“I look like Grandmama,” Sorrow said, staring at herself in the mirror. “In fact, this probably was hers. I can’t go to Rhylla wearing clothes that are eighteen years out of date. Or older. I need something modern.”
She saw, then, the enormity of what lay ahead of her in trying to rebuild Rhannon. The country had been frozen in time for eighteen years. No new art, music, fashion. No new inventions or innovations. They were almost two decades behind the rest of Laethea. Luvian had said Meridea was on the verge of creating some kind of steam-powered engine that would eliminate the need for carriages and make journeys that once took weeks take mere days. The Rhyllian ballet and opera were world class, with people travelling from all over Laethea to see them. Even austere Nyrssea – the only place, Sorrow realized, these dresses might actually still be considered risqué – had made great leaps in medicine over the past five years. Only Rhannon, the very heart of the world, had stagnated. Slumbered. And now Sorrow had to wake it.
How, though? It was one thing to talk about making changes, but how on Laethea was she going to pull it off?
Overwhelmed, she flopped down in the gown, eliciting an outraged squeak from the seamstress. Sorrow turned to her.
“What do you think of this dress, really?” she asked her. “Be honest.”
She looked between Sorrow and Irris, as though worried the question was a test, before she said, “You’re right. It’s outmoded.”
Sorrow nodded. “Do you like clothes? Fashions, I mean? Do you know about them in other countries? I mean, you must, to know it’s out of style.”
The seamstress paused, her eyes wide.
“It’s all right,” Sorrow reassured her. “You won’t get into trouble.”
The girl spoke hesitantly at first, her confidence increasing as she relaxed into her subject. “As far as fashions go, Skae and Svarta don’t really have them. They still wear the same old styles they’ve worn for ever. But that’s because of the climate there. And Nyrssea likes women to be as drab as possible; Astria is the same. Rhylla, though, and Meridea… I’ve seen drawings…” She stopped abruptly, aware she might have said too much.
“Black-market drawings? Don’t worry, I promise it’s not a trick,” Sorrow said hastily. It truly wasn’t. If anything, she was thrilled by the idea that, as she herself, and Shevela and Shenai at the Summer Palace had, this girl too had staged a small rebellion and pursued her passion, secretly, stealthily. Sorrow hoped that the same held true across Rhannon: that young women, and men, had sought out the knowledge and joy Harun had forbidden them. It would make her job much easier, if the younger generations had already begun laying the foundations to bring life back to Rhannon. “So, have you?”
The seamstress nodded.
“Good. Can you get in touch with the people who got them for you? Can you find out what’s fashionable there now?”
“I already know,” the seamstress said softly.
“Then do you think you can adapt them? Make new designs?”
The flash of guilt that blazed across her face told Sorrow she already had.
“What’s your name?” Sorrow asked.
“Ines.”
“Ines. Do you think in a week you could make me some new gowns according to your designs?”
“In a week?” The girl looked horrified. “Getting hold of fabric will take at least twice that, not to mention cutting patterns, and sewing…”
Sorrow’s heart sank.
“What about repurposing these old gowns?” Irris said. “Could you remodel them based on your own designs? After all, the basic shapes must be similar enough; skirt, bodice, and there are trunks of old clothes – good-quality clothes – in the attics at the Summer and Winter Palaces. We could send for them, and perhaps if you have friends who could help? You’ll be paid, of course. And there might even be future work for you?”
Ines looked over Sorrow, peering intently at the dress.
“Yes,” Ines said finally. “I think I can.”
“There,” Irris said to Sorrow. “You shall go to the ball.”
Glad the gown problem was solved, and reassured that, thanks to the illicit knowledge of the younger generations, catching up might not be so hard, Sorrow began to open the rest of the packages.
She was pleased to find letters from two former ambassadors – Stile of Svarta, and Magnir of Meridea – ostensibly writing to see how she was, but she could read between the lines enough to know they were offering to return as ambassadors if she became chancellor. She handed the letters silently to Irris, who skimmed them, and gave Sorrow a knowing look.
The final box was wooden, the joins sealed with wax, and she took it to the small desk and picked up a letter opener, chipping away at the wax covering the lid as Irris joined her.
“What is that?” she asked as Sorrow hacked at the seams.
“No idea. If there’s a note, it’s inside,” Sorrow said.
She wedged the opener under the side of the lid and pushed up.
Immediately the girls recoiled, hands over their faces at the stench that rose from the box. Meaty, sweet and thick.
Dead.
Sorrow pulled her sleeve over her nose and mouth and peered inside.
There was some kind of animal in there; she could see fur, and a small foot with tiny claws.
“Don’t touch it. I’ll fetch Luvian.” Irris sped from the room, leaving Sorrow alone with the box. She took another look, and retched. Who would do something like this?
Readily Unready
Luvian wrote to Charon, demanding he look into who had sent the dead kitten – for that was what he’d identified it as, his pallor grey, his mouth a thin line – to Sorrow, given that it must have arrived at the Winter Palace first. Irris was convinced it was Mael, or at least Vespus on Mael’s behalf, and she’d written separately to Charon, suggesting it.
Sorrow had written to no one, still reeling from the fact someone could do something so unspeakably cruel to an animal, and also want her to receive it. Her own private guess was that it was Balthasar, or Meeren Vine, but she kept that thought to herself.
Charon replied, saying the box hadn’t come from the Winter Palace; he himself had overseen the dispatch of the trunks and letters to her, and there had been nothing else. He concluded it must have been added when the horses were changed on the journey, and he told her he’d look into it.
Luvian asked Sorrow if she was sure it was addressed to her, and Sorrow told him it wasn’t addressed to anyone, that it had simply been included with the rest of her mail. She brightened momentarily as she remembered that – perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be for her at all – but it didn’t appease Luvian. If anything, it seemed to make him more anxious. And it didn’t change the fact an innocent animal had been killed.
“Unless it was a joke,” she said, more to convince herself than Irris and Luvian. “Or intended as a pet?”
But the box had been sealed. Airtight. Even as she said it she knew she was clutching at straws.