of standing—a bond, when formed, creates power. This is the first rule of alchemistry, and it must be the first rule here.”
“Of course, Vivienne,” said Coline. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Madame Emilie des Marais.”
Looking at Coline was like looking at a sword in a fancy sheath. Beautiful and vaguely threatening.
“You too,” I said, curtsying instead of dropping to my knees and pressing my face to the dirt as I would’ve when I was Annette Boucher. “A pleasure, Coline.”
Arden was a northern place of forests and hills in the Segance province, and it bordered the shores of the Pinch, where our island of Demeine came closest to touching our neighbor Kalthorne. My papaw still remembered when the last king made everyone pick family names and nearly everyone picked places. He hadn’t wanted to be the fifth Jean Vaser, so the old Deme word for butcher had become our name instead.
“Propriety after breakfast.” Mademoiselle Gardinier patted my arm and shooed Coline from the doorway, so we could enter.
All the money in the room—the walls, the portraits, the floors, the girls, their dresses, their damned skin even, so clear and clean—gave me a stomachache. The room was huge, and it was separated into three small sections with only paper screens between them. Each section had a bed, wardrobe, desk, and chair. A pile of clothes in bright reds and sunny golds covered the bed on the left. The middle bed was empty.
“It’s a pleasure, Madame,” said a girl with curly hair the same shade of ruddy brown as Papa’s chopping board. Her slicked-back hair, so perfectly ordered, glittered in the light.
Mademoiselle Gardinier gestured to her. “And Emilie, let me introduce Isabelle Choquet from Courmers.”
I nodded to her too, and she dropped into a perfect curtsy.
Courmers was one of those coastal cities out west. I’d always dreamed of seeing those oceans. Isabelle looked like she missed it, her fingers rubbing against the soft, blue-green dress that had been darned and reworked one too many times. Her brown eyes caught mine, and she blushed.
Coline was pretty, but Isabelle was interesting, from the purple paint stains beneath her nails to the single green and black earring in the shell of her left ear.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Thank you for introducing us, Mademoiselle.”
I nodded my head to Mademoiselle Gardinier. That was polite no matter the standing, right?
“Vivienne,” she said. “Call me Vivienne, dear.”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “Vivienne.”
Behind her, Coline crinkled her nose and raised her top lip, mouth a crooked hourglass of amusement.
“Now,” Vivienne said. “I do not wish to hover. Supper will be delivered to your room tonight. It won’t be as of tomorrow. Meals are taken with the other girls, but I know so many new people can be overwhelming. If you are up to it, introduce yourselves to your neighbors and enjoy the evening learning about one another. Classes begin tomorrow.”
She looked at each of us in turn, as if the phrase were threatening, but I couldn’t imagine being rich enough to think an education a threat.
“I placed you together because each of you has distinct strengths and weaknesses that are in need of extra attention.” She did frown at that, the first ungainly expression I had seen on her. “It is my hope that you find comfort in one another and learn to become outstanding ladies of Demeine.”
We were problems.
Of course Emilie was.
Vivienne left. Coline shut the door, her steps a fencer’s glide.
“If we are to be allies—a bold choice of words to be sure for a woman preparing us for life at court, but not wholly unwarranted given some of the people there—let us know what we are getting into.” Coline’s stormy gaze slipped from Isabelle’s paste-and-glue hairpins to my rough hands. She threw herself onto the middle bed and patted the spot next to her. “We’re the failures, aren’t we?”
Isabelle huffed. “I’m not—”
“Sorry,” Coline said. “But you’re poor and female, so the nobles of court will consider you a failure. To them, it’s simply another category like scribe or servant or beneath notice. Trust me, they will call you that whether you can hear them or not.”
I sat on the middle bed, on the other side from Coline. “How do you know?”
“Because I have met nobles.” Coline shrugged and stretched out, flinging her skirts back till her legs were bare all the way up to her knees. A knife was strapped in her left boot. A knife. “That’s why I’m here—to be less of an embarrassment.