Page 81 of By the Orchid and the Owl
“What?” I cocked an eyebrow at him.
Coen cocked an eyebrow back. “She’s the best dressmaker from Cardina. I went straight to her tent after my last class and bought a dress for you. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t end up liking it,” he added, almost rushing through his words.
I stared at him. I’d never seen a shy version of Coen before.
“You bought me a dress for the formal?”
“Well, yeah.”
I was all too aware of Emelle watching our exchange.
“Does that mean you’re asking me to go with you?”
All that shyness vanished from his face within an instant.
“Only if you’re going to say yes.”
Then he winked at me and strutted off into the crowd without answering. From the way his hands slipped into his pockets as if he hadn’t a care in the world, you’d never know he’d just disabled a roomful of mutant vampires ten minutes ago.
“Wow.” Emelle stared after him. “He really likes you. Like, a lot.”
I had a feeling she was returning to a surface-level topic as a coping mechanism, and I clung to it furiously, looping my arms through hers so that we could barge into the crowd together. After what had just happened and what she’d said to me afterward, I didn’t want to separate from Emelle for the next several hours.
“I just hope the dress he bought actually fits me,” I managed to say.
CHAPTER
29
It did.
A week later, I patted myself in front of the bathing chamber mirrors next to Emelle and Wren, soaking in the sight of the dress Coen had picked out.
The dark green silk cascaded to the floor like liquid jade pooling at my feet. Heavy and cool, yet gloriously smooth and comfortable. A slit rose to my upper thigh on the side, allowing me to walk even more freely, and the top…
It was a V-neck that… well, just barely managed to cover my nipples. The inside halves of my breasts were gently pushed together and completely exposed to the world, the crease between them a dark, bobbing line.
I wouldn’t have worn anything like this back in Alderwick, but I couldn’t imagine wearing anythingelsehere at the Esholian Institute. Something had shifted within me since the Branding, something daring and yearning.
“That’s possibly the first time a man has ever picked the right thing in all of Esholian history,” Wren said with appraisal, eyeing me in the mirror. Then she turned to survey herself again. “He did better than me, anyway. I look like a poisonous frog.”
She wore a bright turquoise two-piece connected by chains, with long sleeves that billowed at her wrists and patches of black patterning the bottom half. She’d been mortified, she’d told me, when Terrin had approached her and Gileon before class the other day and invited them to the formal, so mortified that I’d worried she wouldn’t come. But she’d had this dress stuffed beneath her bed for a year and had begrudgingly brought it out, saying she’d give the party a try.
“I think poisonous frogs are beautiful,” Willa chimed in on the bathroom sill.
“Of course you do,” Wren snapped at the mouse. “That’s the point of them. They lure you in and then they—” She snapped her teeth, and Willa squeaked with laughter. The two had met a few days ago and were getting along splendidly. Or, at least, as splendidly as someone like Wren could get along with a creature like Willa.
“Well,” Emelle said morosely, brushing a finger along her stomach through the scarlet mermaid dress she wore, “I look like a bloodstain, so…”
“Stop it.”
They froze. Shit. I’d snapped at them.
I hauled in a deep breath. Forced my tone into something lighter, something without the jagged edge I’d been so prone to since Lord Arad’s story. I hadn’t been able to sleep lately, but found myself staring into the swirls of the ceiling late into each night instead, caught between so many emotions. Fury at Fabian being one of them. For stealing me from my mother, no matter his reasoning. For refusing to talk about her except for thenight beforeI’d left for the Institute, knowing there wasn’t enough time to fully dive into all my questions about her.
And fury at my mother, whoever she had been, for wanting to pass me over to the pirates like clay to be molded and sculpted into whatever they wanted from me.
“Neither of you look like a frog or a bloodstain,” I said now, more gently. “You look like beautiful women wearing beautiful dresses who are going to have so much fun drinking and dancing, you won’t even remember this moment tomorrow.”
