As soon as she arrives with Pryana at her side, I know this is a mistake. Pryana’s eyes travel along the walls of my living room, taking in the upholstered sofas and carved tables, all the essence of elegance and wealth.
“Aren’t you moving up in the world.” Pryana isn’t asking me a question. It’s merely an observation—one that reeks of annoyance. This should have been her life.
“It’s not really my taste,” I say, leading them through the apartment to the bedroom. My closet is preconfigured for fittings, with mirror-lined platforms and ample space to work.
Amie dashes in and starts plucking gowns from the racks, holding them up to her slender figure as she eyes herself in the full-length mirror.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to have taste as Cormac’s wife.” Pryana speaks in a quiet voice that only I can hear.
“I’m not terribly interested in mirroring my … fiancé’s tastes,” I say.
“How modern of you,” Pryana says. She wanders through my closet, picking up heels from the shoe racks and examining them. “And stupid.”
I snatch the shoes back from her. “I’m known for my abstinence.”
Before the nastiness can escalate between us, Amie coughs politely. I don’t want her caught in the middle of our feud, especially since I can’t trust Pryana’s motivations for getting close to her. But Amie might as well know how Pryana and I feel about each other.
The seamstresses arrive and maids take our dresses, hanging them to wait while we’re measured and sized. Standing with my sister and my old enemy in nothing more than a wispy slip, I feel surprisingly vulnerable. I thought I would outgrow feeling awkward around Pryana, but she’s still as poised as ever. One thing I’m definitely not.
“I love the lace on your hem,” Amie says, darting over to study it. “I think it must be Chantilly.”
It’s such a silly thing to notice, and yet some of the tension in the room evaporates.
“Amie knows everything about textiles,” Pryana explains to me after I give my sister a curious look.
“If I don’t get chosen as a Spinster,” Amie whispers to me, “I want to be assigned to make the dresses.”
I smile at her. For a second, she’s five years old and we’re back in our living room in Romen, splayed out on the floor, watching Spinsters stroll the purple carpet at the State of the Guild address.
We were innocent then, seeing only the beautiful surface of Arras’s elite class. Knowing Amie still studies dresses makes me feel as though a balloon filled with happiness is inflating inside my chest. Somehow, even with everything she’s been through, this hasn’t changed. It brings me hope.
“You would make beautiful dresses,” I tell her. And you’ll be safe doing it, I add silently. No one would spare a second thought for a seamstress.
“Perhaps she’d make a better Spinster,” Pryana suggests.
“Oh, I still want to be a Spinster,” Amie says, grabbing my hands. “Don’t worry, Adelice. I’ll make you proud.”
Behind her Pryana raises an eyebrow.
That’s about the last thing that would make me proud, but I don’t say this in front of the group. To my surprise, the same concern seems to be reflected in Pryana’s eyes.
They could only spare two seamstresses for our fitting and Amie insists on watching Pryana and me go first.
“This is my favorite part. I like to learn how they do it and it’s hard while you’re the one being fitted,” she explains. Pryana and I glance at each other but we don’t argue with her. I climb onto the platform and a girl begins measuring my arms. Pryana stands directly across from me and it’s like looking in a warped mirror as the seamstresses stretch the tapes across our limbs. Over our busts. Around our waists. Pryana not only seems older to me now, if only slightly, but I realize, as we stand parallel to each other, that she looks older as well.
Pryana isn’t the girl she was when I met her during orientation. Not anymore. That first day Pryana was wild, asking questions without pause and fluttering her eyelashes at the valets and officials. She was everything a Spinster could be. She believed in her role here, and her right to hold it. Now she’s composed and polished. But underneath the veneer of self-assurance something is broken. I know how this happened, of course. I know she was set to be my replacement both as Creweler and as Cormac’s wife. For a girl with as much ambition as Pryana once displayed, rejection must have destroyed something vital in her.
But she isn’t trying to kill me. At least I don’t think she is. It’s a start.
“You’ve lost weight,” the seamstress says to me, checking her chart. “It’s been too long since your last fitting.”
The measurements on file are not that old. I stood on a platform like this less than four months ago by my time, preparing to escort Cormac to the State of the Guild, but to the seamstress those measurements are two years old. A lot of time has passed in Arras since I escaped to Earth. But for me, I’d only been gone for a few months. I couldn’t exactly explain that to the seamstress.
“She must not be eating enough,” Pryana says, and for one second there is a flash of the old Pryana, the one who could be equal parts clever and cruel. A sudden thought sends a chill up my spine: Why hasn’t Cormac altered her memory or wiped it completely?
The seamstress is encouraged by Pryana’s participation and continues: “I can’t understand why they would let you go this long between fittings, especially with the amount of traveling you’ll be doing soon.”
“Traveling?” I ask.
Amie looks up from the chart she’s swiped from the seamstress and laughs. “Didn’t Cormac tell you? This was his idea. He said you would need appropriate clothing for your trips.”
They all wait for my reaction but I shrug. “He’s not the most talkative.”
“Not lately,” the seamstress says, popping a pin from between her gritted teeth and fastening a swath of fabric around my waist.
“Maybe Adelice and Cormac are too busy to talk,” Pryana suggests. Amie looks horrified but the seamstresses giggle.
“Don’t,” Amie warns. “You’ll make me sick.”
“You aren’t excited about the wedding?” Pryana’s seamstress asks Amie.
Amie looks torn between shaking her head and nodding. “I’m happy for them, but Ad is my sister and Cormac is like my father.”
A wave of revulsion tumbles through my stomach. Like my father. Cormac is the reason she has no father. He took that away from her and now he dares to assume the role. I know better. Amie is a pawn—as expendable as anyone else in this twisted game. If he ceases to need her, she’ll be tossed down to Earth or left to waste away in a coventry without a second thought. I can’t imagine him expending enough energy to love a child.
“That does make things … complicated,” the seamstress says. I wonder if my relationship to Amie is common knowledge or not.
“But your bridesmaid’s dress will be beautiful,” Pryana says, directing Amie’s attention away from the painful topic. “And I imagine you’ll probably wear it on the purple carpet.”
“Do you think so?” Amie practically squeals the question.
“I’m sure the wedding will be a gala event.”
“What if I’m not invited?”
No part of me is looking forward to my nuptials with Cormac. But despite that, there is a little part of me that can see Amie fussing with my train and holding my bouquet.
“You’re invited,” I say. If I actually go through with the wedding, I dare Cormac to tell me my sister can’t come.
“Oh, thank you, Adelice.” Without thinking, Amie lunges forward and hugs me. It catches me off guard and before I can enjoy it, she pulls back, wincing. “Sewing pins!”
“You might want to save the hugging until I’ve finished,” the seamstress says.
“Did I miss the hugging?” a voice calls in from the bedroom. I don’t have to wait to see her to know that voice. I’ve heard it in a dark cell and in a quiet salon, whispered in my ear and
shouted across a room.
She enters and I note she still has the violet eyes, but she’s cultivated a striking streak of gray in her raven locks. Other than that, she doesn’t look a day older than when I left. Apparently she’s aging gracefully and slowly.
“What a surprise, Maela,” I say.
Amie freezes for a moment and I can’t figure out why. For a second I want to grab Maela and demand to know what she’s done to my little sister. I’ve borne the brunt of Maela’s anger before. I know the twisted feats she’s capable of. But instead I press my scarred fingertips together and muster up a false smile.
“I heard I was missing a party, and you know how I love parties.” Her voice is full of trills and bells, masking the darkness she hides. A darkness that sneaks up on you before you realize you’re in danger.
“We should have invited you,” Pryana says apologetically, but I don’t believe for a moment that there’s any love lost between them.
“I am your mentor,” Maela reminds her.
That’s new. Pryana had been assigned to someone else when I was here last.
“You were my mentor,” Pryana corrects her in a gentle voice. The whole interaction is strange. Maela displaying her usual penchant for the dramatic interpretation of events while Pryana stays collected, even distant.
“She pretends to be Creweler for a few months and forgets the little people who helped her get there,” Maela says to me.
I wonder what Maela thinks of me, if she’s been allowed to remember our past. Regardless, she clearly still hates me.
The activity continues in the room, but the seamstresses have slowed their progress, obviously not wanting to miss anything that passes between the three of us. They listen, holding their breath like the pins clamped between their teeth.
“Are they designing your wedding dress?” Maela asks. Her voice is sugary like too-sweet tea, and equally hard to swallow.
I shake my head. “Not yet. We still have plenty of time for that.”
“Oh,” she says in a thoughtful voice. “I heard differently.”
Trust Maela to come in and act like the most important woman in the Coventry. She behaved the same way when she oversaw my brief training on the looms. I know better than to believe a word she says.
“There are plenty of rumors flying around the Coventry these days, Maela,” Pryana says, almost as if she’s coming to my defense. Apparently we both now view Maela with the apprehension she deserves, but that doesn’t make us friends yet.
“I came to speak to Adelice,” Maela says, not rising to Pryana’s bait.
“You’re in luck then,” I say, tilting my head in invitation.
Maela’s lips purse tightly as she glances at the other people in the room. “It hasn’t been announced officially yet,” she says with an emphasis bordering on warning, “but you’ll be hosting a loom demonstration at the end of the week.”
My heart slams against my chest and it takes every ounce of willpower not to smile, a reaction I don’t quite understand. “For whom?” I manage to ask as my fingers begin to tingle.
Maela’s lip curls up at my reaction. “For the Stream. Cormac wants to show you off.”
The excitement leaches from me slowly, fading out until it reaches my twitching fingertips and is replaced by a chill that numbs my body. A distraction. He wants to use me as a distraction, and then I’ll be locked away again.
“I’ll be overseeing the filming,” Maela continues.
But I already knew Cormac wouldn’t be there. Something has his attention elsewhere—something terrible if he’s using me as a decoy to distract Arras.
“Thank you for letting me know,” I whisper.
Maela scans my face as though she senses the shift in my reaction, but in the end she doesn’t care. “I should be going. I have plenty of things to do.”
As soon as Maela exits the room, Pryana lets out a low whistle. “I’m sure there are plenty of young Spinsters to terrify.”
“I wondered when she was going to show her face. I was always a favorite of hers,” I add. Pryana and I share a laugh.
Amie lets out a nervous giggle. She hasn’t spoken since Maela’s impromptu entrance, and I can’t say I blame her.
“Maela can be very intimidating,” I say to Amie, hoping to put her back at ease. “It’s her most winning personality trait.”
“I would hate to see her other characteristics, then.” Amie twists a piece of lace around her fingers.
“Yes, you would,” Pryana agrees.
“What other rumors are flying around the Coventry?” I ask. It’s hard to find the courage to bring this up, because I don’t trust Pryana. However, she’s out there, and I know she hears all the gossip.
“Nothing new. Spinsters sneaking around with valets. Ministers engaging in dirty politics,” she answers, without giving me any concrete examples.
“I want to know the rumors about Cormac.” I’m taking a chance admitting this is what I want to know. Neither Amie nor Pryana has any loyalty to me. As it is, they might only be around to report back to Cormac. But my situation can’t get any worse. I don’t expect to get a straight answer from Pryana, but even if she is spying for him I have nothing to lose.
“They say he’s going mad.” Pryana’s answer sucks the air from my lungs.
I’d thought the same thing. But how widespread were the rumors? There were always plenty of rumors at the Coventry. Usually they were tangled with a string of truth.
“He’s losing his mind because the Whorl is coming,” the seamstress says in a whisper. My eyes flash to Pryana’s and she nods. I’m uncertain how to respond. How did a seamstress at the Coventry hear of the Whorl?
“Everyone is jealous,” Amie says in a burst of annoyance.
“Jealous of what?” I ask.
“You,” she says. There’s a furious blush on her fair skin as she speaks. “They’re jealous that he’s marrying you and that’s why everyone is spreading lies about him.”
Cormac had thoroughly ingratiated himself with Amie in my absence. If anyone is going to tattle on me it’ll be her, I realize sadly.
Still, Amie might as well know the truth. I have enough lies to keep straight. It isn’t a secret that I don’t want to marry Cormac. “They’re welcome to him.”
It was the wrong thing to say with Pryana in the room and I immediately wish I could take it back.
“He wants you to be happy, Ad,” Amie says in a quiet voice. The room falls silent, and the fitting ends without any more words exchanged between us.
One of the seamstresses starts to hum an old melody my mother used to sing to me as a child. When I look at Amie, tears glisten in her eyes. She remembers it, I’m sure. But I’m not certain if she can place it; those little moments of our lives before may have been wiped from her mind. The damage Cormac did to her is severe and I’m not sure it can be undone. Valery overcame his tinkering, though perhaps only briefly. For all I know she could have turned on Dante and the Agenda the moment I left with Cormac. I doubt it, though. Alteration can change many things about a person but still not affect her true essence. There’s only one way to permanently alter someone’s personality and I knew from my interactions with our mother that Cormac hadn’t gone that far with my sister. Amie still has her soul.
There’s an awkward pause we should fill with a hug, but neither of us is ready for that. Instead we say goodbye.
Pryana stops at the door, shooing Amie along, and I brace myself.
“I’m not going to hit you,” she says.
“You’ve hit me before,” I remind her, my fingers rubbing my jaw to relieve the echo of pain the memory recalls.
“Things have changed around here, Adelice.” Each of Pryana’s words is heavy, laced with a meaning I don’t quite understand. “Keep your eyes open.”
After they leave, I walk from room to room, surveying the emptiness that’s more acute than ever.
And even more dangerous.
NINE
THE CR
EWS CLUSTER INTO THE STUDIO SPACE, setting up lighting equipment and cameras. The studio is bare and simple, but large enough to fit the dozen or so crew members who will film my profile for this evening’s Stream broadcast. I tug at my short skirt, feeling too exposed already. I’m not eager to be filmed, but Cormac arranged this as a way to introduce me before we begin a publicity tour through Arras—a fact that makes me even less interested in performing for the cameras. I’ve been dressed in a pink wool suit with gold buttons on the lapels because Cormac says it’s matronly.
Exactly how a sixteen-year-old wants to be described.
He wants me to look like a wife, not a teenage girl, but I’m not sure a wool suit will hide our massive age difference.
Maela is handling my preparation. As neither of us has killed the other yet, I’d say it’s going well. But then she flies back into the studio, barking out orders and shoving past several cameramen.
“We’re behind schedule already,” she complains loudly. “Are none of you capable of working in a timely fashion?”
“We were waiting for you,” I tell her. This isn’t entirely true, but I can’t imagine starting without her. She probably would have interrupted the broadcast to throw a hissy fit.
“The program is supposed to stream in five minutes,” she says.
“Ma’am, we’re ready to go live. If Miss Lewys is prepared to begin, we’ll start right on time,” a cameraman says. He glowers at her as he speaks, and Maela balks. I wonder if she’s more upset that he dared to stand up to her or if she’s angry that he called her ma’am.
“Adelice.” She sweeps over to me and hovers. “You will simply be adjusting a rainstorm in the Southern Sector. As we discussed, another Spinster will oversee your work from the main studios.”
Because I’m too dangerous to trust with a loom. I stare at the loom procured for my use. It feels like a million years since I’ve woven on one and its gears sing out to me, my fingers itching to touch it. I have held the naked matter of the universe, but it was never as peaceful as the act of spinning the refined weave of Arras. There is a harmony to the precise patterns used to construct this world and working with them is as second nature to me as breathing.
Unraveled Page 7
