beaming.
“Tonight?” I repeated.
She reached into her pocket, withdrew a stack of silver envelopes, and passed them out. “Yes! At the ball. We’ve all been invited.”
“Ball?” Camille flipped over her envelope and ran her fingers under the edge. She scanned the thick, creamy paper within. The edges winked with gilding. Her eyebrows jumped. “This is real?”
“As real as me standing here before you,” Fisher said, smiling widely. “It really worked! You said you wanted to find a beau, so when I walked through the door, I tried to think of an elegant ball—the music, the gowns, the dancing. When I opened my eyes, I was in the middle of a palace courtyard, the grandest I’ve ever seen, and they were preparing for a party.”
“And I got us invited!” Rosalie crowed, laughing at our dumbstruck faces. “Well, come on! We have to get ready! I do not intend to miss the first waltz!”
As the clock in the hall chimed eleven, I slipped on my fairy shoes. The leather still sparkled as if brand-new.
“They don’t really match, do they?” Camille asked, tilting her head to study the whole effect of my outfit.
“I don’t have anything else to wear. All my other shoes are boots,” I said, poking the slipper out from under my navy hem. “No one will see them, do you think?”
Camille pursed her lips. “I’m sure you’re right. And that dress is perfect for you. You can’t change that.”
I turned, looking in her bedroom mirror. We didn’t want Hanna to know we were sneaking out, so we were helping each other dress. The triplets were already down the hall, buttoning the Graces’ gowns and attaching their painted-cardboard wings.
Once back at Highmoor, we’d raced to the attic, raiding boxes of Mama’s old gowns. There were dozens to choose from. The Graces had found dresses from when Ava and Octavia were small and eagerly rifled through them, looking for their favorite colors.
When I’d unearthed the shimmering waterfall of satin from the trunk, I’d squealed at its elegance. Though it boasted a high, modest neckline in front, the back plunged to a deep V, exposing my skin and ensuring I would not be wearing a corset tonight. A forgotten galaxy of gold and silver stars, embroidered with beads and metallic thread, speckled the bodice and puddled down the trailing skirt, making me think of the first words of the invitation.
I snatched the card off the vanity and skimmed the embossed script again:
Flushed with starlight and moonlight drowned,
All the dreamers are castle-bound.
At midnight’s stroke, we will unwind,
Revealing fantasies soft or unkind.
Show me debauched nightmares or sunniest daydreams.
Come not as you are but as you wish to be seen.
“It’s a themed ball,” Camille had announced as we read and reread the invitations, parsing the rhymes for meaning. “Nightmares and Daydreams.”
Verity had frowned. “We have to go as something scary?”
My mind flashed to her sketchbook, and I swooped in, quickly allaying her fears. “No! Some people will, but look: ‘sunniest daydreams.’ We can go as something happy too.”
“Like fairies? Like our shoes?”
I nodded, and Mercy and Honor immediately chimed in, saying they wanted to be fairies too.
“What will you be?” Verity asked, looking over the dress in my hands with uncertainty.
I held it up to my shoulders, letting the blue satin dance over my frame. “A midsummer’s night, when the sky is full of sparkling stars and fireflies.”
It had seemed like a lovely idea back in the attic, but now, wearing the dress, I hesitated. Running my hands over the glossy fabric, I was shocked at how my fingers felt every curve and hollow of my waist. I’d worn afternoon gowns with soft trainer corsets before, but they were made of heavy laces and pleated silks, nothing like this bias-cut satin. It embraced every bit of me like a lover’s caress.
“Do you think people will get it?” Camille asked, giving herself a final sweep and opening her fan with a flourish effect. She’d found the dress Mrs. Drexel had mentioned at our last fitting. Though the silhouette was slightly dated, the blood-red satin was so stunning, no one would take notice. A wide sash cascaded down Camille’s shoulder, joining a heavy bustle of rosettes and ribbons. She wrapped a ruby choker around her neck and twisted back and forth to admire the way the candlelight played off it.
Camille had been horribly afraid of fires ever since we were girls. Every fall, the Salann Islands were battered with violent storms, and though Highmoor was