The Palace Cloak Reversal

The red gown stood on a carved ivory frame at the center of the hall.

It was not being worn yet.

That made it look more alive.

The bodice held its shape without a body, stiff with boning and old ceremony. The skirt spilled across the pale marble like blood poured carefully into a bowl. Gold thread climbed the waist in vines. Tiny rubies caught the chandelier light and gave it back in hard red flashes.

Mara Finch had been told not to look at it.

She had been told not to breathe too loudly.

She had been told to keep her eyes on the floor, carry the folded napkins from the west service door to the side table, and vanish before the invited families arrived.

But hunger makes the world slow.

Fear makes it slower.

Her stomach tightened when the palace steward snapped his fingers at her from across the hall. She turned too quickly, one shoulder hitting the silver tray of sugared almonds on the table. The tray shifted. Mara caught it before it fell.

Her other hand went out for balance.

Her fingers brushed the hem of the red gown.

Only the hem.

Only for a second.

The fabric was colder than she expected.

Mara pulled back at once.

She might have escaped if Lady Beatrice Morn had not been watching from beside the fireplace.

Beatrice crossed the hall with the smooth violence of a blade being drawn. Her black gown moved around her legs without a whisper. Gold sleeves flashed at her wrists. Her narrow face was calm, which made the fury in her green eyes more terrible.

She caught Mara by the wrist.

The napkins fell.

White squares scattered across the red runner.

"Take your filthy hands off that gown," Beatrice said.

The words carried.

They were made to carry.

A footman froze beside the doors. Two duchesses turned their heads. The first ring of nobles drew closer, not to help, but to see.

Mara's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

Beatrice lifted the child's hand for the room to inspect. Mara's fingers were small, cracked, and reddened from kitchen lye. A half-moon of dirt sat beneath one thumbnail. Her gray dress hung from her shoulders with no shape, tied with a cord so frayed it looked ready to fall apart.

"I am sorry," Mara whispered.

Her apology came out as breath.

Beatrice leaned down until the jewels at her throat clicked softly against one another.

"Sorry does not clean satin."

A laugh burst from somewhere near the punch table.

Then another.

The sound moved through the court like a sickness everyone was relieved to catch.

Mara stared at the fallen napkins. She wanted to gather them. She wanted to disappear behind the service door. She wanted, more than anything, to stop looking at the red hem.

Because she had not touched it by accident only.

There had been something there.

A stitch under the left fold.

A tiny crossing of dark blue thread where no blue thread belonged.

She had seen that stitch before.

On a scrap of cloth tucked inside a wooden box beneath a laundry floor.

On the only thing she had left from before the fire.

Beatrice squeezed her wrist.

"Look at me when I correct you."

Mara forced her eyes upward.

The hall glittered around them.