Chapter 22
On the seventh evening, after drills that made her fingers numb and a Council session that had lasted far too long, Penelope returned to her room ready to collapse again.
She pushed the door open and froze. Camille DuVallon stood in the center of Penelope’s chamber—a storm of pinned curls, layered silks, and exasperated genius—holding up an elaborate gown shimmering with emerald and gold enchantments.
“Late,” Camille snapped before Penelope even stepped inside. “You are late, and I refuse to dress a girl who is not present for her own transformation.”
Penelope blinked. “Madame DuVallon… you came yourself?”
Camille’s eyes narrowed. “Of course I did. Do you want your gown ruined by an apprentice? Do you want the wards on your cloak misaligned?”
She thrust the gown forward with the self-assured force of a general handing over a sacred relic and said, “Now stop staring and get behind the screen. We have a ball to prepare you for.”
Penelope swallowed. The training, the exhaustion, the political pressure, the creature hunting her, it had warped the days together. But the dress, the woman holding it, the presence of someone who believed she was meant to be seen…
Penelope straightened. “Very well,” she said. “Let’s begin.”
Two of Camille’s apprentices swept into Penelope’s chamber carrying boxes, fabric rolls, and something that looked disturbingly like a jeweler’s toolkit.
“Clothes off,” Camille announced, already snapping her fingers at the nearest apprentice. “We are catastrophically behind schedule.”
Penelope, still blinking from the morning’s training session and barely conscious enough to protest, stepped behind the folding screen. Camille muttered about “lunar symmetry” and “Council idiocy” and “men having opinions,” while the assistants prepared the gown’s inner pieces.
The underdress slid over Penelope’s skin like a cool breath. Then came the enchanted corseted bodice, tightening itself in perfect proportion, leaving her able to breathe but not slouch.
“Good,” Camille said, circling. “You have a spine worthy of expensive fabric.”
Penelope made a helpless sound. Camille ignored it.
The gown came last. Deep-emerald velvet, shimmering faintly with gold-thread enchantments that caught the ward-light like starlight caught in leaves.
It flowed over Penelope’s frame in a single, elegant cascade.
The skirt swirled like liquid shadow when she turned.
The bodice framed her collarbones with soft strength.
Then came the weapons.
Camille’s eyes glinted. “A lady must never attend a ball unarmed.”
She clipped a gold filigree cuff around Penelope’s left wrist. When Camille pressed a hidden rune, a slender stiletto blade slid neatly along Penelope’s forearm, invisible once hidden under the sleeve.
Penelope stared. “Is that…?”
“Yes.” Camille turned to her apprentice. “Next.”
Gold button-seams along the bodice weren’t seams at all. They concealed a slim throwing blade tucked against Penelope’s ribs.
Penelope swallowed. “Camille, is this normal?”
“For prey? No. For bait?” Camille met her eyes. “Absolutely.”
Her voice softened—barely. “You walk into danger tonight, girl. You will walk in beautiful, but never helpless.”
Penelope’s breath trembled.
“Hair,” Camille commanded.
The assistants moved in, weaving soft curls into an elegant twist secured with gilded leaf combs.
Penelope frowned. “Are these… weapons too?”
“Wards,” Camille said. “If someone grabs you by the hair with malicious intent, the combs will emit a flare. Painful. To them.”
Penelope almost smiled. “Fashion with teeth.”
“Everything worth wearing should have teeth.”
Camille straightened Penelope, adjusted one final fold, and stepped back.
“Look.”
Penelope turned toward the mirror. She barely recognized the woman staring back. Not prey, not a refugee from a massacre, not a girl surviving on instinct, but someone stepping into power. Someone dangerous. Someone becoming.
Camille touched Penelope’s cheek briefly, a rare, startling gesture of warmth. “Whatever fate thinks it’s doing with you, my dear, you fight back.”
Penelope whispered, “Thank you.”
Camille flicked her wrist toward the door. “Go on. They’re waiting.”
Penelope drew a breath, gathered her resolve, and opened the chamber door.