But after only a few seconds, he backs down, looks away, and digs through a messenger bag at his hip. So it was a bluff—Reginald hasn’t actually empowered Saber to terminate our arrangement. I breathe carefully, my hands shaking at what should have been a minor confrontation. He rattles me as no one else can, not even His Illustrious Majesty.
By the time he holds out a packet wrapped in brown paper, I’m back to myself—my posture erect, my face neutral. But I won’t soon forget the way he stripped away my defenses with a handful of words.
“These are empty pots and makeup bases. Now, you listen for a sec,” Saber says when I reach for the packet. My hands are clasped on one end and his on the other, one flinch from a tug-of-war. I have to grit my teeth to prevent myself from yanking it away and clasping it safely against my chest. “Pay close attention to dosage—these aren’t cupcake sprinkles. Don’t get lavish.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I hiss.
“I’m about to spend an uncomfortably short amount of time instructing you on the tiniest slice of what you don’t know about Glitter. My lady,” he adds when I shoot him a cutting glare.
I don’t correct him. The fact that someone from the “real” world offered me a title at all is unusual.
He spends several minutes explaining how each piece works and how to prepare a batch of dosed cosmetics. I listen carefully, even though it is as he said yesterday—as simple as melt and mix. “It’s the measurements that are key,” he says, handing me a small bit of paper that simply has three sets of ratios on it. Found on the floor, it could refer to anything. Smart. “Prepare it wrong and you’ll have all the King’s horses and all the King’s men on us in a day, and if that happens they will trace it back to you. Do you understand me?”
My chin jerks up and down because my mouth is too dry to speak.
“This is everything you’ll need for one hundred containers of your cosmetic…stuff. I’ll bring the same amount next week, and then we’ll reevaluate demand.”
“That seems reasonable.”
He holds out a small black bit of plastic, perhaps ten centimeters square. “Digital scale. Measures in micrograms. Reginald figures you’ll want no more than a hundredth part of Glitter in those cosmetics.”
“So little?”
“He wasn’t kidding when he told you it’s strong. Higher doses are exponentially more effective. The difference between a good weekend, a bad weekend, and a funeral can be measured out on the tip of your pinky. Better too little than too much—especially since you can’t control how much makeup your friends are going to smear on themselves.”
My legs start to tremble at his warning, but I’m busy committing his words to memory, so I don’t reply.
He pulls more from his leather bag: a tiny inverter hot plate, a few glass dishes, some glass rods called pipettes. “And this,” he says, handing me two tubes of plain lip balm. “Reg says you’re making some colorless?”
“For the men,” I confirm. “Though some will probably also use the rouge.”
He scoffs openly at that. “The men? I thought you were just going to pass it around to the executives’ wives while you all sit around and drink tea.”
“Oh, gentlemen will be in attendance too. The palace has more than its fair share of kept men.” I lean forward, allowing my pushed-up cleavage to show a little, just to throw off his tightly held composure. “You don’t think our company has run so smoothly for nearly a hundred years because men were in charge, do you?”
His eyes jump up from my breasts to my face, and it’s clear he assumed exactly that.
I straighten, removing my enchantments from his view again with a jolt of satisfaction. “We may emulate the court of the Sun King, but make no mistake: Sonoma is a modern corporation, and its court isn’t so backward-thinking as you clearly believe. Many of our men routinely use cosmetics, and even those who don’t certainly aren’t intimidated by a little sparkle now and then. Are you?”
His cheeks flush, and after clearing his throat, he continues. “Okay, so you have your little party with your friends, you drink tea, you have snacks, and then you pass around the spiked cosmetics. That’s your plan?”
He makes it sound ridiculous, and the furor in his green eyes throws me irrationally off-balance. “I’ll have you know I’ve been laying groundwork for this for two days. The court is already—”
He holds up his hands. “I really don’t want to know. Just make sure you don’t let anyone leave for a good hour after you bring out the cosmetics.”
“As though any decent hostess would.” My voice is dripping with condescension and I don’t even try to hide it. He’s exquisitely beautiful, brimming with power and simmering anger, but I certainly wouldn’t consult him on the fine art of the luncheon.
“Decent hostess,” Saber says with a deep, low laugh. “What you’re essentially doing is tricking these women—these people—into a serious addiction. I don’t think the word decent has any place in this conversation.”