21st of Thira

The entryway awning was a bright, unapologetic scarlet, with the words, 'Fawaddh's Salon' emblazoned across the front in looping gold-leaf scriptwork.

The shop door beneath it was lacquered in chevrons of tawny yellow and black. It brought to mind the business end of one of the large, agressive wasps that made paper nests on our veranda in Garding – which only added a layer of warning to the unease creeping up my back.

Braeton glanced at me. "Ready?"

For answer I lifted my chin and tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow.

He reached out and swept the front door open, setting the shop bells to jingling as we stepped inside.

A young woman in a neat pink and green candy-striped uniform greeted us at the front desk. "Ah! Lord Braeton, how wonderful to see you. We've been expecting you." She smiled bright, High Altyran flowing off her tongue like warm honey. "Would you like a private room?"

Braeton gave her a smoldering grin. "Of course. Lead the way."

The shopgirl about-faced with a sashay of her hips and headed toward a long hallway at the back of the main sales floor, singing a merry, "He's here, my lady!"

A tall, busty woman with unnaturally iridescent pink hair came out of a room at the end of the hall, a bright blood-red smile already on her alabaster face. She held out both hands as she sailed forth to greet us. "Your Lordship! You are most welcome!"

Braeton came to a stop, oozing aristocratic confidence as he took her hands and bent over them, pressing a kiss to her pale knuckles.

The woman turned, letting her too-blue gaze slide over me, never once looking me in the eyes, as if I were only there from the neck down. "And is this your lovely little dollbaby?"

I pretended I didn't understand what she was talking about, and gaped around like I had never seen the inside of a fashion salon before.

"She is," Braeton said, his hand sliding possessively to my waist. "I thought I'd show her off at Lord Reixham's party."

"Ah," the woman said, pursing her lips in thought, eyeing me with renewed interest. "Well then. There's no time to lose, is there?" she said. "Come along, my dear. Let us see what we have to work with."

Expression blank, I offered no resistance as her fingers closed around my wrist and she led me down the hall.

~~~

I stepped onto the seamstress' stand, gooseflesh rising on my arms and legs. I had been stripped down to nothing but the thin silk underthings Braeton had provided, and I might as well have been naked. With a quick breath, I resisted the urge to cover myself with my hands as the pink-haired woman – who turned out to be the Fawaddh who made Fawaddh's Salon famous – cocked her head, studying my figure with a clinical eye.

"She's a slender thing," Fawaddh said, all business, as if she were discussing the attributes of a heifer at a livestock auction. "And her shoulders are lovely."

Braeton's low, utterly sensual, "They are, aren't they," came from the other side of the dressing room curtain.

"Wherever did you find her?" Fawaddh asked.

"Tucked into the hedges on a country lane, if you can believe it." So matter-of-fact.

Fawaddh smirked a little, then seemed to make some sort of decision and snapped into action. "The Midnight Goddess I think," she said to the petite Caraki girl next to her. Without a word her assistant hurried off into an adjoining room, her reflection disappearing from my line of sight in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

"I particularly enjoy her eyes – so large and expressive," Fawadh said for Braeton's benefit.

Braeton's hum of agreement was as good a cue as any.

"Moopsie-pie, can you fetch my fan?" I called, pitching my voice into Tettian-accented Altyran.

He didn't miss a beat. "Yes, Nibblets."

"You said we were going for honey ices," I whined. "I want a honey ice."

"And we will, Fuzzy-Wuzzums... just as soon as you finish trying on the pretty new dress," he responded, sounding infinitely patient. A moment later he poked my fan through the drawn curtains.

Fawaddh's little assistant handed it to me.

"Thank you, babbaloos," I called, giggling like a little girl as I fluttered the fan around. The assistant seemed rather annoyed when I repeatedly aimed a flutter at her head.

There was a swish of silk somewhere behind me, and then Fawaddh murmured, "Hold your arms up, dearie."

"Oh. Alright." I dropped the fan on the floor as though I had forgotten it, and raised my arms. Ink-blue silk drifted down over my head as Fawaddh and her assistant began trying to get the gown on me. Halfway in I started giggling again, waving my hands, making Fawaddh catch them in order to get my arms through the bodice. There was a lot of grunting and gasping, even some muttered swearing in Carakian when Fawaddh's assistant fell off her footstool, and then I finally emerged from the other end of the dress like a caterpillar molting in reverse.

It was entirely too satisfying. Fawaddh's glittery pink wig was askew, her powder thinning beneath a sheen of perspiration, her face rosy from exertion. She had to stand there for a moment, her hands at her sides, catching her breath while her assistant began doing up the broad laces that held the back of the dress together.

Well, not together, exactly. They kept the thing from falling off, but there was a long gap between the panels that ran almost all the way down my spine, designed to let a glimpse of skin show through the ribbons, making it scandalously obvious that I wasn't wearing a corset.

The ribbons ended in a big, puffy bow that sat at exactly the right place to emphasize the narrowest part of my waist, before turning into a cascade of deep, puffy swags and flounces that formed a dramatic train. The front was surprisingly sleek, made to skim the contours of my torso before falling in graceful lines to the floor. Small off-the-shoulder sleeves emphasized my collarbones and all of it, the entire dress, was stark midnight blue-black. Not a single embellishment, no lace, no beadwork.

I stared at the girl in the mirror, struck dumb. She looked like she belonged in the fashion plate edition of Fame and Fortune. High cheekbones, wild golden curls, large eyes the color of rich amber. The combination of Pretty Pendar's pixxe face, my small frame, and that sensual dress somehow made me look like a child. No. Worse. Like a girl playing at being a woman, lost and out of her depth. I was meant to be preyed upon.

Fawaddh beamed at me, her shiny lips stretching into a thoroughly pleased smile. She moved around me, reaching out to tug a ruffle here, adjust a ribbon there. Then she chirped a cheerful, "You may come in, now, Lord Braeton."

I swallowed, shooting a glance over my shoulder as Braeton came ducking through the curtain.

He took one look at me and stopped still, one hand holding the brocade aside.

Forcing a too-high giggle, I looked away. That particular gleam in his eyes no longer made me blush. It was only a prop, just like all the rest of his disguises.

Thankfully, he had stolen Fawaddh's attention, and they began talking in the corner of the fitting room, discussing everything from the weather to the growing political unrest with the Illyrians in the northern seas. I might as well have been part of the furniture – and it was a good thing. My head was aching, my bones felt like lead, and I could finally stop smiling like a rattlebrain.

I looked around, taking in all the expensive wall coverings, the beautiful floral arrangements, the pretty murals on the ceiling. This was what the price of blind silence could buy.

Fawaddh didn't just keep quiet. She actively participated, giving her patrons exactly what they wanted, dressing their little doll up while deliberately ignoring the human being right in front of her.

Ydara had stood in front of that same mirror. She had tried to run away the day before she was brought in for her fitting, and her patron had beaten her for it. Fawaddh had simply altered the gown to hide the bruises.

And now she was doing the same to me. By the time the assistant had finished taking in the waistline and adjusting the hem, I wanted to get down off of that seamstress' stand, tear that awful dress to pieces, and slap that bright-lipped, waxed-over face till she looked at me properly. But I didn't. I kept acting the idiot, while fervently hoping Fawaddh and all the people like her that had latched onto the underbelly of the Coventry would be the first to choke on it when it crumbled.

........................................................