I hugged her again. “I’ll be okay, I’ve been messing with dangerous stuff my entire life. Somehow I always survive.”
That worried look didn’t leave her face, but she managed a semblance of a smile for me. Reaching forward, she took my hand, and then led me across to Coen’s mirror. “Okay, to do a dress like this justice, I think you need your hair out, in curls, with simple makeup. Dark eyes, pink lips, rosy cheeks.”
I nodded a few times, not really caring what she did. “Sounds good, hope you brought some magic with you though, because I don’t own anything to make those things happen. Except the curly hair. I already have that.”
She spun around then and I realised she wore a small pack on her back, which I hadn’t even noticed. “I have everything we’ll need.”
Why did I even question her? Emmy was never caught off-guard, she was always prepared. Always. Besides … she would have known that I didn’t own a single powder or vial of hair oil. I settled myself down on a cushion, away from the mirror so that I could watch the door to Coen’s room while she worked on me. I was starting to get as paranoid as the guys, expecting something or someone to bust in and start attacking at any moment.
Emmy was unloading the tonne of junk she had somehow stuffed in her bag: palettes of different coloured powders; tinted stains for lips; oils, lotions, and glittery things. Basically, a lot of stuff that I had absolutely no experience in.
“Where did you get all this?” I asked. Dwellers were provided with the basic necessities, and not a whole lot more. Certainly nothing on this scale.
“Atti’s mother works in a very wealthy household; her sol is someone gifted with alchemy. So she invents these products to sell to the sols. Apparently she’s actually really nice, for a sol, and she gifts Atti’s family things.”
“And he passed them on to you.” I smiled, thinking about the straight-laced dweller handing his girlfriend those potions and powders. I would have bet the one and a half tokens in my possession that he had blushed as he handed it all over.
“Close your eyes,” Emmy instructed. “Don’t open them again until I say.”
Damn, she was bossy.
“So how is all the rebellion stuff going?” I queried, trying to act only mildly interested.
She paused, her hand frozen in its task of trying to make me look like a respectable dweller.
“How did you find out about that?” she finally asked, her tone soft and resigned.
“I was there. Watching it all through a storage cupboard with the Abcurses.”
She snorted. “Of course you were. I heard about two of the guards being found unconscious in a storage room. I should have put two-and-two together and immediately assumed that you were somehow involved.”
“Mean.” I frowned, but she only grabbed my chin and forced me to puff my lips out even more, and then something was brushing across them.
“They get you into even more trouble than you manage to get yourself into,” she finally said. I had been silent, because I had felt the lecture brewing up. “I thought that was impossible.”
“Yeah, but they also get me out of more trouble than I could get out of myself. That has to count for something.”
“I’m just trying to help you, Will.” She pulled back a little, allowing me to open my eyes. “Friends don’t let friends think that they’re invincible if thinking they’re invincible is exactly what’s going to get them killed.”
“Friends don’t foreshadow friends’ deaths,” I shot back.
“Friends listen to what Emmy tells them to do so that they can stay alive.”
“Those aren’t friends; those are slaves.”
“Dwellers don’t have slaves.”
“So nobody listens to Emmy then—”
She pulled back from my face again and picked up a wooden hairbrush, whacking me in the arm with it. “How about this: you stop acting like you’re invincible and I won’t make you look like a travelling dweller entertainer who hasn’t bathed in seventy life-cycles.”
“Deal,” I grumbled.
She grinned at me: her superior Emmy grin, and I let her poke at my face and brush at my face and almost take my eyes out at least seven times until she moved onto my hair and the whole painful process began all over again. When she finally declared me ready, I sprang to my feet and turned around to face the mirror.
“Cool,” I said, moving for the door.
“Oh hell no.” Emmy grabbed me, dragging me back to the mirror. “This is where you have an epiphany and realise that you’ve never looked more beautiful in all your life and you tell me that I’m amazing and try not to cry.”
“Had high expectations for this encounter, did you?” I asked, my tone teasing.
She narrowed her eyes on me, and I didn’t want to get into another fight so I turned back to the mirror and really looked at myself. My hair was smooth and curled perfectly, by some miracle. My eyes were dark and smoky, my lips tinted rose-petal red.
“Whoa.” I stepped closer to the mirror, just a little bit entranced, and accidently bumped my forehead against the glass.
“Don’t mess it up!” Emmy pulled me back and then started pushing me from the room. “So you like it then?”
“Am I the it?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Yes, Will. You’re the it.”
“I love it,” I told her, my face breaking into a grin.
Thirteen
We parted ways in the corridor because Emmy was expected back in the kitchen, but she didn’t leave before extracting another promise from me to ‘not act like I’m invincible.’ I had no idea what that really entailed. It probably didn’t entail hanging out with the Abcurses, which meant that I had just outright lied to my sister’s face because there was no way I would stop being the sixth limb on the fake-Abcurse family tree. I was their girl-brother through and through, and I wasn’t going anywhere.
I knocked once on Rome’s door before barging inside. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see, but it definitely wasn’t my five guys surrounding another woman. A dark-haired woman so beautiful just looking at her made me want to dig a hole and crawl right into it, to curl up into the dirt where I belonged.
And wow … insecure much, Willa?
On cue, five heads snapped in my direction, and the circle around the woman was broken. Siret and Aros had stepped away and were now standing in front of me, staring at my face, my dress, my hair … like they couldn’t quite decide what had changed about me.
“You look amazing, sweetheart,” Aros finally murmured, a slow smile curling his mouth.
One of the other guys grunted in what sounded like an agreement, but it was Coen who decided to introduce the woman.
“Willa, this is Brina.”