Illusions of Fate (5 page)
I WEAR THE SINGLE MOST BEAUTIFUL DRESS I
have ever seen in my life. Set against the brilliant scarlet material, crystals are sewn down the neckline and across the bodice in a dizzying pattern. The skirts hang with a gauzy lightness that feels like a dream on my legs. It’s sleeveless, in the fashionable cut of the season, with a sash over my shoulders.
“You’ll look like a fire-petal, dancing in that,” Ma’ati whispers, referencing the flowers that bloom in the high heat of summer all over Melei, turning the hillsides into a violent riot of red.
Spirits take that rotten Finn. I didn’t have the strength in me to say no to this dress. And the shoes, delicate black heels, fit perfectly with the gartered stockings. As though these details were not enough to win me over, a silver hair comb with the same red crystal accents as my dress was included and is now tucked into my twisted bun.
I am worried bordering on terrified of this evening—so much so that were it not for Ma’ati’s excitement over dressing me I might have called the whole thing off. She even talked Jacky Boy out of needing me in the kitchens tonight.
“Wait!” Ma’ati runs out of my room and comes back with a small bronze jar in her hand. “Please don’t tell, but one of the guests left this lip rouge in her room, and she never asked for it back.” She dips her finger in and pulls it out, tracing my lips as carefully as an artist.
“Oh,” she says, her voice like a sigh. “You look like the queen.”
“The queen is eighty years old.”
Ma’ati swats my shoulder. “You know what I mean. Like a queen ought to look.”
“How do you know how to do this? The corsets and the hair and the stockings. I’d have been lost without you.” My regular dresses are sturdy and plain—buying the student uniform cost all my savings, so that’s all I wear. And my hair is a mystery even to myself, but Ma’ati’s deft fingers twisted and pulled it into something of a miracle.
“I used to be a lady’s maid.”
“How did she ever let you go?” A lady’s maid would have been a much higher position than head maid of even a fine hotel.
Ma’ati smiles with one side of her mouth, but there is no happiness there. “The lady’s gentleman became too fond of me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Nothing to me now. I came here and found Jacky Boy, and he’s better than all the fine manors in the country. Now then, a mirror.”
I pull on the shiny, black, elbow-length gloves, admiring how such a simple thing can transform plain scholar’s hands into mysterious things of beauty.
“Jessamin, there’s—” Jacky Boy stops midsentence, staring at me from the open doorway. I am instantly aflame with embarrassment.
“Yes?”
“Your friend. Kelen? He’s downstairs in the kitchen with a delivery. Wanted to see you.”
I take a step toward the door and then pause. I look ridiculous. How will I explain any of this to Kelen?
Oh, yes, a strange and infuriating person I barely know sent me the dress so I can go to a grand gala! Isn’t it nice?
Kelen has even more reason to hate Albens than I do. I couldn’t bear the derision I know I’d see on his face.
Why did he have to show up now? Any other time I would have been thrilled to see him. Now I feel like a traitor. Maybe I am a traitor. I ought to take off all this nonsense and go see him.
But tonight, for once, I don’t feel like remembering the island we can’t have. I want to have a night
here
, now, rather than wallowing in what I left behind.
“Will you—will you tell him I’m not here?”
Jacky Boy nods. I expect him to look disappointed in me, but he seems almost relieved at the deception. He leaves and I follow Ma’ati out into the hall. We nearly bump into Simon, the tiny and perpetually terrified bellhop.
“Miss Jessamin! Outside, for you, there’s—” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “There’s a
motor
. Outside. For
you
.”
“No,” Ma’ati whispers, her eyes wide with wonder.
“But I—he said nothing about—I was going to hail a cabbie.” It’s no difficult task to find a horse carriage circling the city for hire, though tonight would have been my first ride. “Is there a man in the car?” My chest should not be so tight at the thought of seeing Finn again. I blame the corset.
“No, no one but the driver, who said he was to pick you up at eight o’clock on the dot. And the motor—oh, it’s a wicked sharp-looking thing, no mistake, and the way it rumbles like a miniature train! Can I stand long enough to see you drive away? Please?”
I laugh, unsure how to feel. A motor! “I insist on you seeing me off. You, too, Ma’ati. You must both do it to reassure me I haven’t gone mad.”
We hurry down the servant stairs, past two maids, who give me looks of wonder mixed with scorn, then go out the side exit around to the front of the hotel. I’m afraid we’ll run into Kelen and my lie will be revealed, but to my relief he’s nowhere to be seen.
Simon spoke the truth: there is a motor in front of the hotel. I beam at Ma’ati. I have no idea what to expect from this night, but if it starts out like this it cannot be all bad. “Wish me luck.”
“How can I wish you any more than you already have!”
I walk with as much grace as I can manage, hoping to mask the fact that I want nothing more than to jump up and down and run my gloved fingers down the length of the motor.
“Milady.” A man in a black suit and bowler hat bows and opens a door for me.
“Thank you.” I climb in, careful of my stockings, and sit on the leather seat. Turning to the pane of glass closing off the tiny cabin, I wave at Ma’ati and Simon, and then, feeling foolish for all my borrowed finery, I stick my tongue out at both of them.
A bird hops up onto the runner. I laugh, noticing the missing claw. It’s
my
bird. “Well,” I say as it fixes a beady yellow eye on me, “you came to see me off, too?”
The motor starts and my bird flaps away, its noisy calls drowned out by the engine. I settle back to watch the city pass by. Something about viewing it through glass makes everything shine more—the lights reflected and glimmering in the droplets of water clinging to the panes.
I feel a sickening mix of fear and excitement. Any time I think I know what I want from this evening it all slips away from me. Do I want Finn to court me? Am I agreeing to such by accepting his gifts and attending? Should I have returned them immediately? But I cannot deny the thrill that runs through me when I anticipate seeing him again.
It’s aggravating. And I will be certain to demand answers from him about his behavior. I reassure myself that this is the biggest reason I am going.
And through it all is an undercurrent of guilt. I worry that leaving Kelen behind while dressed in Alben finery is symbolic. He would certainly see it that way. Several times I open my mouth to ask the driver to take me back, but it’s too late to see Kelen anyway.
Before long—far too soon, in fact—the motor pulls to a stop in front of a building lit up like high noon on the warmest summer day. Light spills from the entire glass-encased structure, a palatial testament to engineering and science. I hadn’t understood what the conservatory was, but the glimpse of shrouded green I can see from here has me even more excited than I was before.
It’s a greenhouse! A tropical island in the midst of the great gray city.
My door opens and the driver stands to the side. I realize with a knife twist of embarrassment that I have no concept of whether or not I am to pay him. I have only a few coins on me, just enough tucked into the satin purse around my wrist for a cabbie. No doubt this was a far more expensive ride.
“I—”
“Everything is taken care of, milady.”
I nod, grateful that he anticipated my question. “That was the most I have ever enjoyed the streets of this city. In fact, I shall never again love them so much as I did this night.”
He finally looks up, the brim of his hat high enough to let him meet my eyes. “I’ll not be escorting you home, I’m afraid. But it’s all been arranged.” He sounds regretful and I smile, putting my hand on his arm. He seems surprised—both at the eye contact and at the touch. I know what it is to be ignored while providing service, and I refuse to do it to others.
“Well, nothing can compare to your exceptional motoring skills. Thank you.”
He nods, lips tight in a smile, and I release his arm. Pulling out the invitation, I walk down a path lit with hundreds of crystal-encased candles and try not to look like a wide-eyed girl incredibly out of her depth.
I am failing miserably, and I can’t find it in me to care.
At the doors, twelve feet tall with a blue-green patina of old copper, two liveried servants stand, their backs as straight as the spine of a book. One holds out a white-gloved hand and I place my invitation there. Without so much as looking at it, he bows and opens the door to me.
I’m hit by a rush of air. These doors are a portal to another world, one of green, growing things and warm, living air in the midst of this cold city. I have not been truly warm since I moved here. Blessed heat! Beaming, I step through and am greeted on one side by a woman in scarlet.
She is beautiful,
I think with a pang of jealousy, before realizing that I am greeting my reflection. But it is a vision of myself I have never before seen. The dress makes me look more a woman than a girl, and I suddenly feel far too revealed. Not only my skin—though there is more of that on display than normal—but
myself
.
I am a girl playing at womanhood, bright lips and brighter dress. With the heady scent of plants so close to those I grew up with, I feel young, painfully young, and remember a time my mother walked in on me, wrapped up in her finest dress. She had laughed.
I dearly hope no one laughs at me tonight.
I hear the door opening behind me and hurry forward so as not to be caught holding court with my own reflection. The gravel path is lined with palms carefully coaxed to arch overhead, the space between filled with the fuzzy, soft fronds of smaller ferns. And then, just when I begin to wonder if the path ever ends, it opens into a massive room filled with riotous flowers and oddly shaped trees, the humidity-fogged glass ceilings at least twenty feet tall. There are islands of plants everywhere.
And people.
So many people.
Any hope I’d harbored of quietly finding Finn vanishes. There must be three hundred people in the room, and to my horror I am the only woman dressed in a shade other than charcoal gray, silver, or black. They congregate like austere and glittering chunks of volcanoes long since passed.
I look like the flame erupting from a living volcano, and my face is burning to match.
I walk into the room with my head held high as though I attend galas in wildly inappropriate colors every day. As if it weren’t enough to be alone in such a brilliant dress, I am also the only woman with a shade of skin darker than ivory. I would have been remarkable no matter what I wore.
I scan the crowd, walking with as measured a pace as I can manage, though I’m feeling more and more frantic. I crave Finn’s face, desperate for someone familiar, even someone as confusing as him. Shocked and appraising glances follow me, and I try to pay them no mind.
Weak, stringed music drifts on the air, barely able to fill so large a space. Some couples dance, their movements formal and perfectly scripted.
After traversing nearly the length of the room, I’m close to despair.
Why wasn’t he by the front, waiting for me? Why isn’t he looking for me?
Surely he’s not indifferent, not after the lengths he went to get me here.
I let out a sigh of relief. There, in a brightly lit corner, Finn stands surrounded by three women who glitter like obsidian peacocks. My heart picks up, and I raise a hand.
“Finn!” I call. His suit sets off his dark eyes and fine shoulders, and how his hair catches the light! He looks up from his conversation and his eyes widen. Instead of greeting me, he lifts a gloved hand to his heart and his chest retracts inward as though in pain. Then he looks back at the woman who is speaking, dismissing me without a word.
I STAND GAPING AT HIM, HIS REFUSAL TO
acknowledge my existence like a sharp stone in my throat.
I know this pain, this raw ache—it’s what always precedes crying. I glance to either side, desperate for an exit. I’ll run out, flee, pretend tonight never happened, and then . . .
I clench my jaw and narrow my eyes. I am no wilting Alben, I am a fierce and strong Melenese woman. And I am not the victim of any cruel jokes. Spirits below, I will make certain he knows I am not to be toyed with.
I march directly over and take the small space left between two of his admirers. He tries to avoid my gaze, suddenly intent on whatever the tallest peacock has to say.
“Good evening, Finn.” I smile brightly. “What a marvelous building this is.”
He finally looks at me, dragging his eyes as though it takes physical effort. “I’m sorry, have we met?”
I will not be embarrassed. I will
not
. I grasp hold of the anger flaring ever higher in my chest as a lifeline. “I believe we have.”