as part of her curse been given shocking beauty, beauty like a force of nature, the kind that drew our eyes and made it addicting to look at her. I’d bitten back the little demon of jealousy by reminding myself that she was cursed, that it would be a burden to look like her. Now I’m tested. How would I feel, if that face were mine?

My eyelashes could be longer, I decide. My cheeks could be fuller, softer. My nose a little sharper. I soon find something to change about each of my features.

And then I remember how Gelsomina would claw at her face eachnight, bloodying herself, though by morning her skin would have knitted itself back together, and she’d be as gorgeous as ever. This isn’t about beauty. This is about getting what I need from the Wardana. This is about being able to get close to the prince without him recognizing me.

I shake my head. “Give me something I can use. A face with a little power.”

“Leave it to me.”