Treacherous Witch

"The ideal young lady possesses five virtues: chastity, humility, patience, kindness, and faith. But never fear. If you are lacking in any such aspect, a little teaching will go a long way."

Lady Briony Bretton's Guide to Court Etiquette for Promising Young Ladies

The transformation took place over the next week. She had the furniture in the sitting room rearranged to make way for the worktable, tools, and clothes rails delivered from the store. She ordered fabrics and new thread too, adding the little sewing kit that Lady Melody had gifted her to the array of equipment. A part of her did feel guilty about it, because she was taking away valuable equipment from the family business, but she squashed that. If that was all the Crescents suffered, and she hoped it was, then it could be worse.

The change was in the mind as much as anything else, she decided. She had to think of these quarters as hers. Not Queen Shikra's. Her bedchamber. Her tools. Her fabrics.

Lord Avon may have helped inadvertently, she thought, by making her a courtesan and not officially a prisoner. She had status in the court. She had to hold her head high about that too.

"You seem happier," Lady Flavia observed on one of their picnics, Valerie lying on her back watching the clouds scud across the sky.

"I am," she said. She'd started on a new dress that morning and felt the change at once: the familiarity of the worktable, the measuring tape, the pins. "I know my place here now."

"What is he like, Lord Avon? You know, in private."

The other ladies huddled closer, eager to hear. She still thought Lady Melody was a terrible snob, but they were all right in their own way. She wouldn't miss them, but they'd been kind enough.

"Not much different to in public," Valerie said, although come to think of it she'd hardly seen him in public. He'd only joined them for dinner on two occasions, and he hadn't talked much with anyone other than Lord Gideon.

"She means in the bedchamber, darling," said Melody, looking up from braiding Lady Rose's hair.

"Oh." She swallowed. He hadn't touched her. Of all the reasons she had to hate him, that wasn't one of them. Still, there was no reason to be kind. "I'd say mediocre. Do Drakonian men tend to be disappointing?"

Melody laughed. "That depends on the man. Do they compare so badly to the Maskamery?"

She thought of Markus and flushed. Once upon a time they had been more than friends. After fleeing the ruins of her village, it had been a long and difficult journey to the capital city. They'd found comfort in each other. As things settled down, those feelings had faded, and she'd naturally expected them to fall back into friendship.

Then he'd told her that he loved her.

While Valerie tried to wrestle away that particular memory, Flavia answered for her. "In my experience, yes."

She went on to tell the story of her dreadful first dinner with Lord Thorne and his clumsy attempts at courtship which had the other ladies in fits of laughter. Valerie was grateful for the distraction. She didn't want to dwell on Markus, who was probably toiling away in some field. She had to trust that Aurelia or the resistance would find some way to help him.

Right now, all she could see when she thought of him was his face when she'd told him that she didn't love him back. He'd looked utterly crushed. Then angry, those red spots appearing in his cheeks that signalled a burst of temper. He had demanded to know why, as if such feelings had a rational explanation.

She had shaken her head. "I was alone and scared. I needed you, but that's not the same as—"

He'd interrupted her. "And now you're with your family, you don't need me anymore? What am I to you, Val? A bodyguard? A warm body? A dog on a leash?"

It was the most hurtful thing he'd ever said to her. She'd blinked back tears. "I thought you were my friend."

"Do you want me to go? Because I'll go."

This argument had taken place in a stable. The Crescents kept one horse in a field they shared with two neighbouring families. She remembered clearly how he had pulled at the horse's reins in the stall, as if he intended to ride off right there and then.

She'd taken his hands. "No, Markus—that's not what I meant. You have a place here, you know you do."

"But I'm not their blood. I'm nothing without you."

How could anyone answer that?

*

She thought of her family more and more while she worked on the new dress. How much they'd miss her. (Lavinia: a lot. Kamila: not at all.) What they might be doing without her. Her spellwork had become indispensable to them, and the family business would suffer in her absence.

As her fingers wove needle and thread, she could let her mind wander without losing focus. Messy unrequited love, family ties... In the end, they were only distractions. The goal was all that mattered. She'd never wavered from it, and she wouldn't waver from it now, no matter how long it took. Restore the silvertrees. Bring back magic to Maskamere.

A sharp rap at the door startled Valerie out of her reverie.

Then Lord Avon stalked in and she jumped, dropping the ball of thread which rolled across the floor and almost to his feet.

He picked it up. "Valerie. I see you've wasted no time. May I...?"

She nodded, taking the ball of thread when he offered it. Then she showed him the half-finished dress. It was being worn by a mannequin, the skirts pinched up and covered in pins. She wasn't making it from scratch; she'd taken the plainest gown from her wardrobe and adjusted it, ripping off the sleeves and adding another layer of fabric to the skirt.

Explaining the process to him calmed her nerves. My domain, she reminded herself. He's the visitor here.

"Do you have everything you need?" he asked, walking around with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Yes, my lord."

"I have a gift for you," he said, and she didn't know what to make of that. Maybe another sewing kit. "Come with me."

He beckoned her over to the bedchamber. She followed him, half-uneasy, half-intrigued. Then he reached out, and she saw that he was holding a bronze key. He nodded at the locked door in the bedchamber, the one that she had never been able to open.

"Open it."

Cautiously, she took the key and approached the door while Avon stood a little way behind. She opened the door, triggering a soft magical light, and her eyes widened.

"This was Queen Shikra's wardrobe," Avon said. "Her gowns of state."

It was that and more. She could hardly take it in. An entire room for the queen's clothes: rows and rows of gowns of all colours and styles, from traditional Maskamery to others she didn't recognise. There was a shelf devoted entirely to shoes, a set of drawers, a full-length mirror, jewellery boxes, headscarfs...

"It's yours," said Avon.

She turned back to him in disbelief. "Mine?"

"I'd like you to have them. To wear, to work with, as you see fit."

"But I can't..." She swallowed. These belonged to the deceased queen. It would be disrespectful. "They may not fit."

"You're a seamstress, aren't you?" He stepped forward, joining her at the entrance to the wardrobe and cast his eyes over its contents. "If you were a queen going to a ball, what would you pick?"

She looked at him. Was that a serious question? But he beckoned her to go inside, so she did. She ran her hands over the beautiful satin and silk, admiring the craft that had gone into each of these gowns, every one a work of art.

Her hands tingled. She paused.

Was that...?

She stepped around to the other side of the circular clothes rail. A flash of red caught her eye. She pushed two other gowns aside, and her heart stopped.

The scarlet gown. The dress she had poured her heart and soul into, the elegant halterneck with roses embroidered from collar to hem, each one outlined with goldspun thread and studded with rubies. She had returned it to the palace, and the steward hadn't traded it after all. He'd returned it to its rightful place. It was a ballgown and a fiercely Maskamery one at that, made in the royal colours and the traditional style.

Slowly, Valerie picked up the gown. Then, heart thumping, she presented it to Lord Avon. "My lord."

"Try it on."

She blinked. "Now?"

"Yes, now." He paused, and for a horrible moment she thought that he wasn't going to move, he was going to stand and watch her undress. But then he retreated. "Take your time. Tap on my door when you're ready."

She clutched the dress in her fingers and watched him leave, standing there for a good few seconds after he'd gone.

Try it on.

She reentered the wardrobe. There she perched on the ottoman in front of the mirror and frowned at her reflection. What did he want? She should have asked him what he was playing at. Did he have some free time to indulge in this game, to dress her up like a pretty pet—and with no thought of respect to the deceased queen either. Her mouth tightened.

He wanted her to wear the dress, so she would have to wear the dress. It wouldn't fit, she knew that without trying, because the dress had been made to fit the queen. Sure enough, when she stripped out of her outer garments and attempted to slip into the gown, she found it too tight at the bust and too long. The hem was meant to skim over her ankles, but she was missing a good inch or two of height. She would have to adjust it.

It was like receiving a two-tiered cake from the finest chef in the land, every inch of it perfectly calibrated for both flavour and aesthetic appeal, and then asking the chef to go back to the kitchen and turn it into a three-tier cake. As if that was easy. As if it didn't ruin the artistic vision, never mind the bake.

You're being dramatic, she told herself. The fit wasn't that bad. She could do a temporary fix without too much damage by loosening the back and holding it with thread, then turning up the hem. Never mind that she'd embroidered the roses perfectly to the very end of the skirt—

No, she couldn't be precious. Avon had said take her time, so she would make him wait.

He'd probably waited a good half hour by the time she felt ready. She'd adjusted the gown so that it looked decent from the front if not the back. It worked better with a corset and not an underskirt, she found, the fitted corset giving her shape while the skirt flowed over her bare limbs. A little unorthodox, but they weren't going to a real ball.

Finally, she stood in front of the mirror fussing again with the top line. She didn't like the way the corset and silk pinched under her arms, but really, what did it matter? He'd see bare leg and a sharply defined bust and would no doubt approve, and she didn't care for his approval either way. She frowned, uncurling her hair from its bun to let it spill loose and at least soften her figure.

Her eyes stared back at her, dark and intense. She'd always meant to change her eyes to green like so many of the priestesses did when they received the blessing. And her hair, dark brown but not quite black, a shade or two away from the perfect raven's wing she'd dreamed of before the war. She would have put feathers in her hair.

But she had her mother's eyes, and green eyes meant witch to the Drakonians. She wouldn't ever change them now.

She adjusted the skirt one last time. Then she tapped on Avon's door before retreating into the middle of the sitting room and waiting for him to come in.

Lord Avon entered, and his expression changed. She had seen his eyes on her before, often admiring, but never breath taken. He seemed not to know what to say.

"Do you like it, my lord?" she ventured.

"Yes," he said after a moment. "I can see you're an expert in your craft."

He had absolutely no idea. It was almost funny to watch him floundering.

"I know, my lord."

He cleared his throat. "I will be attending a state visit to Enyr next week. I'd like you to come with me."

"To... to Enyr?"

"There will, in fact, be a ball. I'd like you to come to that too. Have you ever been to a ball? No, silly question. Can you dance?"

"Not ballroom dancing."

"Then I'll ensure you take lessons. You'll wear that dress and join me for a waltz."

She was speechless. Yes, he'd let her play along with the lords and ladies at court. Maskamery though she was, it wasn't hard to pick up a game of croquet. But being a courtesan in Jairah was one thing. A state visit was quite another.

"Why?" she said, finding her voice. "None of this helps me break the seal."

"You're my consort," he reminded her. "You're expected to accompany me."

Said the man who hadn't joined her for a single stroll around the gardens, any picnics, or even luncheon—all things she'd seen the other lords do from time to time. None of the ladies thought it strange. They all imagined he was too busy and too important to spend actual time with the lady he'd claimed as a lover.

"What about my magic?" she asked. Anwen had tested her twice more and recorded improvements on all counts except for the beetle, which she still couldn't spell. "Shouldn't I focus on my work?"

"I'm aware," he said. "I have every confidence in your progress. If you're ready to break the seal before our trip, well, then we'll have something to celebrate."

He smiled and lifted her hand to kiss the back of her palm. With that, he departed, leaving her staring after him. No, she thought. No, she didn't like the sound of that at all.