Luckily, Celeste was in front, and she started waving. I knew immediately that that was the right response, not the cowering I had been considering. And since the cameras were there to catch our every move, I was doubly glad I hadn’t been leading the pack.
The crowd was wild with joy. These would be the people we lived the closest to, and they were all looking forward to catching the first glimpses of the girls coming to town. One of us would be their queen someday.
I turned my head a dozen times in a matter of seconds as people called my name from all over the packed terminal. There were signs with my name on them, too. I was amazed. Already there were people here—people not in my caste or from my province—who hoped it would be me. I felt a little roll of guilt in my stomach that I would let them all down.
I dropped my head for a moment and saw a little girl pressed up against the railing. She couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. In her hands was a sign that said REDHEADS RULE! with a little crown painted in the corner and tiny stars everywhere. I knew I was the only redhead in the competition, and I noticed that her hair and mine were very nearly the same shade.
The girl wanted an autograph. Beside her, someone wanted a photograph, and beside him someone wanted to shake my hand. So I went practically down the entire line, turning around once or twice to talk to people on the other side of the carpet, too.
I was the last one to leave, making the other girls wait at least twenty minutes for me. Quite honestly, I probably wouldn’t have left as soon as I did except the next plane of Selected girls was coming in, and it seemed rude to overlap their time.
Getting into the car, I saw Celeste roll her eyes, but I didn’t care. I was still sort of in awe of how I’d adjusted so quickly to something that had frightened me only moments before. I had made it through my good-byes, meeting the first girls, my flight, and interacting with our mob of fans. All without doing anything embarrassing.
I thought about the cameras following me in the terminal and pictured my family watching my entrance on TV. I hoped they’d be proud.
CHAPTER 9
EVEN AFTER THE SUBSTANTIAL GREETING party at the airport, the roads leading up to the palace were lined with masses of people calling out their well-wishes. The sad thing was that we weren’t allowed to roll down the windows to acknowledge them. The guard in the front said to think of ourselves as extensions of the royal family. Many adored us, but there were people out there who wouldn’t be above hurting us to hurt the prince. Or the monarchy itself.
I was stuck next to Celeste in the car—a special one that had two rows of seats facing each other in the back and darkened windows—with Ashley and Marlee sitting together in front of us. Marlee beamed as she stared out the windows, and it was obvious why. Her name was on several of the signs. It would be impossible to count how many admirers she had.
Ashley’s name was sprinkled in there, too, almost as much as Celeste’s, and far more than mine. Ashley, ever the lady, took not being a runaway favorite in stride. Celeste, I could see, was irritated.
“What do you think she did?” Celeste whispered in my ear, as Marlee and Ashley spoke to each other of home.
“What do you mean?” I whispered back.
“To be so popular. You think she bribed someone?” Her cold eyes focused in on Marlee as if she was weighing her worth in her head.
“She’s a Four,” I said doubtfully. “She wouldn’t have the means to bribe someone.”
Celeste sucked her teeth. “Please. A girl has more than one way she can pay for what she wants,” she said, and pulled away to look out the window.
It took me a moment to understand what she was suggesting, and it didn’t sit well with me. Not because it was obvious that someone as innocent as Marlee would never think about sleeping with someone to get ahead—or even consider breaking a law—but because it was becoming clear that life at the palace might be more vicious than I had imagined.
I didn’t have a very good view coming up to the palace, but I noticed the walls. They were a pale yellow stucco and very, very high. Guards were placed on top at either side of the wide gate that swung open as we approached. Inside we were greeted with a long gravel drive that circled a fountain and led to the front doors, where officials waited to welcome us.
With barely more than a hello, two women took me by the arms and ushered me inside.
“So sorry to rush, miss, but your group is running late,” one said.
“Oh, I’m afraid that’s my fault. I got a little too chatty at the airport.”
“Talking to the crowds?” the other asked in surprise.
They exchanged a look I didn’t understand before they started calling out locations as we passed.
The dining room was to the right, they told me, and the Great Room was to the left. I caught a glimpse of sprawling gardens out the glass doors and wished I could stop. Before I could even process where we were going, they pulled me into a huge room full of bustling people.
A swarm parted, and I saw rows of mirrors with people working on girls’ hair and painting their nails. Clothes hung on racks, and people were shouting things like “I found the dye!” and “That makes her look pudgy.”
“Here they are!” I saw a woman coming up to us, clearly the person in charge. “I’m Silvia. We spoke on the phone,” she said as a means of introduction, then immediately went to work. “First things first. We need ‘before’ pictures. Come over here,” she commanded, pointing us to a chair in the corner in front of a backdrop. “Don’t mind the cameras, ladies. We’ll be doing a special on your makeovers, since every girl in Illéa’s going to want to look like you by the time we’re done today.”
Sure enough, teams of people with cameras were wandering around the room, zooming in on girls’ shoes, and interviewing them. Once the pictures were done, Silvia began shouting orders. “Take Lady Celeste to station four, Lady Ashley to five … and it looks like they just finished up at ten. Take Lady Marlee there, and Lady America to six.”
“So here’s the thing,” a short, dark-haired man said, pulling me over to a seat with a six on the back. “We need to talk about your image.” He was all business.
“My image?” Wasn’t I just me? Wasn’t that what got me here?
“How do we want to make you look? With that red hair, we can make you quite the temptress, but if you want to play that kind of thing down, we can work that out, too,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I’m not changing everything about me to cater to some guy I don’t even know.” Or like, I added in my head.
“Oh, my. Do we have an individual here?” he sang, as if I were a child.
“Aren’t we all?”
The man smiled at me. “Fine, then. We won’t change your image, we’ll just enhance it. I need to polish you up a bit, but your aversion to all things fake might just be your greatest asset here. Hold on to that, honey.” He patted me on the back and walked away, sending a group of women swarming my way.
I didn’t realize that when he said “polish,” he meant it literally. I had women scrub my body because I apparently couldn’t be trusted to do a good enough job on my own. Then every exposed bit of skin was covered with lotions and oils that left me smelling like vanilla, which according to the girl who applied them was one of Maxon’s favorite smells.
After they were done making me smooth and supple, attention was turned to my nails. They were trimmed and buffed and the tough little pieces of skin around them were miraculously smoothed away. I told them I’d prefer not to have my nails painted, but they looked so disappointed that I told them they could do my toes. The one girl picked a nice neutral shade, so it wasn’t too bad.
The team of people who worked on my nails left me for another girl, and I sat quietly in my chair, waiting for the next round of beautification. A camera crew came past, zooming in on my hands.
“Don’t move,” a woman ordered. She squinted at my hand. “Do you even have anything on your nails?”
“No.”