Chapter 32 CannotWill Not?
Cannot or Will Not?
Demelza was ushered into a tent that was abuzz with activity.
The tent was some kind of dressing emporium.
There was a commotion of voices, some of which Demelza was almost certain she recognized, but it was hard to see anyone—or, for that matter, anything—properly.
Colorful puffs of smoke gusted past her.
Floating lights whizzed back and forth, carrying bolts of silk and strings of pearls.
While flashing sequins shimmered and snaked along the ground, jars of cosmetics zoomed this way and that, zipped along by an invisible current.
A vial of crushed ozorald exploded beside Demelza, only for a large cosmetic brush to dust it all up with an expert twirl and vanish.
“Oh!” said Demelza, as she was nearly knocked over by a train of velvet boxes.
Each one held dozens upon dozens of sugar feathers, the very sight of which made Demelza blush.
Sugar feathers melted on the tongue, and were rumored to stir up an appetite that had nothing to do with food.
Where one pinned such a feather could be cause for minor scandal, but they were popular declarations at balls that one was romantically available and open to flirtations … or perhaps more.
Small, winged attendants with long, spindly fingers and pure black eyes fluttered back and forth. They would have been indistinguishable from one another had it not been for the hummingbird gorgets at their throats, each of which were bright as jewels and differently hued.
“She’s here!” tittered one of the attendants.
At once, the commotion halted. The smoke vanished. The flurry of silk and pearls died down and the setting crystallized enough that Demelza could finally see before her.
She was standing upon a rug that ran down the center of the tent. To either side were levitating podiums, and upon them stood Ursula, Talvi, Cordelia, Zoraya and Edmea.
Edmea was loudly admonishing her winged attendant:
“No, no, no!” she said. “‘All white,’ I said, not that this is ‘all right.’ I refuse to be dressed in autumnal shades. For the last time, orange is not on my color wheel—oh, Demelza, darling!”
Edmea clapped to see her. Her smile was unnaturally nervous. She raised an eyebrow to her attendant:
“We’re great friends, you know. In fact one might say I am something of a mentor to her. Wouldn’t you say so, Demelza, dear?”
“Yes?” said Demelza.
“Told you!” said Edmea, triumphant.
“My lady, might I procure you some refreshment?” asked an attendant by her elbow. The sprite’s gorget resembled shining amethysts.
“Water, please,” said Demelza. “May I ask your name?”
“Her ladyship wishes to know my name!” said the sprite, blushing. “The name is Plum, ma’am.”
“No need to address me like that—”
“And so modest!” squealed Plum, spiraling up in the air.
“What … what’s happening?” asked Demelza. “I fear I’ve missed something.”
“Give her some breathing room,” shouted Ursula from her podium. “She’s probably in shock.”
Ursula hopped off her podium and made her way to Demelza.
Except for Edmea, everyone wore silk dressing robes and appeared to be in the midst of getting ready.
There were bits of curling paper in Talvi’s hair, while Ursula’s golden tresses were hidden beneath a wrapped towel.
They both smiled at her and Demelza felt a touch of relief.
To her left, Zoraya looked as if she’d been weeping, and when Demelza waved at her, she burst into sobs, leapt off the podium and ran to the other end of the tent crying: “Oh my heart, I cannot take it!” Beside the now empty podium, Cordelia watched impassively.
With her algae face mask she looked a bit monstrous.
Though that might have been because she was eating something pale and wriggling off a porcelain plate.
As Demelza watched her, a slimy and colorless tentacle poked out from the side of her lip.
Cordelia slurped it back down with a smile.
“Well done,” said Ursula, clapping her on the back.
Demelza fought to keep her balance.
“For what?” she asked.
“The trial, of course,” said Talvi. “We watched you! You were inspiring.”
“As I knew you would be!” Edmea shouted from a distance.
Demelza frowned. She knew there had been an audience but she had assumed the contestants had not watched each other. “But how … how did you even—”
“Reflection pools,” said Ursula, pointing at the ground. “Well, there were reflection pools. It let those of us who went beforehand see what happened to those who followed.”
“Oh,” said Demelza. “So I was last?”
Ursula nodded. “I went second, so I got to watch everyone else’s performance.”
“What did … you do for the trial?” asked Demelza.
“Well, at first I tried to cook the darkness, but I couldn’t figure out how so then I just wrestled it down until I got it to about the size of a biscuit,” said Ursula.
“I put stars upon it!” said Edmea. “I made it a beautiful night sky sprinkled with constellations.”
“It was very pretty,” said Talvi.
“Pretty useless,” muttered Ursula. “When she was finished, it hadn’t changed. It just sparkled.”
“And the others?” asked Demelza.
“I think Cordelia managed to lure it into a pool of water and then from there she forced it into a bottle,” said Talvi.
“Zoraya managed to comb it, somehow, which was successful until the dark decided that it liked the experience so much that it became big enough to wrap around the entirety of the arena, so that was, well, a failure.”
“And you?” asked Demelza.
“Oh!” said Talvi, smiling a little. “I tried to use it as ink, which might have been more impressive if I could’ve figured out what to write with it, but you know me … the blank page is my enemy.”
“The dark got impatient and exploded,” said Ursula. “But it was a very clever plan while it lasted, Talvi.”
“Thanks,” said Talvi.
Demelza thought she would have been more upset, but if anything Talvi looked relieved. At that moment, Plum zoomed back carrying a goblet.
“There you are!” said Plum. “Wouldn’t want you to be thirsty before your own engagement ball!”
Demelza was certain she had misheard the sprite. “My what?”
“The ball is in your honor, my lady! I mean, Your Highness? Your almost highness?” Plum wondered aloud before humming and zipping off in search of dress silks.
“Oh dear, she looks very confused…” said Talvi. “Do you need to sit, Demelza?”
In the distance, Demelza could hear Edmea gloating: “It is true, I taught the future queen everything about decorum! In fact, I have been asked to make her wedding gown!”
Ursula waved her hand in front of Demelza’s face.
“Friend, if it wasn’t clear enough already … you won.”
Demelza hardly registered the whirl of activity surrounding her.
At every second, she was being poked or prodded, trussed up and fawned over by attendants she had never met who went on and on about how they had known from the very beginning how “special” she was and “wouldn’t she remember their names?
” Any other day and Demelza would have lapped up the spotlight, reveling in how it felt to be the victor …
Instead, she felt like a piece of cake being both fought over and decorated in the same breath. She was liable to be eaten alive and swallowed whole. It was not a feeling to relish.
“There,” said Edmea, spinning Demelza to face the mirror.
Edmea batted away several attendants who had flown past with bits of ribbons and strings of pearls, shimmering silks and satins so lustrous it nearly seared the eyes.
It was Edmea who had dressed her for the occasion, and once Demelza had caught her breath from being spun around for the hundredth time, she nearly gasped.
Edmea had draped her in a luxurious purple gown with billowing violet sleeves that brushed the ground.
The neckline was both daring and delicate, swooping below her collarbone, though her skin was covered in a bejeweled netting that climbed up her throat.
Her hair had been brushed out and strung with amethysts. She looked like royalty …
And she almost felt like it too.
“You know, I think I’ve found my calling in life, which is to bring out the queen in everyone,” said Edmea as she happily fluffed the train of Demelza’s dress.
“I mean, look at you! You are my greatest piece of work. And I think I might actually miss your company when I return to the Vale … but you’ll call on me, won’t you?
You can’t trust anyone else with your wardrobe. ”
Edmea’s gaze was haughty and flinty as always, but Demelza caught a softness there.
A wide-eyed trepidation that Demelza understood exquisitely well.
She didn’t know what her tomorrows held …
whether this whole business about becoming a queen was real or a bizarre wrinkle of the surreal intruding upon her life.
But she knew that Edmea, somehow, had become her friend.
“Of course,” said Demelza.
Edmea smiled.
One by one, the contestants exited the tent to the grand ballroom that awaited them.
Earlier an attendant had told her to hang back …
she was the victor, after all. If she went before anyone else, she would steal their spotlight.
Demelza wasn’t quite sure where she should stand.
Near the back? Stay at her podium? As she was deliberating what to do with herself, Zoraya marched up to her.
She was tear stricken and her face was puffy from weeping.
“You don’t even love him!” said Zoraya angrily. “You will never know him as I do! Only I know how the prince spends his evenings pining for true love!”
Demelza stood there, shocked. Actually, he spends them puttering around in a kitchen …
“I’m the one who knows that his favorite color is green—”
It’s yellow.
“We have matching shoes, you know—that means that he always intended for us to walk the same path,” said Zoraya. “He wears them all the time.”
He is almost always barefoot.