The Touch
The red gown moved like a wound through the imperial hall.
Two attendants carried the train high enough to keep it from the marble steps, but low enough for everyone to admire. It was not a dress meant for a body yet. It was laid across a carved frame of polished walnut, the sleeves pinned wide, the bodice stiff with gold thread, the skirt spilling in a deep red river behind it.
Nell Gray stood with the other harbor children at the edge of the carpet.
She tried to keep her hands clasped.
She tried to keep her eyes down.
The palace made looking feel like stealing.
Gold-trimmed walls rose on either side of her. Chandeliers burned even though daylight poured through the high windows. Armored guards stood by the doors with faces as still as coins. Noblewomen in black formalwear leaned toward one another, their mouths hidden behind lace fans. Their jewels whispered when they laughed.
Nell's stomach pinched from hunger. Her gray-brown dress hung from her shoulders with a rope tied at her waist. Mud had dried near the hem. Her hair, dark blond and tangled at the ends, had been scrubbed at the orphan house that morning, but the dirt never seemed to leave. It only moved to another place.
A woman beside the gown lifted one hand.
The hall obeyed.
Lady Octavia Sloane was tall and narrow, carved more than born. Her black bob was tucked behind one ear. Gold panels climbed her high-neck gown like armor. A small birthmark sat under her left eye, so precise it looked almost placed there by a painter who wanted the face remembered.
"The Mercy Presentation begins after the bell," Octavia said. "The children will bow. They will receive bread. They will not speak unless spoken to. They will not touch what does not belong to them."
A few nobles smiled.
Nell did not understand why the gown pulled at her attention. It was beautiful, yes, but not the way the nobles meant. Its red was not soft. It was dark, almost brown in the folds, like old blood under candlelight. The hem had been turned by hand. Beneath the gold embroidery, nearly hidden where the skirt brushed the frame, was a crooked stitch.
Three knots.
A tiny pause.
Three knots again.
Nell knew that stitch.
Her fingers moved before fear could stop them.
She touched the underside of the gown.
Only a brush.
Only the smallest contact between poor skin and royal cloth.
Octavia saw.
The noblewoman crossed the marble with a hiss of black fabric. Her hand struck Nell's shoulder and shoved her backward from the red gown.
Nell's heel slipped on the step. She caught herself on both hands. Pain flashed up her wrist.
"Take your filthy hands off that gown!"
The words cracked through the hall.
Nell's throat closed.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
It was not enough.
It was never enough in rooms like that.
A nobleman laughed first. It came out small, careful, testing the air. Then another joined. Then a row of young courtiers near the windows smiled as if the moment had been provided for their comfort.
Nell sat on the marble with her knees twisted under her, breathing too fast.
Octavia stood over her.
"Sorry," the lady repeated, turning the word into something dirty. "The language of people who ruin things and expect mercy to mend the damage."
Nell stared at the red gown.
The crooked stitch still trembled in her mind.
Three knots.
A tiny pause.
Three knots again.
Somewhere deep inside her, where hunger and fear had made a locked room, something answered.
May you like
But the court was laughing now.
And Lady Octavia had found her stage.
