Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,32

with her school uniforms.

And at this point, she wasn’t sure she cared.

The door burst open and Muirin sailed through it, carrying a black-and-white dress over her head like a banner. Her expression was one of triumph and she looked absolutely fabulous, as if she was ready to step onto the Red Carpet at an awards ceremony.

“Sorry I took so long, my hair decided to have a mind of its own.” Muirin handed the hanger to Spirit and closed the door. “Oh good, Addie did your hair already.”

Actually, Spirit had done her own hair—she wasn’t too bad at doing a French braid—but she decided not to say anything. Instead she stood up and held the dress out for a look.

She felt herself smiling. It was actually—nice! More than nice, it was elegant! It had nice straps—she had lived in terror that Muirin was going to make her go strapless, because she didn’t have any strapless bras. It was kind of like the dress Audrey Hepburn had worn as Eliza Doolittle at the ball, fitted in from the chest to the hips and flaring out from there, except the black had been made into a couple of side panels that would make her look taller and model-slender. “Here,” Muirin said, shoving something else at her, which turned out to be a wrap made of more black satin with white fur on the inside. “You’re going to freeze otherwise. You got them to get you white shoes like I told you, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Spirit replied, sticking out one foot to show, while she struggled into the dress. Muirin spun her around while she was still struggling, expertly tugged the dress down and into place, and zipped her up, all before she quite knew what was going on.

“A credit to my design,” Muirin said smugly.

Spirit turned to look in the mirror and blinked. She looked … well, a lot older. Sophisticated. Not like she’d expected.

Next to her, Muirin was just amazing, all sleek and styled and a whole lot older than she actually was, with just enough Goth about her to keep her looking like herself instead of someone’s trophy wife. All in black, of course. Even to the tiara in her hair, which was black crystals instead of the usual faux diamonds.

Then Spirit blinked at the tiara, because it didn’t even remotely have that “fake” look to it, and turned toward Muirin to look more closely at it.

“Black star sapphires. Man-made. And the setting’s only ten carat.” Muirin smirked. “The Trust isn’t going to let me go that crazy.”

She’s wearing a gold and star sapphire tiara.…

Spirit didn’t have any jewelry … but then again, what was the point? Everyone knew she wasn’t rich. Self-consciously she patted her hair, took a last look at her makeup, and reached for the wrap to go.

“Don’t forget your ring,” Muirin cautioned.

Spirit blinked. “My—”

“Ring. Class ring. This is one of the times you have to wear it.” Muirin held out her hand with a look of distaste. On it was her class ring, the stone reflecting golden-yellow. “Even if it doesn’t go with the dress.”

“Oh. Right.” Spirit opened the drawer she’d tossed the box into the day she got it, and fished it out. She felt a distaste that matched the look on Muirin’s face as she opened it, and a heavy reluctance to put the thing on.

It seemed to close around her finger as she did, and she fought back an urge to yank it off and throw it back in the drawer. Instead, she picked up her wrap, and waved at Muirin. “Age before beauty,” she quoted wryly.

“Pearls before swine,” Muirin smirked, finishing the Dorothy Parker quote, as Spirit had known she would. Spirit grinned, and followed her out.

The dining room looked even more formal than it had at Christmas dinner. Red velvet curtains hid the buffet line, more red velvet curtains closed out the view from the windows. Every table was set with the really, really good china with the school crest in gold, and a dozen different forks and spoons and knives. There were candles in silver holders on each table, the napkins were linen in silver holders, and there was a card at each place setting, in a silver holder. Spirit didn’t have to pick them all up to know they were solid silver, not silver plate. There were four Waterford Crystal goblets for each place—Spirit knew they were Waterford because the instructions for the dinner had mentioned them. The rolls were in silver