Page 94 of A Dress for the Wicked
She stepped close to me so I could hear her. Her breath was hot against my skin. “Everything that was supposed to be mine—it’s all yours.”
“What?”
“I’ve always wanted to design. When the Reformists pressured Madame Jolène to include someone different, I asked Madame Jolène if it could be me. Do you know what she said?”
I could barely hear Tilda over the noise. Sophie was pulling on my arm, trying to draw me away. But Tilda’s eyes fixed me in place.
“It was you,” I said, all the pieces coming together in my head to form one horrifying whole. “You took my welcome letter and ruined my sketches. And my mother’s letters. You stole them.”
“That man—Mr. Taylor—he told Madame Jolène that the new candidate couldn’t just be poor. She had to be from thecountry, too. So I was forced to stay a maid and serve you and watch you and—” She took a raggedy breath. “But it doesn’t matter. I saw Mr. Taylor and he said I could be part of the Reformists movement. All I have to do is stop you.”
“Stop me?”
“Yes. That’s the thing about the city. People remember dresses, yes, but they remember scandals so much more.”
With that, she launched at me. I hardly registered what was happening until I hit the ground. Her hands clawed at my beautiful dress and the sound of ripping fabric cut through the air. We landed out on the stage and, almost immediately, the clapping turned to gasps.
“Get off me!”
I kicked with all my might and struggled to free myself from her hands. We rolled to one side and the bright flash of the stage lights flared in my eyes. I heard glass breaking as we shattered the light and something hard punctured my ankle.
The models and Sophie rushed forward, pulling Tilda off me. Her nails sank into my skin before she was yanked away. I sat up. The air was hazy and thick. It swam in front of my eyes and circled around me. I smelled something acrid. Fire. Flames from the stage lights were licking across the stage and eating their way up the stage curtain. The red velvet curled beneath the fire’s heat and little orange sparks speckled the fabric and danced through the air.
“Fire!” someone shouted. “Fire!”
I pushed myself onto my knees and then to my feet, tripping on my skirts. Dark shapes rushed past me. It was the models, running off the stage. Sophie came up behind me.
“We need to get out of here!”
The flames reached all the way up the curtain and fanned out across the top of the stage. Now there was crackling and hissing, sounds I heard often in Shy when my mother lit fires in our fireplace. It was the sound of flames fed by wood. The stage was on fire, not just the curtains.
There was only one place we could go: behind the stage. We plunged into the small space beyond the flame-engulfed curtains. It was filled with hot smoke that swirled as we moved through it. All I could see were flames above us and the gray shapes of garment bags around us.
I groped for the rickety wooden ladder nailed to the wall. It led up to the platform hanging over the stage. We could climb up the ladder, make our way across the boards, and get down by the other ladder on the far side of the platform.
It wasn’t wise to climb it. The smoke was rising, billowing its way to the ceiling and forming a massive gray cloud against the roof. Fire engulfed the curtains hanging across the top of the stage and they were only a few feet from the platform.
“Climb!” I screamed into Sophie’s ear. Smoke filled my mouth, searing my tongue and throat. We had to go up, up where it was hotter. I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know if I could climb up into the smoke. But there wasn’t any other choice.
Sophie started to climb up the ladder. Once she was far enough above me, I put my foot on the first rung. My heel slipped off. I grabbed the ladder with one hand and a handful of my gown in the other and started climbing. The heatincreased until tears streamed down my face and my skin blistered against my dress.
Up. Up. Up.
I reached the platform and barely hauled myself over onto it. My muscles shook and cinders nipped at my face, hands, neck. I wanted to curl up and close it all out. But I had to keep moving. I got to my feet. Sophie stood next to me, staring over the edge of the platform.
“Sophie!” I croaked. “Come on.”
She was frozen, staring down at the flames below. I grabbed her arm, jerking her hard across the moaning platform to the ladder on the other side where the fire hadn’t yet reached. I held Sophie’s hand as she swung her legs over the side and started down the ladder. Once she made it halfway down, I hoisted myself around the ladder and moved down, my skirts catching every few feet on the nails and wood. When my feet touched the bottom, my knees buckled beneath me.
All of a sudden, strong arms enveloped me, lifting me completely off the ground.
Tristan.
Outside the theater, rain poured down on me, soothing my blistering skin and smoke-filled eyes. I coughed and coughed, trying to expel the ashy stinging in my chest. But no matter how much I heaved, the awful pain just behind my heart remained.
Tristan held me tightly, his hand running through my hair, cinders flaking out of my locks.
“Are you all right? I was—” His voice caught, and it wasn’tfrom the smoke-filled air. He cleared his throat vigorously. “I was terrified I’d lost you.”
