As soon as Cyrene returned to her home, her mother whisked her upstairs to be fitted for her new ball gown. She didn’t question how the seamstress, Lady Cauthorn, one of the most sought after in the city, had been acquired for an in-home creation in the span of an afternoon or the price it was costing her parents.
She simply stood stiffly as the seamstress poked and prodded her while she listened to the constant babble of her family. They surely thought their words were comforting her against the pain at the loss of Rhea. They all talked about how she had finally gotten the position she always wanted, how important her future work at court would be, and how her life would be so busy with all her new duties.
So, she wouldn’t have time to miss Rhea—though they never said that.
When they thought she wasn’t paying attention, her parents whispered about how she would get through this and make new friends, how the pain would pass, that this was why everyone took the Oath of Acceptance, and how Selecting was the best process even if it didn’t feel like it now. None of those words were much comfort either.
Unable to coax much life out of her, they left her alone with the seamstress.
Several hours of intense labor by the seamstress and two of her assistants produced a dress fit for the Queen herself.
“All done,” Lady Cauthorn said. “Take a look.”
Cyrene stepped stiffly onto the box in front of the trifold mirror, and her mouth dropped open. The softest red silk draped across her fair skin in the most flattering manner. Thin straps on her shoulders led to a sharp V-cut neckline between her breasts. The back mirrored the front, revealing the soft contours of her back. The dress cinched at her slender waist with a thick ribbon tied at the base of her spine. From there, the silky material cascaded like a waterfall over her narrow hips before pooling at her feet on the ground. She had never seen such a bold design.
She knew one thing for certain. She would make a splash at the ball tonight.
“I love it, Lady Cauthorn.” Cyrene turned slowly. “I would like to pay you for this.”
Lady Cauthorn shook her head. Her mouth was set in a bright smile, and her eyes glowed at her creation. “Your parents commissioned the dress. They will pay.”
Cyrene wrestled with her newfound position. “As an Affiliate, I will make plenty to cover the costs.”
“Your parents will pay,” she insisted.
“What if I pay you from my endowment?”
Lady Cauthorn raised her eyebrows. “Why do you insist on paying?”
“I want this to belong to me and only me.”
The seamstress seemed to see straight through her. She tilted her head and continued to examine her. Her eyes turned glossy and far off for a moment, and then she snapped back to reality. “You are meant for great things, Child.”
“Thank you,” she said automatically. “But in the matter of the dress…”
“The dress.” Lady Cauthorn busied herself with cleaning the mess she had made. “It’s a gift.”
“What? No. Lady Cauthorn, I have the money!”
“No bother, girl.” She snapped her fingers at her stunned assistants, and they rushed into motion.
“I cannot accept this,” Cyrene assured her. “It’s too much.”
Lady Cauthorn looked back up at her once more and smiled, but it wasn’t a kind smile. It seemed almost calculated. “A gift is a precious thing. Perhaps we could negotiate the price of the dress for a favor.”
“A favor? That’s it?”
“Yes. Just one favor from you at a time of my choosing.”
“I don’t understand. This dress must have cost a fortune. What is the favor?”
“Whether a high cost or a low cost, it won’t be one you will pay for today.” She gave Cyrene a toothy grin. “The dress for a favor. Are we in agreement?”
Cyrene nodded at her in bewildered accord. “Yes, I agree.”
“Perfect.” Lady Cauthorn walked forward and attached Cyrene’s Affiliate pin to her chest. “I’ll inform your parents that the gown has been paid for.”
“When will you collect your favor?”
“Likely when you least wish it so. Good luck in the lion’s den.” Lady Cauthorn bowed her head and then exited the room.
Cyrene wasn’t sure what to make of the entire exchange. All she knew was, she was certainly indebted to Lady Cauthorn and wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good thing.
Cyrene tucked her Presenting letter away into a fold in the gown. It was the only thing she was bringing with her tonight. She touched the wall of her bedroom one last time before leaving the comfort of it behind. She was no longer a little girl anymore. In her place was a woman who would begin a new life as a palace noble.
Tilting her chin, she descended the staircase to a vacant foyer. Her fingers trailed along the climbing-vine pin attached to the bodice of the gown, and a tremor of excitement ran through her. She couldn’t believe she had been appointed an Affiliate, especially considering Rhea had not been given the same honor.
Trying to put aside the depressing thoughts, Cyrene opened the front door and stared out to the cobblestone road beyond her home. A light trickle of rain was still falling from the sky. She breathed in the crisp dewy air. The comforting smell reminded her so much of the rainy seasons of her childhood, such as the time when she had kissed a boy in the stable yard to prove to Rhea that she wasn’t afraid. After she had been caught, Rhea had crept up into her room and brought her dinner. They’d giggled about it until she had to go home.
Cyrene laughed, but there was a touch of sadness and desperation in the hiccupping sound. They could never be those children again.
At that moment, Rhea stepped out of the shadows. “What’s so funny?”
Cyrene started at her friend’s sudden appearance. “Rhea!” She rushed out of the doorframe to the covered front porch.
Rhea stepped away from her. “You’ll ruin your dress!” She had changed into a much simpler dress with her heavy rain boots and a cape to cover her head, but she was still dripping with water from head to toe.
“Why are you soaking wet?” Cyrene demanded. “You’re certain to catch a cold.”
“I snuck out.” She shrugged off her drenched coat and hung it on a nail. Her long red hair hung down her back. The ends were damp, and the wisps around her face had formed into ringlets.
“And what? You walked over here?”
“It’s not that far. I couldn’t risk getting caught, and I couldn’t leave without seeing you.”
“I would have come to see you, but they wouldn’t let me out of their sights.”
“I know.” Rhea’s boots squelched as she fidgeted. “But we promised to share Presenting letters with each other, and I thought you would have some idea what mine meant.”
Cyrene’s smile grew. She had thought the same thing about Rhea.
The only problem was, Aralyn had said Cyrene was not to tell anyone about the letter—save other Affiliates, members of the High Order, and royalty.
Cyrene bit her lip in consternation. “Did your Advisor tell you not to talk about it?”
Rhea eyed her with mirrored trepidation on her face and then shrugged. “Are we going to start listening to other people now?”
“Of course not.” Cyrene retrieved her paper from her gown and exchanged it for Rhea’s.
Cyrene read Rhea’s Presenting letter, and her eyebrows knit together. Rhea’s letter made no more sense than Cyrene’s own letter with talk of helping those who cannot be helped, submitting to a lost cause, and keeping determination in the face of her greatest fear.
The blank look on Rhea’s face was enough to convince Cyrene that neither of them knew what to make of these cards.
“How do we sort out this gibberish?” Rhea handed Cyrene back her letter, likely having already memorized the lines.
“Study, travel—”
“No, Cyrene. How do we sort this out without each other?” Her voice quavered. She cast her eyes out across the lawn.
“I don’t know, Rhea.” Cyrene’s heart hammered in her chest. “Wha-what happened? I mean, in your Presenting?”
The normal soft lines of Rhea’s oval face hardened. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “Nothing out of the ordinary. We went through the ceremony as planned, like we had rehearsed for hours on end. I don’t know how I could have done better. What was yours like?”
Cyrene sighed at the question. “I went off script and…flirted with the King.”
“You did what?” Rhea asked in disbelief.
“I know. I thought I would become Third Class, Rhea. I don’t know why he picked me,” she said, splaying her hands flat in front of her.
“Well, I do,” Rhea said. “You’re brilliant and beautiful and a loyal friend. You deserve it, Cyrene.”
She flushed at the compliment. “Did the King tell you why you were becoming a Second…erm, being put into Second Class?”
“No,” she said, her voice clipped. “They most certainly did not. I tried to ask them, but they kept up with ceremonial talk about the Oath of Acceptance and the Selecting process. Either way, by the end of the week, I’ll be off to Albion, working for my new Receiver Master Caro Barca.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
“He’s an inventor, supposedly a genius.” She dismissively waved her hands. “He studies militaristic development and strategy and is working on some new weaponry plans. He sounds like a raving lunatic in the scant literature I could acquire about him. However, I couldn’t find much, and King Edric hardly elaborated.” Her shoulders slumped.
“Didn’t we read about Master Barca?” Cyrene asked.
“I don’t remember the name.”
“Are you sure? Didn’t he invent Bursts?” Cyrene was pretty sure that was where she remembered him. One of their tutors had been fascinated that something that could produce bright colors in the sky just by lighting a fuse. The inventor had never given up his secret.
Rhea’s eyes illuminated in the fading light. “Cyrene, you’re right! How could I have forgotten? I don’t understand Bursts, but I am certain that Master Barca was the inventor.” She threw up her hands in derision and started muttering to herself. After a moment, she turned back to Cyrene, looking aghast. “By the Creator, I am going to be meddling in magic!”
Cyrene burst into laughter at her friend’s outrageous statement. “Now, you are talking about fables, Rhea Analyse! You’ll certainly gain much knowledge in your work with Master Barca, but magic? Magic doesn’t exist! I’m sure Bursts have a perfectly logical explanation that you’ll have to tell me about as soon as I am allowed to travel to Albion.”
“As soon as you are allowed?”
“I’ll not wait one day. You’re my best friend, Rhea.”
After a moment, Rhea brushed the circular pin on Cyrene’s dress. “So, you’re really an Affiliate then? You have the luckiest family in the city.”
Cyrene received the retort like a slap in the face. She wanted to be an Affiliate more than anything else so that she could travel and find adventure, but she had always envisioned that with her best friend at her side.
“You’ll outshine them all, Cyrene,” Rhea said. There was no malice in her voice.
Rhea smiled faintly and then began to dictate a course of action regarding their Presenting letters. Cyrene listened to Rhea’s plan, desperately wanting to believe in it even with its uncertainties.
“Promise me you’ll find time to do the research,” Rhea said as if reading Cyrene’s pessimistic thoughts.
“I promise.”
“Good. I promise, too. No matter what.”
Someone called Cyrene’s name from inside the house.
Rhea’s gaze darted nervously to the open front door, and she grabbed her cloak off of the hook it had been drying on. “I have to go.”
“I love you, Rhea.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’ll see you soon,” she promised.
Rhea nodded and then rushed off the front porch, around the corner, and out of Cyrene’s line of vision. The rain finally halted with Rhea’s departure, but Cyrene didn’t move. Even when she had gone on holiday with her parents to the countryside, she had never been without Rhea for longer than a few weeks. Most of the time, Rhea had come with her.
“There you are!” her mother gasped. “I had no idea why this door was standing ajar.”
“My apologies.” Cyrene scurried inside.
“We’re to leave soon. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Mother. Let me say good-bye to Elea.”
“I’m so proud of you,” her mother said, positively glowing with excitement for her daughter. She planted a kiss on Cyrene’s cheek.
Cyrene smiled faintly at her as she left to retrieve her husband. Elea rounded the corner from the kitchen, entering the hallway.
“I’m…I’m sorry.” Elea bit her bottom lip. “About Rhea. We’re all sorry about Rhea.”
Cyrene released a heavy breath. Although she knew it was not their fault and that her family was sorry for what had happened, they were not the one losing their best friend in a span of an afternoon…just a daughter and a sister.
“I know.”
“Mother simply wants what is best for you.”
“And didn’t I get it?” She flicked the gold pin on her chest.
Elea grabbed her sister’s hand. “Don’t deny that this is what you wanted. There was always a chance that one of you wouldn’t make the First Class, and it was almost inevitable that you both wouldn’t have been made Affiliates.”
“I know, and I can’t change it. I’m just…”
“Angry and sad,” Elea finished for her. She wiped a lone tear from Cyrene’s eye. “You and Rhea are my best friends, too, and now, both of you are leaving.”
Cyrene grappled with Elea’s comments. She had no idea how to respond. “I didn’t mean for you…I wouldn’t want—I can’t make anything right, Elea.”
“You would if you could.”
Cyrene pulled Elea into a hug.
“Take care of Mother and Father for me?” Cyrene asked.
“Of course. I wish I could attend the ball though,” Elea said. “But I suppose I shouldn’t even want to stand in the same room as you when you are wearing this. No one else would look at me.”
Cyrene laughed. “You’ll be an Affiliate next year, and they’ll throw a whole ball in your honor! I’m sure no one will look at me twice by then.”
“That’ll be the day,” Elea said disbelievingly. “Anyway, I have something for you.”
“You didn’t need to get me anything.”
Elea removed a small book from her purse and handed it to Cyrene. “It’s your birthday. I bought it from an Eleysian peddler in the Laelish Market when I went with Mother and Father to pick out your slippers.”
Cyrene’s hand slid down the cracked leather spine where minute black letters had been artfully written in a language she didn’t recognize. She scrunched her eyebrows together as she attempted to decipher the scrawled words. “Is this Vitali writing?” Her eyes wide, she glanced up at her sister.
“You got it in the first guess. Big surprise.” She bounced on her toes.
“Who travels with Vitali translations? Doma books were burned for heresy after the First Dremylon War.” Cyrene flipped the book to the front. The only thing clearly legible was a symbol with a stick-straight line parallel to the binding and two additional lines painted at an upward angle. It resembled a tree missing branches on the left side.
“I don’t know, but the man was so strange. He kept saying such odd things, like this book was for the Children of the Dawn and the Heir of the Light. Have you even heard of such things?”
Cyrene shook her head as she traced the symbol. It looked familiar, but she wasn’t sure where she had seen it. “It’s so beautiful. I can’t believe he had this sitting out.”
Elea sighed forlornly. “I wish there was more to it than the binding, but all the pages are blank inside. I thought it was worth it for the Doma binding at least. I know how you love history.”
“I do.” Cyrene opened the book to the first page and scrunched her eyebrows together. “You said that it’s blank?”
“It is. See?” Elea pointed her finger to the page.
“What are you talking about?” Cyrene turned to the next page and the next. Iridescent glossy ink covered every single one of them.
Elea’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “I thought you’d be pleased even if the book was empty.”
“You can’t see that?” She jabbed her finger onto one of the pages.
“Cyrene, are you all right? Nothing is there.”
How could Elea not see the words? They were there. All of them were there, shifting from gold, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green, and back to gold. The handwriting was superbly fierce with sharp edges and large looping swirls. Cyrene had never seen anything quite like it, but she felt as if she should know what the words said.
“Cyrene?” Elea questioned, her voice soothing.
Their father stuck his head into the hallway. “Darling, your mother is waiting in the carriage.”
“I’ll be along, Father,” Cyrene said, waving him off.
He nodded and ducked out of the hallway.
Cyrene sharply closed the book, suddenly feeling possessive of the small thing. At the same time, she was frightened of its meaning. If Elea couldn’t see the writing, then something must be wrong. Cyrene had no idea what to make of it. How can I see the words and Elea cannot?
“You’re the best sister. Can you make sure this is sent with the rest of my things?”
“Of course I will.” Elea hesitantly took the book from Cyrene and tucked it under her arm.
Cyrene bent down and kissed both of Elea’s cheeks. “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
“Good luck.”
Cyrene left in a daze, her thoughts lost on this strange book and her grief. The best she could hope for was that her duties as an Affiliate would leave her little time to think about the new development and would mask the sadness of leaving everyone she loved behind.