Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
GWENNA
I spend Friday afternoon—my usual time with Emrys and Kingston—as promised: in the library, Lanz hovering at the edge of the shelves, gathering whatever texts I can find or think of, all the female saints and mystics and visionaries who ever bothered to write anything down, the figures I once upon a time thought I’d write an undergraduate thesis on.
How times have changed.
By the time I get back to our suite, Morgan’s already well into the throes of her preparation for the Candlemas Ball—clothes flung on couches, music blasting, little bottles that might be makeup or might be something else strewn everywhere—and she insists on helping me get ready, too.
Which…I’m not ungrateful for.
“Kai bought you all this?”
Morgan’s jaw is fully hanging open as she surveys my options.
“Don’t give him too much credit,” I say, smoothing my palm absently over one of the skirts. “Technically, I think the staff of Neiman Marcus selected them. And Luther underwrote the cost.”
“Mm.” Morgan pulls out a hanger and shakes the long train of a soft, amber-colored gown loose. “Well. He could have done worse.”
“I think this is his worst,” I murmur.
I’m not stupid. I’ve long since realized his little shopping spree had little to do with me personally and everything to do with punishing his foster father for…something.
Kai likes to hit where it hurts.
Morgan’s dressed in white-gold, a one-shouldered gown with a long, heavy skirt and twinkling floral embroidery.
“Do you want my advice?” she says, eyeing me.
“That is why I brought you in here,” I say. “Why?”
She exhales hard. “Because I don’t think you’re going to like it. But…” She sweeps out one of the dresses: a deep purple in some kind of soft, shiny fabric—silk, I suppose—with a bodice that gathers together in elegant waves of material towards the neck for a high halter.
And no sleeves.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Morgan says as my stomach drops. “Hear me out. Because…”
She drapes the purple gown gently over my loveseat and clip-clops out of the room, returning with something long, thin, and black.
“Gloves,” she explains, proffering them. “Over-the-elbow.”
I press my lips together. Thinking.
I don’t want to go to this at all. But the high neck will hide the cross-shaped scar over my heart. And with the gloves…
I lean over and rub the material between my thumb and forefinger.
“Why this one?” I ask Morgan.
“Symbolism,” she says simply. “The power of the color.”
“So, what, I wear this and I can fly?”
“No.” Morgan sighs. “Purple is the color of synthesis. The fusion of red blood and blue intellect. Integration after ordeal.”
That…does sound good.
Thematically appropriate, even.
“Okay.”
I strip down to my underwear, no hesitation, even with Morgan in the room—after supervised gang showers, my self-consciousness around other girls has long since worn away—and slide my way into the dress from underneath.
It has cups sewn in the front—which I’m grateful for more for the nipple coverage than any kind of support—and the hem falls just to the top curve of my feet, not the awkward too-short length that most long dresses hit on me.
As Morgan pulls up the zipper, I survey myself in the full-length mirror.
Good. I look good. It’s a little loose at the waist—I lost weight since Kai eyeballed my measurements—but not terribly, and the color is pleasingly stark against the winter-pale skin of my shoulders.
“Here.” Morgan nudges me with the gloves. I nod, take one and slip my hand inside, then stop.
There’s no mistaking the scars.
“Do I need the gloves, do you think?” I ask, swallowing. My voice sounds small.
Morgan click-clicks over to me, so we’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the mirror, like yin and yang, night and day: her loose blonde waves and my blunt dark bob, her frothy dress and my sleek one.
She clasps one of my hands, staring into my reflection’s eyes.
“You don’t need anything.” She grips my hand harder, pulling it to her chest as she pivots to face me. “You should go however you want.”
I nod, staring at her glitter-dusted collarbones and swallowing hard again. “I don’t really want to go at all,” I mutter.
“I know. But—”
“But if I have to, I might as well freak people out.” I lift my chin and meet Morgan’s eyes. “Right?”
The concern washes off of her face, replaced by sheer delight. “Oh, hell yeah.”
We spend another few minutes on finishing touches—Morgan buffing and brushing various things into her face, me applying whatever makeup she tosses my way.
I lift my peacoat off the hook, but hesitate.
Something about the ordinaryness of my coat makes the ridiculousness of it all settle in.
Like I’m a little girl insisting on wearing her Elsa costume to the dentist.
What am I thinking?
“Here.” Morgan tosses something at me—a small, pebbled-glass bottle with a chubby, tassled pump attached that I barely catch in time. “Try this.”
I hold it up to the light to study it, setting my peacoat down. “Perfume?”
“Special blend.” Morgan winks. “Keeps you warm. And smells like gardenia. Not permanently, but it’ll last for the walk across campus. Kind of like a beer jacket, but…”
“Classier?” I finish. Morgan cackles.
“Exactly.”
I’m aiming a few sprays at my neck and shoulders when there’s a knock at the door. Morgan sweeps over and throws it open.
“Wow,” she says. “Double trouble.”
She steps aside to reveal Lanz and Callahan, and they are dressed for a ball.
Lanz’s suit is darker, a color so deep I think it’s black at first until he moves and a slight sapphire sheen shimmers across the fabric—subtle, but there—with a narrow, dark tie. Callahan’s in gray, a three-piece, necktie a deep burgundy.
“To what do we owe the honor?” Morgan asks, arms crossed and drumming her fingers on her biceps. “Is Gwenna in extra danger tonight?”
Lanz and Callahan both shake their heads. Then exchange a look.
“We…figured it was only polite,” Callahan says at last. “Since both of you are going.”
Mhm. I’m sure there’s no other reason they were sticking together tonight.
But I don’t say anything, or even let my face give me away.
Honestly, if I can come to terms with Lanz just…
using me, or forgetting about me, or whatever that was, then I can kind of admire what he and Callahan are up to. It’s pretty ingenious.
Not to mention it was…interesting to overhear them.
That one time.
The back of my neck gets hot.
“You both look nice,” Callahan says. His cheeks are slightly pink—from the cold, or something else, I can’t tell.
“We know,” Morgan says.
Lanz and Callahan exchange another look.
“Um. Shall we, then?” Lanz offers Morgan his arm. She rolls her eyes, but takes it, and when Callahan does the same to me, I accept it.
To no one’s surprise more than my own.
Outside, campus is lit up and alive for a cold February night, with clusters of people drifting out of various bright-windowed dorms—or Porter’s—and towards the dining hall.
“You look nice,” Callahan says as we walk. Between the lingering ice, the uneven bricks of the Caliburn walkways, and my heels, I’m actually grateful for his arm—chivalry that’s useful, for once.
“You said that already,” I say mildly.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the flush in his cheeks deepens.
Beside us, Morgan is scanning the horizon, peering at everyone we pass as she leans away from Lanz. “And where are my illustrious step-slash-foster brothers this evening?” She darts a glance at Lanz. “Not skipping, I assume?”
“No, no,” Lanz says. “They’re with your stepfather. With the…”
He almost stops in his tracks. And then I see why.
“…the Brothers,” Lanz finishes.
They look like ghosts, is my first thought. Halloween costumes, or something out of A Christmas Carol, figures in long white robes that hang heavily around them, covering their hands and feet and…
And faces.
The effect is downright eerie.
“Oh, shit.” Morgan whispers. “That’s them?”
Lanz nods. “That’s them.”
We slow almost instinctively as they proceed, a dozen or so figures gliding along the footpath that leads from Camlann House. I’ve seen the odd nun in habit now and again, and priests in vestments, of course, but never a monk, I realize. And never a monk like this.
As they pass, a few at the front turn their blank-screened faces to us. Callahan’s arm goes tense under my fingers, and suddenly he tugs it away, gentle but firm.
“Sorry,” he half-whispers, glancing sideways at me. “Just…”
“No, it’s fine.” I take a precautionary step to my right, adding another six inches or so of space between us. Vow or no vow, I don’t like the sight of them. And for some reason, I’d have to think the feeling is mutual.
Kingston’s voice echoes in my head.
The Grail is what they say it is. And I suggest we proceed accordingly.
If the dining hall looks regal on a good day, the Candlemas Ball has it looking positively palatial.
Gone are the long tables and chairs, the tray returns and silverware stations, replaced by white-covered high-tops, tiered buffets, and even bar counters in the corner.
In the center of the room, a gleaming dance floor has been laid down, with a string quartet playing softly at the far end of the room, on the dais where the faculty table would usually be.
But most striking are the candles—everywhere, on everything, white and smooth and arranged in clusters so elegantly precise they’re almost architectural: small and round flanking taller and thinner in varying heights, like a a tiny perfect castle with all its towers alit in gold.
And that’s when I realize: there’s no electric light on. At all. This is purely candlelight.
It would be magical if it didn’t make my stomach twinge.
“You good?” Morgan asks.
“Yes,” I confirm. “Just…taking it all in.”
“I know, right?” she murmurs. “It’s…a lot.”